Hello fellow fans of SURGE and welcome to the 67th edition of SaveSURGE News! It's about all of us working together for that fully loaded citrus love.

Sightings Report
There was 1 new SURGE Sighting reported since the last edition of SaveSURGE News. It is in Willoughby, OH.

Sadly, there were 4 deletions in: MO (2), NC & WI.

Currently, there are 155 SURGE Sightings listed. Thanks to all of you who are on the lookout for SURGE!

National SaveSURGE Month A Success
First off, let us say a big "thank you" to each and every SURGE fan who participated in National SaveSURGE Month during September. Whether you gave us five minutes or 500 hours of your time, you made a difference in the campaign to bring SURGE back! This was our most organized effort to date and it definitely showed. During the last week in September, virtually every Coca-Cola representative and bottler I spoke to knew about SaveSURGE.org and its efforts. This is all thanks to you, SURGE fans!

Coca-Cola, its bottlers and many local businesses across the United States are now fully aware of fight to bring back the soda we love. That in itself has made this month a success. Obviously, the questions going through our heads right now are along the lines of: "How successful was National SaveSURGE Month?", "Was this enough to bring back SURGE?" etc.

Only time will tell how much of a difference our efforts have done to influence Coca-Cola and its bottlers. We can tell you that the signs of progress are out there. As you may remember, NSSM started off with a bang as we unearthed a newly designed logo for SURGE. While it was listed as "spec work", meaning it was created as an example, the new look only further motivated SURGE fans to work even harder and also made for some lively conversation over on the SaveSURGE.org Bulletin Board. Fortunately for us, the new logo was only the beginning.

Later on in September I personally received a response from Coca-Cola that was clearly hand typed - not from a form letter! After over a year of correspondence, finally a personalized response to my letter. That will be one for my archives.

Lastly, and most importantly, progress has been made to the point where I am now in contact with some executives from Coca-Cola. As of this writing, I have been told that I will be part of a conference call to discuss SURGE with those executives. While I'm not sure what the outcome of this call will be, I know this is a huge step in the right direction. This will be my first official contact with the decision makers at Coke and frankly I'm honored that they are willing to speak with me. You can be sure that I will share with you everything I can from this meeting when it occurs (hopefully soon!).

In the meantime, we must continue to make those phone calls and write those letters. Just because the calendar has changed to October doesn't mean that we're going to stop fighting to bring SURGE back.

Coca-Cola Directory Find a Permanent Home
That great big index of Coca-Cola facilities we so proudly displayed during National SaveSURGE Month now has a permanent home on the site! It's been named the Coca-Cola Directory and you can find it under the How You Can Help menu at the top of every page. Make sure to check it out and find the Coca-Cola facility nearest you.

Homemade SURGE Logos Added
Even more of those great-looking homemade SURGE logos have come in this week! Check out new submissions by Adam, Chris, Nick, Salvadore & Steve.

On a related note, since we have received so many amazing logos from SURGE fans, we felt that it would be appropriate to give them their own section! Look for a "SURGE Logos" section to be created under the For the Love of SURGE menu on the top of every page very soon.

Poll Results - We need samples to think about it…
This week's SURGE Poll asked you: Do you think dnL was meant to be a SURGE copy?

46.9% - Bring me a SURGE & a dnL and I'll tell you.
26.9% - No
26.1% - Yes

Total Votes: 130

It's clear that most of you would prefer to sample a nice cold SURGE and maybe then take a sip of dnL before making your decision. The battle for second place was very close but either way you have to admit that dnL does taste a bit like our beloved SURGE!

That's all the time we have for this week. Let's keep up that great work and maybe one day soon will be sipping on some citrus heaven!

Sincerely,

Eric Karkovack
Co-Webmaster
www.savesurge.org