[IMC-bristol] Minutes from meeting on 14/01/04

[kyra]

hi all
here are the minutes from last night.
as with all things indymedia, there is right-of-reply, so if you feel 
i've got anything wrong then send your version to this list.

everyone present contributed through general discussion but i havent 
tried to put all our names in for everything, in fact i've only used 
names when it was necessary to make sense.

a couple of notes for individuals:
rhys - please send your email address to this list so people can get in 
touch with you re. may fest if they want to
helen - please keep us posted re. outreach meeting with Asian womens group

unfortunately, like the meeting, these minutes are dominated by the 
ongoing row between tony and ian (despite ian not being there!).  i and 
others are concerned that this festering row is undermining our hard 
work.  if tony insists that indymedia be involved in this dispute, i 
would like to suggest that we have a separate meeting perhaps with an 
invited mediator from uk imc or similar to finally settle this and allow 
us to get on with indymedia work.  i don't particularly relish the 
thought of spending my time doing this, but it should by now be clear to 
us all that we cannot take up large chunks of public meeting time with 
this, and clearing up the misunderstandings caused by tony's allegations 
via this list and the site.  apart from anything else, it makes us look 
like a bunch of scrapping kids which - by and large - we are not.
alternatively, i hope that tony may feel able to sort this out with ian 
without the rest of us having to get dragged in to it.

having said that, thanks to everyone present last night for being 
patient about this - it was good to have a good mix of old and new faces 
there - dont be put off!

ok, see you at the film night next week i hope
all the best
kyra x




MINUTES FROM BRISTOL INDYMEDIA PUBLIC MEETING: 14/01/04
13 people present

Agenda (drawn up by those present at start of meeting):
 >Outreach
 >New software/ training
 >"That Article" - the article for the student paper, and issues arising
 >Tony's bunker article, and issues arising
 >AOB
 >Outreach
 >>Some people have been working on two new flyers: one particularly 
targeting new people, one more as a reminder for activists to use the site
It is planned to have do some leafleting around South Bristol, and then 
to hold a public meeting at e.g. Knowle West Media Project, Windmill 
Hill City Farm
 >>Suggestion to have an Outreach page on the site, where community 
groups can go for information about getting BRistol IMC to come to their 
meeting and do a presentation, the group's contact details etc.
 >>Need to pursue links with community festivals and other events and 
have a stall at these
 >>Need to not just concentrate on outreach to groups, also be aware of 
attracting individuals.  The South Bristol outreach plan should address 
this to an extent.
 >>Volunteering Fair at Bristol University 26th Feb - could flyer at this
 >>Jim O'Neill of Volunteering Bristol was mentioned: we could ask him 
to include Bristol IMC in their listings
 >>People offered to flyer Watershed and CREATE regularly - the new 
flyers will be posted on to the email list and also to the site so 
people can print them out as needed.  We will also get a load printed 
and distribute
 >>Volunteers welcome for help with leafleting

 >New software/ training
 >>Final testing of the new software to take place this week
 >>The new site will work in the same way as the current one so users 
should not experience any difference in posting, except that it will be 
faster.
 >>Administrating the site will be different, and a training session for 
administrators will be scheduled for next week - date and time to be 
confirmed via the email list

