RE-Boot Discussion Notes, 4/5/07

IMC-StL Re-Boot
Discussion Notes, 4/5/07

[Brainstorm #3 postponed, announcements held up with listserv down...
[ Ben & Scottie discussion, collated from sca notes, esp. Ben's email:
[ "The news on STLIMC reboot", 11ap07
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KDHX/DHTV offers training classes w/ multimedia production
-- meld with Digger's ideas for journalism training, e.g. how to work on deadlines, how to find a story, how to frame a story... this suggests 2 complementary media courses.
-- mesh with pursuing crossover to other (e.g. non-print) media (huh?)

Need to create incentive for folks to produce content
-- peeps always want get paid... put in time to get good at it, put value into the time...
-- although many like to do amateur journalism for free, one should still expect "a yeoman's wage for public service" at a professional level.

Music & Video
-- encourage participation from arts community
-- e.g. cover Shangri-La shows... grassroots artists... visual art, various media as news

Promoting an attitude of convergence
-- many existing local groups limit their outreach and scope
-- purpose of Outreach: engage common media interests, build IMC to meet them

Where to go?...
-- Who is STLIMC? Need to re-form the collective. I.e. who is acting body, who is voting?
-- This must be in place B4 public meeting.

New "Collective" – what is the active embodiment?...

Proposed 3-phase framework for STLIMC:

Members... → Crews... → Coordinators...
----------- ----------- ------------------
signed-on... Co-Ops\Tech\ 5 from Crews:
vols, reporters Editorial 2 \ 1 \ 2

Contributing Decisions Implementation

Tiers of Participation:
1. Members, non-voting?... (or, paid members w/ vote on 'mission & organization'?)
2. Collective → 'Crews', extended clan in 3 working groups (12+ folks ideally)
3. Acting 'Coordinators'... 1st contacts in ongoing ops+biz, active synergists
-- 2 Co-Ops
-- 1 Tech (limited scope so not just Ben does this)
-- 2 Editorial

Coordinators work with folks in the "extended clan"... Crews draw upon Members for support on particular projects...
Crew commitment - serve a 4-month term (like a college course, do-able)...
Coordinators come from the 3 Crews, by choice of peers & consensus.

Observations:
-- the framework is simple enough to be viable.
-- problem of how to reach to folks not entirely in rad corners, broaden the base
-- current outreach has been self-limited to old channels (e.g. indymedia listserves)
-- the difficulty of Rad-Organizing... no sense of 'process', or patience for planning...
suspicion of structure vs. good working agreements
-- no-shows... need more participation in the 'Re-Boot', folks have been to too many BS meetings, really prefer/expect to do certain things... keep it simple to grow it, pull folks into limited task agendas of choice.

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~ sca, 4my07 ~