29.08.2007

Magnificent total

This year's two-month fundraising campaign has been the best for many years, reports Howard Roak

Comrades and friends at the August 17 Communist University celebration meal for this year's Summer Offensive - our annual two-month fundraising drive - heard Jack Conrad given a magnificent near-final figure for this year's campaign.

Over the following 24 hours or so - ie, by the formal end of the SO with the close of CU itself - nearly £900 was added to that already triumphant figure, thanks mainly to a number of last-minute donations waiting for us in the post. So this year, comrades, we bust through our £25k target with a final magnificent total of £29,170!

Congratulations to all comrades who participated - at whatever level - in this year's campaign. Mention must go the comrades singled out for particular honourable mentions at the meal for their totals and the manner of raising their targets - Dave Isaacson, Mike Macnair and Ben Lewis.

Comrade Lewis won the overall award for his sterling work both in money-raising and mobilising for this year's CU. And - as Mark Fischer remarked as he presented the award to Ben - in the spirit of frugality with the resources of party that should be particularly marked during the two-month Offensive period, we had been imaginative in terms of his award.

So, many thanks to comrade Paul Hampton and his Alliance for Workers' Liberty picket chums for their small, but much appreciated contribution to the CPGB's annual fund drive (see p8). Ben was presented with the front of the Kellogg's packet, nicely framed. Asked for a reaction, "Over the moon" was all he managed to blurt out.

I must mention also the excellent gifts of £100 from both comrades GD and PL - the latter was made via our website. Talking of which, during the three weeks since the last issue of the Weekly Worker there have been no fewer than 97,733 visitors to www.cpgb.org.uk. I must admit that some of these were probably frustrated readers of our print edition trying to work out why their copy of the paper had not arrived. The editorial team forgot to tell readers about our summer break!