27.07.2005
Now is the time
The leadership of the Communist Party has decided to extend this year's Summer Offensive - our annual fundraising drive - by two weeks. This decision has been taken because it is clear that we will not reach our starting target of £30,000 by the end of July. Last week saw nearly £3,000 come in, which is a significant improvement on the previous seven days. This brings our running total up to just under £14,000. With firm pledges from comrades who can be relied on for hefty donations, we would have been on or just over £20,000 by the time of the formal end of the campaign on August 1. This two-week respite gives us one last chance to push our total as close to £30k as we possibly can - no comrade should therefore think about relaxing in the coming fortnight. I remind comrades that this ambitious target represents a pretty accurate picture of the type of annual boost we need to keep the organisation on a financial even keel. If we miss it by a big margin, incurred debts cannot be cleared and new ones may have to be run up, financed by expensive loans in some cases. This defers problems, rather than solves them. Indeed, if this type of crisis management continued for any significant stretch of time, it would mean that this organisation could hit the buffers financially. So special thanks this week to the comrades who have started to respond to the emailing on the SO that went out from centre. In particular, comrades GD and CW for their £20 and £10 respectively. Not massive amounts, true, but if supplemented by the many hundreds who read our press on line with a degree of sympathy (14,495 last week, for instance), this sort of response could make a real difference. (Quite a few others have replied promising to make donations, but little in the way of hard cash has so far materialised. Comrades, we can't pay debts with promises. Trust us: we've tried "¦) JS, already a donor, has paid £25 for his ticket to the SO celebration meal and comrade TM has written off £640 of accumulated debts owed to him by the organisation. Comrade MM stumps up a magnificent £500 and SS adds £50 to his total. Along with standing orders from the likes of EG and GW, this week has been not too bad - but definitely not good enough. Comrades, we need some resolve from people in the more distant periphery of our organisation - the readers rather than the doers, perhaps - to pitch in for this year's SO. If you appreciate the role that the Weekly Worker plays in the workers' movement - whether you agree with every dot and comma of its politics or not - now is the time to show it l Howard Roake
Worker