08.01.2015

Here’s hoping

We nearly made our new target says Robbie Rix

I hope all comrades had a good break and an enjoyable new year.

For a while I thought I would be celebrating the holiday by marking the success of our final fighting fund of 2014, but in the end we just fell short of our £1,750 target. Not by much, mind. On the stroke of midnight on December 31, while everyone else was singing ‘Auld lang syne’, I was totting up the donations. They came to £1,716 - just £34 short!

My expectations were building up in the days before, as I saw all those contributions landing in our bank and PayPal accounts. Then, in the final two posts of 2014, we received cheques to the value of £185! Thank you, LY, BF, VC, DR and FF. The PayPal donations included two for £50 from TT and SO, both added to their normal £5-a-month subs. Then there was £407 in standing orders, plus a £50 bank transfer from DS. Finally I was handed £10 by editor Peter Manson, who brought back a donation from South Africa from a Weekly Worker fan, and then was given stamps valuing £10 from BG. They all count!

All that added £812 to our December total in the final two weeks, but, I’m afraid to say, the £34 shortfall, when added to the £65 from November, leaves us £99 shy since we increased our target to pay for colour printing. At least it didn’t reach three figures last year!

But in 2015 we need to be hitting the target regularly. And January has got off to a reasonable start, with £278 coming in via standing orders, PayPal donations from PL (£25), NW (£20) and JS (£5), and cheques from HG (£25) and WT (£20), taking the running total to £373.

Did anyone make a new year resolution concerning our fighting fund? Let’s hope so.