Could you be a pub surveyor?

You can use WhatPub.com to search for pubs across the UK and then look up their opening times, descriptions, facilities and of course details of the real ale and cider on offer.

All entries in WhatPub.com come from local branches and the work of volunteers. We have many volunteers who have been working very hard to bring our pub's details up to date. Now we need more volunteers to help keep it that way.

Would you be willing to survey a few pubs in this area? Some of our volunteers may survey 6 in a single day, or maybe one a month, and some just pledge to survey their own local pub once a year.

If you are a CAMRA member and would like to be involved in surveying our local pubs to help keep WhatPub details up to date, please contact our WhatPub coordinator, Alan Cooke, on 07767 362502 or by email - ku.gro.armac.novedhtuos@buptahw.

A tale of a 'hard day at the office' from one of our surveyors.

Pub Surveys My Way

My friends envy me when I tell them about the job I landed with CAMRA. “I have to visit pubs” I tell them. I let their imaginations take over for a while and smile when they respond with “you lucky … drinking all that beer for a Job”. (I do pay for my beer!)

I try to plan my arrival at pubs to coincide with a time when they are likely to be least busy, I apply my best smile, flourish my CAMRA membership card in the direction of mine host and introduce myself as a CAMRA Volunteer on a mission to right the wrongs of our own website.

Before leaving home I print out the WhatPub.com pages relevant to the pubs I'm going to and use these to introduce the Landlord or Barperson to their page on the website. Life gets easier when they are informed of the free advertising we are supplying them with.

After introductions, we check the current web page for address, phone numbers, digital addresses and opening times, altering and amending on my survey sheet as we go. The tick off sheet I carry is simple and yet quite comprehensive covering many aspects of the venue under review, from Dog Friendliness to the use of Fake Hand Pumps. There is even a question about CAMRA member discount; a section where I have cajoled a couple of landlords into giving us members a small discount on a pint if you produce your membership card. All worth while!

I find the section where Ales are covered is the most interesting part of the survey, especially when there is ale I am unfamiliar with. Mark this and come back for a sample or call it a day at this point and check out the new beer properly!

And now onto the next pub where I start the whole procedure again.

Since the survey can be completed in about 7 minutes I find I can get most done before the busy times set in. Once the last survey is done I can be assured of another walk out in the next few days (weather permitting) to do some more surveys or just to revisit the gem of a pub I have newly discovered on my travels.

Then it's back home to the Man Cave and transfer the scribblings of the day to the PC and send them off to Kate to sort out and apply the details to the website. Conversely she will email me back asking for the surveys I hadn't sent or forgot to fill in. Suffice to say I believe I make Kate work harder than I do.

Oh yes I forgot. Take plenty of photos of the pubs both inside and out and sometimes forget to send them too!

Dennis Kime

Pub Survey Forms can be downloaded here