Undated, December 1978
Circulated six-weekly (or something like that) as a newsletter of GUFF activity from Leigh Edmonds, PO Box 103, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, AUSTRALIA.
FUNDS: Carey Handfield, who is as sharp eyed as ever, has reminded me that I forgot to mention last time the exact grand total that we had raised so far at that time. Silly me!
Unfortunately I've now forgotten the amount of money we had in the bank at that stage but I can tell you that we have now the grand sum of $391.30. It is a figure I am quite pleased with. Thanks go to Bev Monger and the crew at a function held for GUFF who raised $89.90, the people at the SSFF Xmas meeting who raised $36.85 at another auction, Roman Mazurak who donated $40.00 and Chris Priest and Carey Handfield who gave another $30. Other people gave lesser amounts – every little bit is welcome.
In the UK we apparently have near enough to $200 in whatever form it passes as genuine coin of the realm.
So we have apparently a sum close enough to $500 so far saved up, a goodly sum but still a bit short of the almost $900 which is our minimum total.
WHAT THEY ARE DOING IN BRITAIN: The UK administrator of GUFF, Dave Langford, always makes me feel guilty with the number of activities he dreams up to raise support – both financial and moral – for GUFF. He publishes a newssheet for GUFF called The Northern Guffblower which is generally twice as long as The GUFF Funndies and five times more informative and enjoyable to read. Such is the way of the world, some fans have the knack while others...
One thing Dave does in the most recent issue is to comment on my suggestion that a GUFF winner might like to flyover to the US of A as well since it is so close to Europe – Dave comments "Being down there obviously gives you a strange view of geography..." to which I can only reply that in my atlas the US looks fairly close to Britain, a lot closer than we are anyhow. Be that as it may, the possibility of the GUFF winner heading to the USA as well seems fairly remote and one of the candidates has told me that Europe is even closer to Britain than the US and he was thinking to visit there instead at no vast expense. Perhaps others might like to think along the same lines.
RAISING FUNDS: Because it is the season of good cheer and that sort of thing I have to admit that my mind has slightly drifted from its all-important goal of raising money for GUFF. I have been asked about the possibility of a postal auction by a gent who has plenty to offer but I am lazy to the extent that I don't think that we will have one of those for GUFF. Instead, as previously outlined, I hope to have two big in-person auctions early next year to raise the bulk of the money yet needed. I will be holding auctions at WAYCON in Western Australia at the beginning of March and a special GUFF auction at EASTERCON next easter. I would also like to see an auction held in Sydney at UNICON I next Australia Day holiday but since I don't expect to be there I will have to leave that in other generous hands.
GREETINGS FOR THE FESTIVE SEASON – and happy hangover.