Sven had his first visit today it was good to see he's doing well is happy enough and is doing a Welsh speaking course. He was glad to see us and says he's grateful for all the cards and letters he's received which are keeping him going. If you want to write to him it's James Allchurch A5903EY Parc Prison, Heol Hopcyn John, Bridgend Cf35 6AP.

^^^ Note the new address. I have been advised that he was moved about a month ago.

Funny thing is, that message arrived just as I was about to walk out the door to post postcards to all our prisoners.

I shall post an update of the text file shortly.

I'm putting the finishing touches on the Givesendgo campaign, which should be ready this week.

After that I'll put together a chess club that, hopefully, will satisfy everyone.

A prior step was to register a domain and get a (very, very) basic website up, for the SEO benefits, somewhere to keep a FAQ (since there is such an accumulation of bits of information in this channel) and somewhere to have a visual display of the state of play of chess games.

I'm back in communication with James at his new address at HMP Parc. He said that he wrote me a letter yesterday so I'll wait for that. It seems that HMP Swansea have been hopeless in forwarding his mail. It appears that the communications curse of Swansea (my apparent blacklisting) has been lifted.

Here is the updated list of prisoners. There are no additional people this time. The main addition to the file is a larger appendix of people for whom we need contact details - prisoner number and name of prison. Perhaps you know someone who has that information?

^^^ Seriously, this project is (and is meant to be) the VERY OPPOSITE of a CARGO CULT, where complacent jerk-offs sit around "liking" some brilliant performer. You are EXPECTED to participate.

For example, the list of prisoners will grow IF AND ONLY IF people come forward with information.

The good news is that I will give you ALL the glory and credit, as much as humanly possible. I am not jealous about such things.

For another example, I would like to see someone implement the Christmas gift drive, a la Evergreen in the US, that I described..

For another example, I would welcome someone having better ideas than I about implementing a chess club.

Maybe both ideas would crash and burn because there isn't the demand. I don't know, but probably the mode of failure would be that there are better people for the job than I.

I mention Evergreen's Christmas gift drive. I keep returning to that idea because it would create a "crowd" that our prisoners' families can be added to, thereby ensuring their anonymity and thus their privacy. Yes, it helps poor white families, but my motivation trends to the strategic goal of helping, which is to say empowering, our prisoners.

^^^ It is possible to reverse-engineer what Evergreen do:

They are a women's auxiliary that do vetting, that's their core function, because it's the hard part, but that function in turn can be reverse-engineered:

They started out doing the Christmas gift drive then later took over membership vetting for NJP.

But vetting families for the Christmas drive would be a simpler procedure than vetting people for membership in, say, a nationalist political organization. The latter, in my experience, involves a phone interview followed by a visit at one's home. I imagine that being vetted as a Christmas drive recipient might involve a mutual acquaintance, a phone interview and viewing copies of bank statements.

It is "woman's work" because women tend to have built-in charm and emotional radar, when they choose to turn it on.

It is not easy being a prisoner and you, a person not imprisoned, might find that you pick up some of that psychic energy, for want of a better term, from being in frequent communication with them. Just saying, be aware of this, and don't identify with it; it is a separate thing from yourself.

One thing I need to add on the subject of a UK version of Evergreen's Christmas drive. I went back and forth in my mind on this but it needs to be stated. PA is very unlikely to do something that would harbour our prisoners' families, because of the "t" word. In fact, it would be bad for us for them to pre-empt that space with their own, similarly structured Christmas drive. So, please, somebody, take this idea on.

I don't want this to turn into the Evergreen channel but here is the information to bring new subscribers up to date:

https://t.me/tcppuk/173
https://t.me/TheEvergreen/419
https://t.me/TheEvergreen/420

Just to reiterate: My initial thought was simply to put up Amazon wishlists for prisoners' families. But that is no good because they are too few to ensure their anonymity and privacy even if they are given code numbers. Unfriendlies could perhaps match lists to prisoners families. So instead what is needed is an Operation White Christmas UK to add them into, so they are among many others and unidentifiable.

^^ Needless to say, this is not just about helping individuals. It is an aspect of psychological warfare and sends a huge message: "We are virtuous, we take care of our own, we are powerful, our opponents are child-killing scum." It both makes the enemy look terrible and uplifts the depressed among us. "God is with us."

I received a letter from James on Wednesday and from the date on the letter it took a week to arrive.

At his new prison James appears to have a similar e-mail service as Ash has, called "Purple Post," that has to be read while standing at a public console and no paper copy is possible. That means that he greatly prefers written letters, allowing him to work on a reply in his cell.

James' previous prison, HMP Swansea, has not forwarded any mail since his move back in June. He has lodged a formal complaint about this. The practical result, as I see it, is that you should resend anything sent in that interval, to his new address.

Swansea is still withholding the four books that I had sent. The excuse now is that the book shipments did not have invoices or shipping notes. I have now submitted copies of all the invoices, along with a cover letter that admonishes them for not doing what all the other prisons do and deliver any books sent from an approved vendor, which Blackwell's is. I have also sent backup copies of the invoices to James.

I was reading a long letter from a prisoner and it occurred to me that much of what he is writing should be in a blog. That would be MUCH more efficient than repeating the same facts and thoughts to multiple correspondents.

As it is I have to constantly make judgement calls about what I divulge while helping other supporters be better informed. It would be better if I don't need to do that so much.

I am going to suggest that to the prisoners. They can write material clearly marked for public consumption and one or more of us types it into, say, a Telegram channel devoted to that prisoner, his blog. Then a link to each new entry can be posted here.

Any volunteers?

^^^ It would be somewhat interactive - for example such a blog's chat group could be printed off a week after the post goes up and sent to the prisoner.

Vincent's website (the whole nine yards!):

https://sansconcession.net/

It defaults to French but you can switch to English by clicking the "English" tag at the top or, if that isn't visible, the "7A" symbol to the right of the address field to get a drop-down language menu.

There appear to be two people posting to the blog, "The Writer" and Vincent. A very interesting, and current, read.

Before I put the group Givesendgo campaign up I need to get a vote so I don't have to make a decision that might not please everyone.

We have prisoners of two types: Those who have a Givesendgo of their own and those who don't. A brief glance will reveal that the ones with their own Givesendgo have collected a fair amount. I don't know exactly how much has been donated to the ones that don't have a Givesendgo of their own and only get money via the gov site but it probably is not much, other than from their immediate families.

The group Givesendgo campaign can go equally to all prisoners, or just to the ones that don't have a Givesendgo of their own. If we go the latter route then we would advertise all the Givesendgos.

I don't feel comfortable with either choice, so I'll create a poll (finally, a use for democracy!).