This Watchdog, marks the end of an era, as it is the last one that we'll be sending to Trade Aid. For years it has been our single biggest member, buying 32 copies of every Watchdog i.e. one for each of its shops. It has paid full price too - $20 a copy - meaning that it paid for each shop to be a CAFCA member and it also handled all the distribution involved. So, it was a very good, very lucrative deal for CAFCA.

Why is Trade Aid cancelling its membership? This is from its Chief Executive Officer, Geoff White: "We appreciate the work that goes into the publication (Watchdog), and we have supported the work because we feel it is valuable information to be disseminating in Aotearoa. However, in its current format, as the dense, large publication that it is, we have become aware that very few, if any, of our Trade Aid staff and volunteers are actually reading the information. This teamed with the cost of the publication in $, to the environment in terms of resources, and time and cost in us sending it around the country, has led to our decision".

"We would love to see the valuable information contained in the publication produced in bite sized chunks and disseminated online, or via social media as a way of connecting it in a more digestible way with our people. Should this already be an option, we would love to promote to our Movement any social media pages you can link us to that contains this information".

Geoff raised valid points and I reassured him that I regularly e-mail to our members and the world at large easily digestible press releases; that there are plenty of "bite sized chunks" on the CAFCA Website; that Watchdog is available online (and at a separate site, Watchblog, it is available as a PDF); and that CAFCA has a Facebook group with a membership several times bigger than our "real world" (and paying) membership.

Very Generous

While saddened to see Trade Aid gone from CAFCA's ranks, we also want to thank it and celebrate what has been a very productive relationship going back decades. It started in the first half of the 1990s when the late Rod Donald was the national head of Trade Aid (my obituary of Rod is in Watchdog 110, December 2005). Not only did Trade Aid donate money to CAFCA under Rod, he also invited me to its national headquarters, in Christchurch, to speak to staff.

It formally became a CAFCA member in 1999, and continued to be so for the following 20 years. It made generous donations in the first few years and then, from 2006 until now, it paid for 32 copies of every issue. Not only that, Trade Aid was also a regular and extremely generous donor to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides my income. Starting from when Rod was in charge in the 90s, there were regular $500 donations. Then that was ramped up to $1,000 a year for the decade from 2004.

All in all, Trade Aid was a very valuable member and financial supporter, both of CAFCA and of my work. We, and I, are sorry that the relationship has come to an end (as all good things must). We appreciate Trade Aid's reasons for cancelling its membership but, equally, we are also mindful that plenty of members and other people appreciate Watchdog for precisely what it is - the last of the old school, hard copy, non-party, community-based Leftwing publications. If it was our only means of communication to members and the world at large, then, yes, we would have a problem. But it is just one of several such means. There is always room for improvement but Watchdog is our flagship and is synonymous with CAFCA.