Dear 				

City Voice is now in its seventh year. We have, we believe, become
something of an institution. A newspaper enjoyed and appreciated by tens
of thousands of readers every week and something uniquely Wellington.
But financially the paper is still marginal.

With a standard cooperative wage of just $450 a week, City Voice is
still struggling to stay afloat. We continue to hope that advertising
revenue can be built to the point where the paper's future is secure,
where papers are regularly 28 or 32 pages, with enough space for indepth
features and analysis to complement the regular news and arts coverage.

But our record to date would suggest that this is a long way off. If we
don't develop alternative revenue streams it seems likely we will
continue to struggle simply to put out a 16 or 20-page paper every week.
Not only are we losing money when we publish 16-page papers, we are
forced to throw out dozens of useful and interesting stories.

It's a distressing situation. We want to invite those of our readers who
can afford it to help us do something about it.

Our business manager, John Brown, is investigating a number of
strategies that could see us bring in additional business. Projects such
as the Fringe Festival Programme have shown that City Voice is capable
of both contributing more to the local community and increasing our
revenue base. We would be keen to hear from any of you with ideas for
how we could attract extra advertising. However, these projects will
take time to develop.

In the meantime we've decided to launch a sustaining donation drive. If
just one in 40 of our 40,000 readers is prepared to pay a sustaining
donation of $50, we will be able to increase our average paper from 20
pages to 28.

Buying the Dominion or the Evening Post every day costs you $255 a year.
The Sunday Star-Times costs $78. For just $50 you can help secure City
Voice's future as the real voice of the city.

Rupert Murdoch once said: "A monopoly is a terrible thing - until you
own one." City Voice is the only significant thing standing between you
and a truly terrible thing: a near-total Murdoch monopoly of the press
in Wellington.

are that these are tough economic times and that there are many worthy
causes asking for any spare cash you may have, so we'll understand
completely if you decide against becoming a sustaining donor.

Many of you have already been very generous towards City Voice in the
past. We are extremely grateful for the help you have given us at
crucial times, and acknowledge to those who have lent us money that we
still have an obligation to repay you (unless any of you wish to convert
your loans to donations!).

We're enclosing a form for those of you who would like to become a
sustaining donor, or to renew your past support. We're also enclosing a
couple of extra copies of this letter which we invite you to pass on to
friends that might be in a position to contribute.

Please give us a ring if you want to talk about this, or anything else, with us.

Jeremy Rose						Simon Collins
Chair of the Co-op				Editor
Ph 934 7410 (a/h)				Ph 385 6711 (City Voice)