By Andy Young
The Independent Brewers Association (IBA) held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) at Wayward Brewing Co in Sydney today and saw two of its members leave the association, as well as the appointment of two new board members.
Both Feral Brewing Co and 4 Pines have recently been bought by CCA and AB InBev respectively and as IBA Executive Officer, Chris McNamara told Beer & Brewer, they were invited to attend today’s meeting.
“As part of the process outlined in the IBA’s constitution, 4Pines and Feral were given the opportunity to either attend today’s meeting or send written advice to outline why they should still be members. Both of them chose not to do that,” McNamara said.
He added that he was not surprised that they had chosen not to argue their case.
“Both of them have probably looked at it and they understand that they are no longer independent, which was probably more of a decision in Feral’s case than for 4Pines. But obviously I can’t comment on what the thinking was behind their decisions.”
The AGM also saw new members elected to the board, as McNamara explained.
“We have a rotational policy with the board so every year two directors need to resign. This year Peta Fielding had already resigned for Gold Coast Commonwealth Games duties and Doug Brook, who was our long-term director also resigned as part of the rotational policy.
“Peter Phillip [from Wayward] was brought in as a casual when Peta left and he is now officially a board member and Ben Krause from Bridge Road is also a new board member and I’m looking forward to these guys being in the next part of our process.”
McNamara added: “We also got two additional spots on the board that we have never filled and they can be appointed directly by the other five members of the board. What we will do now is start a process looking at the skill set we have on the board, aligning that with our plans for the next year or so, and then we will start looking for the two other board directors.”
McNamara also thanked Brook for his work on the board for four years and as treasurer for most of that time describing him as an “active and involved board member”.