National Pubs Week: Raise a glass
National Pubs Week will be upon us before you know it. The CAMRA-organised event is a great opportunity to draw some attention to your community pub.
The biggest enemy of the small business is time - or getting so tied up with the day-to-day concerns of running your business that you have little opportunity to step back and look at the bigger picture. That's why the reams of red tape and new legislation which have piled up in recent years are such a plague on the pub trade, not only giving you a headache but denying you the time to take a closer look at your business.
National Pubs Week, organised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), is a great excuse for you to step back from your pub and look at how it is represented in the community. The initiative, which takes place from February 19 to 26, is an attempt to throw the spotlight on the trade and celebrate all the good things about pubs at a time when the trade's image is being knocked almost daily in the national media. Despite CAMRA's involvement, this is much more a celebration of the local public house, and a fight for its preservation, than it is about local cask ale.
Tony Jerome, CAMRA's press and marketing manager, says: "We lose hundreds of pubs every year. National Pubs Week has been designed to help celebrate Britain's unique pub industry as well as supporting pubs that are currently under threat from closure."
Taking part in National Pubs Week can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it - from promoting a guest ale to holding a fully-fledged beer festival.
There is still time to get a pack from CAMRA and enjoy the full range of activities the consumer group has come up with.
From offering access to free pub quizzes to setting up a pub passport scheme, as well as providing you with press release templates to use to draw up your own publicity, CAMRA can provide you with the support you need to make the most of the week.
Even if you don't get in touch yourself, you may find that a pack comes to you if one of your regulars elects to adopt you as part of its "Adopt a Pub" exercise.
"It is very easy to adopt a pub," explains Tony. "All the consumer has to do is decide on which of their local pubs they would like to adopt and order a free National Pubs Week promotional pack from CAMRA. This will be posted to the consumer who then delivers it to their local pub, encouraging the licensee to come on board and organise some events."
Hopefully it will also be a chance for the public - not only those regulars who come into your pub every week, but also for those who come in less often, and even those who don't come in at all - to have another look at their local.
And it may keep them coming back, if they like what they find.
With National Pubs Week, the weapon is there for pubs to make sure that they do.
CAMRA's puzzle prize
CAMRA has teamed up with Quarmby Promotions to produce the ultimate beer mat for National Pubs Week.
The four pieces of the beer mat all make up a jigsaw puzzle - pub customers have to find all four pieces of the jigsaw, and answer three easy questions in order to enter a competition to win a Sony digital camera worth £350.
In order to keep consumers on their toes and to encourage them to visit as many pubs as possible during National Pubs Week, CAMRA has produced fewer pieces of part four of the jigsaw - which includes the entry form.
The beer mats are included in the CAMRA campaign pack - details below.
Get a National Pubs Week pack
Time is running out to ask for your free National Pubs Week campaign pack from CAMRA.
A limited number of the packs, which include posters, beer mats, pump clip crowners, free pub quizzes and a PR kit, are still available.
For a free promotional pack contact Samantha Jones on 01727 867201 or visit the CAMRA website at www.camra.org.uk.
More on National Pubs Week...
National Pubs Week is almost with us and CAMRA hopes that even more licensees will take the chance to generate some fun and boost profits. Click hereto find out more.
