At the end of January, we received the fabulous news that Beer Matters has been entered into the national CAMRA Magazine of the Year competition.
Every year, Regional Directors choose the best magazines from their area to go forward to the national contest and this year we have been chosen by the Regional Director for Yorkshire, Kevin Keaveny. Explaining the process, Kevin said: “As Regional Director I and my colleagues receive copies of every magazine produced in our regions. One of our tasks throughout the year is to choose two contenders to go forward to the national judging. For Yorkshire this is extremely hard with ten branches producing a magazine on a regular basis.
“For this year’s competition this magazine has gone forward as one of our entries. How do we choose? Well, that’s the hard bit. There are certain features that all CAMRA magazines must include, then I look at the editorial – is it understandable by non members and does it contain a element of campaigning? This magazine ticks all the boxes across the year. The final thing I look at is readability – by that, I mean is the font size reasonable with no magnifying glasses required?”
“I would like to thank all the magazine editors and their helpers, who are all volunteers, for the time they spend putting the magazine copy together, selling the advertising, delivering to pubs etc. Without this band of dedicated people you would not be reading this!”
The overall winner will be announced at the CAMRA AGM and Members’ Weekend taking place in Dundee in April, so we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed until then! Thanks once again to all our contributors, sponsors and distributors for making the magazine possible.
Dominic Nelson