14.07.2016

See you at CU?

Peter Manson is feeling the boost from recent events

The CPGB’s Summer Offensive, our annual fundraising drive, got a big boost thanks to the efforts of a small team of comrades at last weekend’s Durham Miners’ Gala.

Reporting huge support for the current Labour leadership, they sold hundreds of ‘Defend Jeremy’ badges, as well as books and newspapers, and raised just over £1,300 for the SO. This accounted for a large part of the £3,019 that came in over the last week, taking our overall total up to £14,012. That means we are just under halfway towards our £30,000 target before the SO ends on August 12, the last full day of our annual Communist University.

Speaking of which, this year’s CU could be one of our best ever. Speakers include writer and activist Norman Finkelstein, plus Hillel Ticktin, Michael Roberts, Yassamine Mather, Chris Knight, Ian Birchall, Bob Arnott, Moshé Machover, Marc Mulholland, Mike Macnair and Jack Conrad (see p11 for details). Unlike, say, the Socialist Workers Party’s Marxism school, Communist University encourages the expression of contentious and controversial ideas on the left. What is more, money raised at CU usually accounts for a good part of our SO total.

Then there is the Weekly Worker. At this time of the year, comrades like to donate large sums to our paper, as it all counts towards both the SO collective target and their own individual one. Pride of place this week goes to VP, who transferred a handsome £300 to the paper’s bank account, while comrade MF contributed £110. And the various payments into the Weekly Worker PayPal account amounted to £192 - the seven comrades responsible were among the 3,466 online readers of our paper last week.

Anyway, there’s still just under a month to go before the SO ends, so plenty of time for you to do your bit. And maybe we’ll see you at Communist University!

Peter Manson