Welcome to the Everyone Welcome Initiative

The aim of this initiative is to provide beer venues and events with a strong statement that everyone who walks through the door is welcome regardless, of their gender, sexual orientation, race, health, religion, age or disability.

Whilst these forms of discrimination are covered under the Equality Act 2010, none of us can say that they don’t happen and what this initiative is designed to do is give people the opportunity to nail their colours to the mast about the kind of venue or event they are running – to shout proudly that hate isn’t to be tolerated and ignorance is not an excuse.

This isn’t PC gone mad, virtue signalling or anything else that people are bound to throw at this initiative (especially as it’s been started by some of the most liberal, metropolitan, elite snowflakes/feminist harpies in the industry, if Twitter is to be believed!).

All the Everyone Welcome Initiative hopes to be is an aid to the growth of diversity in the beer world and, hopefully in time, the wider hospitality trade & drinks industry too.

What To Do Next…

We’ve provided the below text and the above logo for you, all you need to do if you would like to display this in your venue or event is to copy and paste the text into a poster of some kind, but we ask you to only change the text underlined to the name of your event or venue, and provide the relevant contact information (you can also include your own safe phrase, but in either instance please ensure you train your staff accordingly).

The Everyone Welcome Initiative 

1. This event/venue will not accept any form of discrimination on any grounds including, but not limited to, gender, sexuality, race, religion or belief, social class, health, age or disability
2. This event/venue will exclude people who discriminate against anyone in the event/venue on any grounds
3. Customers engaging in conversations that involve derogatory comments or words and phrases that we feel are discriminatory, or that make our other clientele or staff uncomfortable, will be warned once, if it continues you will be asked to leave
4. We will not stock products with sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist or any other discriminatory branding
5. We will always seek to protect our customers/visitors in the event of any form of discrimination or concern for safety; if you feel unsafe at any point please say this phrase [we strongly recommend you use the format of the Metropolitan police’s ‘Ask for Angela’ campaign] to the staff who will immediately move you to a safe area and ensure your well-being
6. Any and all discriminatory comments made to the staff/volunteers in this venue will result in immediate removal from the site and a possible life ban
7. We seek to make our venue/event as accessible as possible, if you identify anything that we could improve, please know that your input is welcome and we will do our best to act on it [insert a contact email here]
8. If you feel our staff/volunteers haven’t met your concerns with sufficient urgency, please let [insert senior staff member’s name here] know immediately in person or email [insert email for senior member of staff here]

 

Further information:

The ‘manifesto’ above is a just small step that can make a big difference and we’d like to suggest a few further ways in which you can signpost your commitment to making your event or venue an even more welcoming place.

• Display this manifesto in prominent places around your venue like the back of toilet doors, near the bar, backs of menus etc.
• Utilise online, printed and social media to ensure people are aware that this is your stance
• Consider using the hashtag #everyonewelcome in your communications where appropriate
• Train every new member of staff on the manifesto and, most importantly, the safe phrase that they may be approached with, it could genuinely mean the difference between someone being safe and someone suffering harassment, sexual assault or other violent attack
• Alert your staff on how to differentiate diseases and conditions such as ataxia, Huntington’s, MS and others from actual drunkenness
• Undertake a wheelchair accessibility study, consider a lower bar area for wheelchair users and perhaps also consider getting at least one Braille menu and signalling somewhere like a blackboard, or on name badges, if you have any staff who speak different languages
• If you have the space, identify one or more of your toilets as gender neutral
• If possible, put baby changing facilities in either a gender neutral space or in both male and female bathrooms
• When advertising events or your venue, consider ensuring a diversity of representation in all imagery
• Listen when people talk to you about their experience, just because you may not agree, the main key is not to be defensive
• Never hesitate to call the police if the matter warrants it, any form of the discriminations mentioned are illegal and can be dealt with under the law

Finally, thank you for at least visiting and reading this, we think it’s very important that there is a visible effort by the beer community to reach out to a more diverse community and you could be part of making our little corner of the world a richer, more diverse, place.

JUST A QUICK UPDATE:

Unbeknownst to each other, Jess Mason was launching her intention for a similar initiative that will hopefully become a reality next Spring; we are talking about whether we can hopefully combine the two in order to make one, powerful, campaign for change.