“The Cuban Revolution, Culture, and Internationalism” was the title of a special Militant Labor Forum held in Auckland, New Zealand, April 2, reports Janet Roth. The featured speaker was Janet Kean, who was part of the international team of Militant reporters who went to Cuba in February to cover the Havana International Book Fair and help staff the Pathfinder Press booth there. The previous evening Kean spoke on the same theme at a similar forum in Chirstchurch.
The meetings kicked off the fund in New Zealand and raised more than $1,600 through pledges, a pre-forum dinner, and a raffle of souvenirs Kean had brought back from Cuba. This was also the first opportunity for many of those present to look at the two new issues of New International (see New International ad). Nine copies of these issues of the Marxist magazine were sold that evening.
Following the two successful events, Militant supporters in New Zealand decided to increase their fund quota by more than $1,000.
Supporters of the Militant in St. Paul decided to increase their quota by $300 after learning that local quotas fall short of the $90,000 goal. They are still making plans for how to meet their new $4,800 quota but decided on the higher goal because “that’s what needed and we want to do our part,” as Becky Ellis put it in a phone interview. There are a large number of young people in the Twin Cities area who are organizing to attend the world youth festival in Venezuela in August who appreciate the Militant’s coverage of developments in Venezuela and other coverage of world politics, Ellis said.
At the end of the first week of the drive the Militant has received $6581—about half of what is needed weekly, $12,000, to ensure a regular flow of payments necessary to meet expenses such as paying rent, electricity, and printing and shipping costs.
As the adjacent chart shows, local quotas now total $87,985. That’s about $2,000 short of the international goal. With a little more work like that carried out in New Zealand and Minnesota last week, quotas can exceed the overall target in a week’s time. Everyone can then concentrate on collecting pledges, as well as seeking new contributors, and sending in the funds each week Money received as of Monday will be counted on the chart.
Please send in weekly accounts of progress that can be reported in this column. Checks or money orders should be made out to The Militant, earmarked “Spring Fund Drive,” and sent to the Militant at 306 W. 37th St., 10th floor, New York, NY 10018.
Click here to see the fund chart