31.07.2014

Annual gauge

Mark Fischer is back in the game to give us this week's Summer Offensive update

First off, my thanks to Peter Manson - the Weekly Worker’s doughty editor - who saved the day when my Summer Offensive update last week was spirited away by web demons (the SO is the Communist Party’s annual fund drive, a two-month campaign that we staged first in 1985). The comrade hammered out the column himself, despite the mountain of other responsibilities he struggles with on the paper’s production day.

As Peter reported, we were at that stage closing in on the first £10k of our £30,000 target and breaking that first barrier would put us in a strong position, as the money flow always picks up in the lead-in to and during our annual school, Communist University (August 16-23). So this week, it’s great to be able to inform comrades that we have raised another £3,151, bringing our running total up to a rosy-cheeked £12,520. Particular thanks to comrades DS for his £35, to JT for an even more welcome £75, to first-time donor CP for her £20, not to mention the £60 donated by JH to the Weekly Worker to help with the “distribution costs”, as he puts it. Daddy of C-wing this week, however, has to be PM with a tremendous £530.

So all in all we look well set to make our £30,000 target by August 23, the Offensive’s deadline and the final day of CU. All the money that our comrades raise during the course of the drive counts towards their target - whether it comes from book, paper or badge sales, donations or affiliations to the campaigns we are support, etc. In that sense, the SO is an annual gauge not simply of the intensity and range of work of CPGBers, but also of the broader workers’ movement. So, recent years have seen the proportion of comrades’ money that comes from the sort of wider political work that I describe above shrink quite dramatically - unsurprising when you consider the general state of our movement.

This year, a spike in that general trend has been the mass outpouring of rage and energy against Israel’s pounding of Gaza, and the impressive demonstrations that gave it expression. Our comrades note a genuine eagerness to engage, to buy papers or badges and to sign petitions - an “inspiring” experience, comrades report.

Still, however, the bulk of the SO cash comes from the pockets of our members and supporters. We are doing our best to phone or email other close contacts, but there is no need to wait for us! Send cheques to our usual address, or part with your money online - if a decent percentage of the 8,814 hits recorded on the Weekly Worker site last week has dallied a while longer to make a donation, that £30K target would be looking a whole lot smaller right now.

So only another £17,500 to go.

Mark Fischer