As for the paper itself, we feel that it is moving in the right direction, by concentrating on the community interests of the north-east and we want to keep it going that way without becoming sectarian: which means that we don't all agree with everything in the paper.

We were surprised by how much activity there is, and you probably would be too. This is probably because the individuals and groups who are active in the area cannot afford the time or the money to publicise themselves properly. This will be one of our main functions - to help people to find each other and to pass on knowledge and experience, as well as to give the psychological comfort of strength in numbers.

Organisation is not our game: that only leads to bureaucratisation, patronisation, alienation and deterioration. What we would like is co-ordination. This can be done through the paper, through individual contact - come and see us sometime - and, in the future, through duplicated info sheets as well. If this sounds like a good idea, write and tell us, preferably with information about your interests, hassles, successes, present and future activities, or just what you would like to see us doing. Keep on sending in your articles (deadline 15th of every month) and we'll print as much as we can, although we need more pages. A lot of people have sent us poetry, which we like, so keep on sending it and we'll try and print a poetry supplement to a later issue.

Muther Grumble's address is: 13 Silver Street, Durham City, Co Durham.

To be successful in our aim of being an effective and efficient local info and co-ordinating centre we need feedback - we can only give out to others what you give us. So write and let us know, give us any ideas or facts or anything.

The contacts we have made so far have proved very rewarding and, to get back to the paper itself, we have great hopes on every front - except the financial, which is, to say the least, worrying. The Benefit Concert that we were going to hold this month in Newcastle has had to be cancelled due to licence difficulties with the city council and the probability of power cuts (small price to pay …) that would have meant clearing the hall of all intelligent life. We were hoping that the Benefit would put us, and several other groups, on financial safe ground. But now we are as broke as ever. We're not in debt yet, but it's not impossible before the next issue. We need donations - money, cigarette coupons, stamps (green, pink and of the realm) etc, but most of all we need people willing to sell the paper. It costs a nauseating £300 to produce each issue and we've got to get that money back in order to produce the next one. No-one's profiting from it here; we're all living on £7-8 a week and we're not complaining (not seriously anyway). If we get more money than we need it will go to other financially struggling groups. And of course, if we can get more money in, Muther Grumble can become better value with more pages, etc.

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