Kelly was one of a panel of speakers at a conference session on the work of supporters of the communist movement July 11, introduced by Socialist Workers Party (SWP) National Committee member Norton Sandler (for full conference coverage see last week’s Militant). The supporters’ accomplishments have enabled them to take on growing responsibilities, Kelly said, helping to free up SWP cadres to respond to political opportunities as they take part in struggles by workers and farmers.

As a member of the San Francisco-based steering committee of the Printing Project, Kelly spoke with enthusiasm of the growth of this volunteer enterprise born five years ago as the Pathfinder Reprint Project. With its new name reflecting its expanding responsibilities, the Printing Project today involves more than 250 volunteers in eight countries (Australia, Canada, France, Iceland, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States). They have taken on the responsibilities for all post-editorial book production, Kelly said, including formatting text, checking indexes, and organizing various diagnostic tests on the files. They then compile the books and prepare them for CD-ROM.

The closure of the print shop posed a new set of tasks. “Previously we produced files for a single printer with specifications with which we were familiar,” she stated. “Now we work with different printers with varying specifications.” She held up one of the fruits of this work, a copy of Frederick Engels’s Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State printed in Canada.

Maceo Dixon, the next speaker, reported on the work of volunteers at the Pathfinder Business and Distribution Center in Atlanta. “Volunteers handle all of Pathfinder’s Web-based business operations,” Dixon said. He reviewed a typical week at the center, from the online receipt of orders at a volunteer’s home to the pick-and-pack operation at the center itself, followed by the billing of customers. Orders are placed through www.pathfinderpress.com, the publisher’s website, Dixon said.

In addition, the volunteers use a Web-based system to establish and track credit limits for customers and to monitor their accounts. “By sticking to our policies and working with customers to show them the advantages of ordering online, we have begun to make progress,” he said. Building on this success, Dixon stated, the volunteers’ goal is to increase sales of Pathfinder books by 10 percent by January 1.

Sara Gates heads the Seattle committee that organizes the collection of supporters’ monthly financial contributions to the SWP. “With a few weeks to go we are on schedule to make our 12-month goal of $300,000,” she said. In the coming year the supporters will shoot for $315,000 by expanding the number of contributors, including from individuals who are not members of the supporters movement. She explained how the Seattle steering committee now collects, records, and deposits all the checks supporters send from around the country. Communication between this committee and supporter financial directors in each city have also improved, she stated. Soon they will be using a new database accessible over the Internet that a supporter in Seattle had put together just before the conference.

Taking a leaf from the book of the Atlanta supporters, volunteers in Toronto are adjusting the way they fulfill book orders in Canada, reported Sue Bellman. She reported that they, too, will be taking greater advantage of the pathfinderpress.com website in sales and fulfilling orders in Canada in the coming months. Bellman noted the interest in Pathfinder books from libraries, including a British Columbia high school library that recently ordered 40 titles.

The final speaker, Tom Tomasko, a member of the Printing Project steering committee, reported the volunteers’ work in taking charge of the Internet-based resources used by the communist movement. “Supporters will administer the party websites and maintain the computer servers with material the movement uses for book publishing and other political work,” he said.

The servers now being set up will hold another priceless resource, Tomasko reported. “Pathfinder’s thousands of photos, including rare pictures from the Cuban Revolution, and the Militant’s photo archive, will now become available over the Internet for publishing efforts and for other projects,” he said. In addition, “All of the Pathfinder books that have been digitized can be stored in this way and be made available for sending to any printer anywhere in the world.”  
 
 
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