Wee Ginger Fundraiser

It's that time of year again. It's been a year since I last did a fundraiser. This year is going to be a particularly expensive one for me personally. There's a wedding to pay for, and I need to ensure that my earnings are sufficient to prove to the Home Office to be able to import my American spouse into Scotland to live here permanently. As well as the need to demonstrate a minimum level of annual income, £18,600, there are also hefty legal and visa fees to pay.

I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but I work my wee socks off for the independence movement. I publish this blog, and I do talks to local indy groups all over Scotland without asking for a fee. Don't get me wrong, I greatly enjoy it. It's a huge privilege to meet all the wonderful, talented, and committed people who make the Scottish independence movement something really special. However it takes up a lot of time and energy to keep blogging and doing public talks, time and energy that I could be using to generate an income to prove to the Home Office that I am able to support my American spouse.

The truth is that if every regular reader of this blog gave just one pound a year, I'd be pulling in well over £100,000 annually. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. Publishing and selling books and maps helps, as does selling t-shirts, but it's pretty hit and miss. I do get paid by The National for my twice weekly articles, but that doesn't pay anything like as much as you might think it would. In order to be confident that I can meet the minimum income requirements demanded by the Home Office, cover the cost of the wedding, and cover the fees required to pay the visas and associated legal costs, I need to do a fundraiser for £10,000.

Any help you can give would be immensely appreciated. Help me to keep campaiging, and help me to show that Scotland is a welcoming place for migrants - at least one special migrant in particular, the man I'm going to marry in October.