 >"That Article"
 >>Before Christmas, a student, Tom, had contacted the email list 
wanting to interview someone about the project.  Tony gave an interview. 
  Tom subsequently posted the article to the site: 
http://bristol.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=11638&group=webcast . 
The article has several inaccuracies drawn from Tony's interview, and 
includes personal slurs against Ian.  Tom attended the meeting, and 
began by apologising for his inaccurate attacks on the project.  He also 
clarified that some of the allegations therein, e.g. that Ian is a 
member of the SWP, or that Ian Bone is involved in the running of the 
project, were the result of latenight copywriting on his part, rather 
than direct quotes from Tony.  The text in quotations however was Tony's 
quotes, including the allegation that the site has been taken over by an 
"Easton anarchist clique" and Tom repeated Tony's accusation that Ian is 
dominating the project.    It was noted that the article has now been 
pulled from the sutdent paper, but remains on the site where it has - 
obviously - provoked discussion.  Whilst accepting that some of the more 
outlandish aspects of the article were errors on Tom's part, concern was 
expressed that this is another instance of Tony causing trouble, and 
that when others have given interviews about the project this has been 
with the prior consent of the group.  It is not appropriate for Tony to 
represent Bristol IMC in an interview and then to use that as a forum to 
pursue his ongoing disagreement with Ian, and such behaviour is 
potentially damaging to Bristol IMC.  Well done to Tom for coming along 
to the meeting, having an open discussion with us, where we were able to 
address some of his concerns about the project, clarifying his part in 
the incident and putting across his opinions, and hope was expressed 
that he will continue to use the site to publish his news.  Tom was made 
aware that he had inadvertently become involved in Tony's argument with 
Ian, and at least by bringing things to a head hopefully this can be 
addressed once and for all.  Kyra, Mike and Tomas all expressed the hope 
that Tony will be able to pursue his grievance with Ian off-list and 
without involving the site or other volunteers.  For example, some 
people who had not attended a meeting before genuinely thought that Ian 
was the website's editor, as a result of comments that Tony has made to 
this effect on the email list in the past and now implied through this 
article.  (See under Tony's bunker article for related points.)
 >>Tony announced that he is no longer interested in the admin process 
and from now on will be concentrating on writing investigative features.
 >>For the benefit of those new to the group, we discussed the function 
of admin on this site, basically monitoring postings and hiding any 
which are not related to Bristol/ South West, and any which break the 
guidelines.  Sam suggested that we need more administrators, as there 
are currently only the same few doing it, anyone interested should get 
in touch via this list.
 >>This led on to a discussion of the guidelines - see the twiki for 
draft: http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcBristol - to be put up on 
site a.s.a.p.

 >This led on to a discussion of how / whether to tame the flame wars on 
the site and the fact that the Newswire currently is used more as a talk 
board than as a news service.  The point was made that if local people 
want to use the site to talk to each other about things that concern 
them, why should we restrict this.  This ties in, though, with the issue 
of getting new people to feel welcome.  If regular users are all in 
conversation with each other rather than posting news articles, does it 
seem like a closed circle?

 >Responding to a point from Tom's article, it was agreed that it is the 
job of the central column "features" to represent the content of the 
newswire - the features cannot represent opinions that are not voiced on 
the newswire.  It was agreed that whilst Indymedia brings with it 
anarchist associations, and whilst we don't want to become more 
centre-ist just for the hell of it, it is not true to htink that the 
average individual's opinions are represented by the Daily Mail etc. 
Activists are sidelined by the mainstream media, but so too are ordinary 
people's opinions sidelined by the corporate media's vested interests 
etc. so Bristol Indymedia can offer people other than activists a forum 
for their news also.  This is an extension of the Indymedia model, 
rather than a deviation from it.

 >Tony's bunker article
[Some people at the meeting didn't want to discuss this - so this 
section of the minutes reflects a smaller group discussion]
Tony remains concerned that his bunker article was taken down from the 
central column.  He noted that on the two occasions he has promoted 
articles to the "features" column, once it was edited and on this 
occasion it was taken down.  Kyra noted that on both occasions these 
were his own articles - the rest of the group are aware that it is 
against our admin rules to promote your own articles.  Tony argued that 
as people can post anonymously, it is impossible to tell whether people 
are promoting their own articles, and suggested that many of the 
articles promoted by Ian are written by him under pseudonyms.  Ian was 
not present to respond to this.  Tony also criticised Ian for not 
attending meetings.  It was noted that Ian has in the past attended the 
vast majority of meetings.  It was felt that the facility for anonymous 
postings is an important aspect of the project and should be retained, 
but perhaps we could have a function to show who compiled a particular 
feature.  Kyra and Tomas discussed with Tony the way they compile 
features, i.e. by rounding-up a series of related stories.

AOB
 >Mayday
Rhys is planning a festival for May 2004 - anyone interested in getting 
involved should contact him

 >Women
James brought up the topic of women and their representation within the 
project - it was agreed that being a computer-based project, the website 
is used by more males than females, as yet, but other projects like the 
film nights are more balanced.  It was also noted that black, asian, and 
older people are all underrepresented on the site and in the group, to 
date.  This is something to look at within our outreach plans.  Helen 
suggested an outreach meeting with Asian womens groups.

 >Meetings
 >>We should aim to have a regular monthly meeting e.g. at the 
Hillgrove, and also a rolling series of meetings elsewhere, e.g. South 
Bristol etc.

 >Translation
 >>Would be good to look into translating the site into other languages 
to include non-english=speaking communities across Bristol