We’ve just gone live with another new membership website – we won’t be ‘launching’ it until the new year, when we’ll try and make the time to arrange something entertaining over the border – but in the meantime, it would be interesting to hear any responses to the new site – www.NotLikeUs.com. See if you can guess who it’s targetting…;-)

We’ll be launching another before too long, as well, to target overseas support, particularly in America. We’re looking forward enormously to seeing how far we’ll be able to go with these websites, with this approach in general – we’ve already got non-Welsh-speaking members in England and America who are paying £10 a month, and now we’re starting for the first time to do the work to find out if they are just exceptions, or if there is a market there for us.

The whole question of Web useage is interesting. Some people are concerned that we are potentially leaving out part of our natural support base, older rural Welsh-speakers who don’t have a connection to the Web; they fear that maybe we are in some way letting them down by concentrating so much on promotional tactics online.

I can’t quite see that line of argument, myself. If we had some equally efficient way of reaching people without Internet connections, maybe I’d be more supportive – but since that is more or less exactly what we have NOT managed to do (apart from the heyday of 2001), I think it’s vitally important that we use the new abilities that the Web offers us in order to spread our message to more people than ever before, and by doing that to reach new levels of membership.

If we manage to do that successfully, we’d have the money to be able to go back to the traditional channels and get advertising in Papurau Bro and so on. But we’ve just GOT to take advantage of the significantly lower costs of communication online – which have allowed us to offer a free weekly email (with, of course, much greater takeup than we get for membership) where we couldn’t possibly afford to send a monthly newsletter out to anyone who wasn’t paying a monthly sub.

This kind of thing is vital when it comes to extending the reach of the movement, and it’s interesting to note that (current rates continuing) it won’t be long before we’ve got half as many people subscribing to the English email as the Welsh email, despite only just have started trying to promote Cymuned in the south and the north east. Given that we are seeing a pattern of subscribers to the email subsequently becoming members, that suggests that we are going the right way about appealing to non-Welsh-speakers, and the potential significance of that is enormous.

Well, that’s enough somewhat vague discussion for today! If you’d like to get the news from Cymuned with a bit less discussion, subscribe to the email at www.notenglish.com/list.html – the blog is for discussing ideas in a less formal way, but the email really does just keep to the facts!

It’s been another week with too much travelling, so you’ll have to forgive me if this is a rather short entry…

We presented evidence to the European Council’s Expert Committee in Cardiff on Tuesday, as has already been noted in the weekly email (if you’re not already getting it, it’s free, and available at www.notenglish.com/list.html). It was interesting discussing the language situation with experts from outside the country, and also interesting to meet the representatives of the Mentrau Iaith, who sound as though they will be quite likely to support a new campaign based on the booklet about Ceredigion’s Language Policy by Gareth Popkins that we’re expecting to launch by February at the latest.

I’m starting to feel that I can see my way strategically through to the end of the year – a membership newsletter to get out next week, which is close to being finished, and then I’m determined to make the time to finish the content for three new websites that will be launched early in the new year. At that point, I’m hoping that the work to increase membership will increasingly run itself, and I’ll be able to give more time to our lobbying work, our campaigning, and our presence in the media.

So not much to do, then…;-)

It’ll be a better entry next week, I give you my word…!

You’ve read about the trip to Euskal Herria (Basque Country) already, and about the launching of the ‘Croeso’ project by the Commission for Racial Equality in Cymru – so this won’t be a very long entry, just a few ideas that have started to grow out of the trip to Euskal Herria…

Our relationship with Euskal Herrian Euskaraz (the group’s name means ‘A Basque-speaking Basque Country) grew out of our presence in a seminar they had arranged in last year’s European Social Forum in London. It was obvious straight away that the two movements faced a number of similar challenges, while other aspects of our situations were noticeably different. The possibility for partnership work was immediately of interest.

The conference over the weekend was attended by members of groups in Euskal Herria, Cymru and Galicia. There will be another meeting shortly between representatives of Euskal Herria and Catalunya – the Catalans were not able to be present at the weekend. We’re also hoping to be able to include groups from Breizh (Brittany) and Eire by the time of the next full meeting (the 2006 European Social Forum).

One of the ideas that I’m most interested in personally is the possibility of arranging exchange visits, so that active members of Cymuned can have a chance to experience a culture and atmosphere which are similar in many ways, but at times frighteningly different. We feel that many of our members would find themselves genuinely inspired by spending time with activists in Euskal Herria, and believe that there would be real value in strengthening the connections between ordinary people of the two countries. We’re hoping to make some initial steps in that by arranging something for the football match between Cymru and Euskal Herria next year. It can be hard to put into words, but the three of us who went were all completely sure that this is an important connection.

In the new years, we’ll start on the work of seeing how many of our members would be willing to offer hospitality to activists from Euskal Herria, for from a weekend up to a week. If you’d be interested in being involved with that, email us at cymuned[at]cymuned.org and we’ll put you on the list.

And to finish with today – I’ve just ordered all my Christmad cards through our online shop – www.daldydir.com and then ‘Siop Cymuned’. There are some real classics in there – Sion Corn (Santa) being stopped by the Heddlu for painting signs has been a real favourite so far! Oh, and there are stickers to go on envelopes to spread the word as well – so what are you waiting for? Go for it!…;-)

In the conference at Martin Ugalde Culture Park:

Some other delegates:

No, Seimon, it’s not ‘just like the valleys, really’…!

One day, we too will have offices like this…
[From the left, Aran Jones, Dr Seimon Brooks, Llion Jones]

A ‘poor’ turnout for the protest because of the heavy snow.