Outstanding success
This year a number of comrades from our broader periphery contributed, writes Howard Roake
This year’s Summer Offensive, our annual fund drive, was an outstanding success, one of our best campaigns for years.
The SO ended on Sunday August 16 and when every standing order had been factored in, every pile of pennies from our Communist University totted up, our organisation had raised a total of £28,210.47p over the preceding two months of work. Now, that’s a pleasing final figure in and of itself - it certainly did some serious damage to our initial minimum target of £25k. However, when we dissect that total and look at who was contributing, there is even more grounds for being very pleased with the campaign in 2009.
In the lead-up to the SO launch, we noted that the composition of our organisation’s membership and periphery had changed. We now have more, relatively poorer, younger comrades. A number of our older financial ‘big hitters’ are no longer with us for a variety of reasons. So we actually anticipated a harder SO and consequently set lower individual targets for our members.
As the campaign unfolded, however, we were pleased at the level at which all comrades were participating. Older comrades again stumped up serious money, but our younger membership and supporters more than held their own.
That said, the most important development this year was the number of comrades from our broader periphery who contributed. This marks a real development for us. A healthy percentage of the readership of our paper has evolved from neutrality (if not actual hostility) to sympathy and - as measure by their willingness to contribute to this year’s fund drive - the beginnings of an active partisanship. Very encouraging.
So that collective £28k is comprised of many individual contributions and initiatives from comrades in and around our ranks. At the meal to celebrate the end of this year’s SO, the organisation highlighted the contributions of a number of these people. In particular, I want to mention two comrades. First, SK who for the umpteenth time won the prize for the largest individual target raised - a superb £1,960. And second, comrade JJS, the best newcomer. He starred with the bat at the August 1 solidarity cricket match between Hands Off the People of Iran and the Labour Representation Committee and later shone with the mike in his rap set at the benefit gig that followed the contest (won with embarrassing ease by Hopi, it must be reported). In his first SO, the comrade raised a sturdy £210.
So this is Howard Roake thanking comrades for their attention over the last two months or so and saying farewell till the SO 2010 rolls around. Well done, all participants in this year’s campaign - one of our very best for a long while!
