GASS   

        The Gentlemen's Ale Sampling Society

        1982-2008  26 years of enjoyment

The Gentlemen's Ale Sampling Society

We meet on the first Tuesday of every month

We exist to have fun, be entertained, eat good food, have a good drink and enjoy each others company

See what we get up to each month on the MINUTES button

See our annual programme on the MEETINGS button

This site covers from September 2006 to the present day.

Our History

The Gentlemen's Ale Sampling Society was formed in 1982 as a way for a group of friends to keep in touch with each other through the medium of an investment society.  As the years went by the group grew to twenty members, all from different walks of life with nothing more in common that the ability to sink a pint. 

The original idea was to meet on the first Tuesday of every month at a different pub each time, and to invest the monthly fee (then around £20 a man) in the stock market, sampling beer and snacks at the same time.  The group choose their investments wisely (but totally ineffectually) and managed to lose money on a rising market, but enjoyed the process enormously.  Shares were picked scientifically and in accordance with established stock broking principals.  For instance, it was obvious to pick a share such as Wankie Collieries - not because of its unfortunate name - but because it was the name we hit on the FT with a dart or a pat of butter.  When the stock market crash came along in the late 80's the members foresaw the potential for their dwindling funds to fall precipitously in value and so they took the obvious action - they waited until their dwindling funds had fallen precipitously in value and then decided to pull out.

Investment in shares, or more correctly un-investment or negative investment, was no longer uproarious fun.  To be honest was it ever?  It just shows how people used to make their own entertainment back in the 80's, remember those days before internet porn and Sky TV?  Anyway,  the members decided to turn to the less stressful (and less costly) strategy of simply having fun.  In 1990 GASS as it is today was born.

The new GASS became a straightforward vehicle for a bunch of twenty blokes to have a laugh on the first Tuesday of every month and a long weekend away in September for an Annual General Meeting in a different country every year. 

With fees now at £40 a month and with around 20 members we have a reasonable budget of between £500 and £1,500 a meeting which gives us the clout to mix simple pub evenings (pub games, poker nights, snail racing, bell ringing, horse racing, pitch & putt)  with middle sized meetings (kite flying, rail journeys, face painting, quad bikes, potato wrestling, landrover racing, trout fishing.) with expensive meetings (London casinos, speedway riding, auto tests, Diggerland, away-days on Ryanair, dinners in top restaurants, firework nights, paint ball, clay pigeon, stag nights, sky diving). 

Each meeting is funded in full from the fees and from fines (fines are levied for dumb and dumber style acts during the meeting)  The fund pays for the entertainment that night, all the drinks and all the food.  The food varies from meeting to meeting and reflects the best the venue can offer.  The choice of drinks was historically  limited to beer only, but we have relaxed that rule to include decent wines (and also sherry - don't ask why).

Having started this group back in 1982, no-one is more surprised than the members to find GASS still going strong in 2007 and showing no sign of slowing.  All we hope now is that it keeps going for another 25 years, or to be more precise - that we keep going for another 25 years!

One of the secrets of the success of the group is that we send out monthly minutes.  This keeps everyone in touch and means that even if you missed the last meeting you know what happened, and what is happening next. This website has been created as a modern method of passing out the minutes of the meetings and allowing access to photos in a quick and simple format.  If anyone else comes across the site by chance then do feel free to take a look - and don't judge us to harshly - after all, you only pass this way once - so fill your boots!

Or email to:  mail@gass.org.uk