07.07.2016

No complacency!

We're off to a brilliant start to the Summer Offensive, says Peter Manson

A brilliant week for the CPGB’s Summer Offensive - our annual fundraising drive, which aims to raise £30,000 by August 12. No less than £7,890 has come in since last week, taking our running total to £11,013!

A good part of this was donated by comrade MY, who wrote off over £4,000 spent on behalf of the CPGB. I think you can describe this as expressing commitment! Similarly, comrade TB personally paid for the components for a batch of badges which will soon be on sale - a cool £440.

Other impressive individual donations this week were from SM (£170), MM (£100) and another MM, whose £180, he says, is just the first of three contributions for the same amount to this year’s SO. Then there was the £204 raised last weekend on the CPGB stall at Marxism, the Socialist Workers Party’s summer school, and a total of £310 from the sweepstake organised by BL for the Euro 2016 football tournament. Our comrades are nothing if not enterprising.

The donations from both MMs came via the Weekly Worker’s PayPal facility (everything given to the paper is included in the SO total) and they were just two out of 3,504 visitors to the Weekly Worker website last week. On top of that the Weekly Worker received 19 standing orders, ranging from £5 to £30 and totalling £249.

So, as I say, an impressive week. But there’s no room for complacency. We’ve raised over a third of our target, but I’m not sure we’ll have another single week like the one we’ve just seen. And it’s essential the CPGB raises the full £30,000 for a combination of reasons. On the one hand, it enables us to clear short-term debts (usually to our own comrades!) that tend to build up; on the other, it provides us with the funds for the numerous improvements we need to make to our website, paper and office, and, centrally, to pay for forthcoming political initiatives.

I’m confident we can raise the full £30,000 this year. Please help if you can.

Peter Manson