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THE news is now through from ICAP in Havana that all the aid from this year's container appeal has been distributed to its ultimate destinations. And so - we start to prepare for 1998.
The container planning group and the CSC executive have drawn some lessons from previous container appeals:
We're able to secure a growing number of large donations of medical equipment, computers and paper - from hospitals, trades unions, some charities and some commercial firms like paper merchants
Our capacity to get donations of goods has tended to run ahead of our ability to raise the money to transport the goods
The amount of effort that CSC groups have had to put into collecting, sorting and packing lots of small donations of aid has often been onerous and has distracted them from using the container appeal publicity to reach outwards in political campaigning
Small donations to many different locations also create difficulties at the Cuban end, given the transportation difficulties there and the need to find them amidst thousands of boxes
So the container appeal for 1998, whilst broadly similar to previous years, will see some changes, particularly in what we ask of local groups.
As before we'll be aiming to send several containers in mid-July, this year having a joint focus on medical and educational aid.
We want local groups to prioritise using the container leaflets to make new contacts, and to raise money for the national appeal.
In some places groups may have or be able to make contacts that can produce large donations - and that's great where it occurs. Equally in some places groups find appealing to individuals for small donations of pens, paper etc. via street stalls or at fiestas, a valuable way to campaign, and that's fine. But local groups shouldn't feel that they have to get involved in handling lots of small donations if they've got other priorities. Raising £250 for the appeal via a benefit might be a more valuable contribution.
We also want to use the containers appropriately as a means of transportation, which means seeing them as bulk carriers of goods to a small number of destinations. Small amounts of aid raised for particular towns or institutions get to their destinations quicker if they're flown out as a separate consignment, perhaps to a Cuban airport much closer to them than Havana. So that's what we broadly plan to do using the cheap air transport we have some access to. Such donations will form part of the container appeal, and appeal money will pay for the transportation, but they may not literally be going on the containers.