06.01.2022

We’re back!

Robbie Rix reports on the Weekly Worker fighting fund

Welcome to the first edition of the Weekly Worker for 2022. After our two-week winter break, we’re pleased to be back in action once more.

However, I have to start with some bad news. I’m afraid we fell rather short of meeting our final fighting fund target for 2021, which is set at £2,250 a month. Although the last two weeks of the year saw donations worth £1,195 coming our way, that only took the final total for December up to £1,969. In other words, we didn’t even make the previous monthly target, which we raised by £250 a few weeks earlier.

And we do need it. Despite shutting down for two weeks we pay our hard working printer a fixed standing order every month and that includes our two annual breaks in summer and winter. So, yes, we did save on stamps - but not on printing, rent, council tax, etc.

Mind you, we’re well aware of the main reasons for this. First, you didn’t have me nagging you for the last two weeks (!) and, secondly, it’s the time of year when comrades have got lots of other things on their minds. But thanks all the same to those who did contribute - not just SK, KB and PM for their three-figure monthly standing orders, but MM and GB (£75), JC (£70), JT (£60), BK, JT, EW, LC and DB (£50 each), TR (£40), MD (£25), DG and MW (£20), GT (£15), AR and VP (£10) and TT (£6). And how could I forget comrade Hassan, who handed his usual tenner to one of our comrades?

But now we must aim to make up as much ground as we can in January and after just five days I’m pleased to report that we already have £311 in the kitty, thanks to no fewer than 20 standing orders. Five of them - from OG (£14), GB, BH and CP (£10), plus JS (£6) - are either new or increased payments from comrades who have responded to our recent appeal for SOs. Then there are AC (£60), FK (£35), CG (£30), II and SJ (£20 each), not to mention comrades DC, AN, LW, MT, BG, PS, MM, DI, YM and TM, who all contributed smaller donations.

But it’s not just standing orders. A good few of the comrades who chipped in at the end of December did so via PayPal. And we even got one cheque! Either way, let’s make sure we build on those first five days and smash though that £2,250 target this time.

If you want to help, you know what to do!

Robbie Rix