The Global Bartender Exchange: Seeking new directors

As many of you within the bar & drinks industry may (or may not) be aware of, six years ago myself and Hannah Keirl co-founded The Global Bartender Exchange, a project born out of a thriving Facebook group called The Melbourne Bartender Exchange that we created in 2011. 

The GBE was created to, quite simply, help everyone in the bar industry connect and find jobs within and between different cities around the world. We set up Facebook groups for several major and evolving bar communities and launched the project officially in February 2012. During that time, our initial membership of 84 members in Melbourne has reached up to 100,000 worldwide.

At the time when we launched, we were both dedicating any and all spare time, energy, creativity and money to making this project work. We committed ourselves to building our own app which unfortunately didn’t succeed as we had initially hoped, due primarily to how successful we had made Facebook groups.

Almost seven years since launching the Melbourne Bartender Exchange, and with the group having recently hit a massive milestone membership of 50,000 people from the hospitality industry, Hannah and I have made the very tough decision to announce that we are looking to hand over ownership of the entire project, and so we are now actively looking for a new group of individuals, company, agency or industry collective who have both the time and passion to steer and further expand the Global Bartender Exchange.

Since we have launched, we have also seen many people independently set up their own Bartender and Hospitality Exchange groups, so if we have inspired an expansion in the connectivity of the global bartender community as a result of our efforts then we can retire from it proudly.

This has been a really hard decision for us to make as we have put many years of work into this global project, but given our full time commitments with Hannah focusing on her new company Spirits Box and with my role as Global Brand Ambassador for Dewar’s, we feel obliged to our members around the world to pass our legacy on to new directors who will have the time to take this huge opportunity and build, create and expand on top of the extensive foundation we have so far created.

What we are looking for in the new directors is the same passion we have for building online communities and connecting people in the drinks industry worldwide, and we will be very mindful in the consideration of who we hand this project over to.

Once you contact us we can share with you a full list of assets that we have developed and created since the GBE was launched, as well as answer any questions you will have. All enquiries to [email protected].

Below is the full list of our most active Bartender Exchange Facebook groups we have launched since 2012 with current memberships. We do also have many other live Bartender Exchange groups for cities around the world which we have listed per region and city.

It goes without saying that if you know of any parties who would be interested in investing in this project, please do share this with them.

Thanks for reading,

Fraser Campbell & Hannah Keirl.

(The Global Bartender Exchange is a registered business in the state of Victoria, Australia.)

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Bartender Exchange Facebook group & memberships: (as of 5/11/2018)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/globalbartenderexchange/ Global (central group) 11,588members.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/globalbartenderexchange/ GBE business page, 4,827 followers.

Australia:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/melbournebartenderexchange/ - Melbourne; 51,265 members. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/275819659151340/ Adelaide; 895 members.

New Zealand:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/320383404664265/ Wellington; 4,162 members.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/225065890917401/ Auckland, 1,927 members.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/575172769182851/ Christchurch, 724 members.

Europe:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/336469309726420/ London; 8,475 members.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheDublinBartenderExchange/ Dublin, 6,919 members. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/313892231992519/ Edinburgh; 1,578 members.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/288202427909950/ Paris; 645 members

Canada:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/204908239608283/ Toronto, 1,472 members.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/312253072160238/ Vancouver; 343 members.

Asia/SEAsia:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/224986294260733/ Singapore; 823 members.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/343181902383034/ Kuala Lumpur; 74 members.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/224127914346450/ Tokyo; 65 members.