[New-imc] arkansas indymedia response to membership criteria

Sat Feb 1 09:59:02 PST 2003

On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Squash Capitalism wrote:

> These are our responses to the Membership Criteria. All of these were 
> consensed on December 21st 2002.
...

hi arkansas IMC,
  Great to see you organising!
i think you forgot to tell new-imc about some of the good communication
infrastructure you've set up (or maybe i just missed it):

http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-ar/
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-ar-ed/

i think we're still waiting on your editorial policy, but
we have your:

membership criteria:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2003-January/003347.html

mission statement:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2003-January/003345.html

i do have some comments regarding your membership criteria responses
and a few messages in your mailing lists. Please remember that i'm not
in the US (even if there is a lot of feeling that Poland is seen as
the "trojan horse" of the US in Europe...) and i would be more
comfortable with someone more local helping you out, but in their
absence, my comments are probably (maybe!) better than nothing.

However, if noone from the US comes along after you send in your editorial
policy, i'll propose you for internal new-imc approval, since i think
you've got a good group getting underway...

solidarity
boud (volunteer IMC PL and new-imc)

##################################################
SUMMARY of comments
(1) global communications
(2) outreach - natural way to get diversity of topics
(3) consensus - more details? - some how-to hints 
(4) money - recommend you have a clear process 
##################################################

### comments begin

(1) global communications

If you check out
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcPageImprovements 
once the TWiki is back online, you'll see some more concrete 
explanation of h. and i.

> h. Have a spokesperson(s) willing and capable of participating in the global
> decision-making process and meetings as a rotating liaison/representative,
> with a clear understanding of the responsibilities that come with this role,
> --we have decided that i will be first spokesperson, for a two month period, 
> and other people are ready and willing to fill this role after me.
> i. Participate in the key IMC Network Communication Methods that pertain to
> the health and vitality of the Network and that contribute to the work of
> the IMC. Assure that at least one person from your local IMC participates
> at any given time on the IMC-Communications list,
> --we have several people interested in being as much a part of 
> IMC-Communications as possible--people here are VERY excited about 
> Indymedia.

Great! i don't remember exactly what's on the TWiki, but you're
welcome to put your "liaison" (as opposed to representative) on 
imc-communication (no "s"):

http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-communication

and the other recommended lists (last time this was discussed) are,
i think,

imc-summaries
imc-process
imc-finance

However, you'll see that the whole issue of global mailing lists is
quite confused at the moment, including facilitation. If some volunteers
from your group can not only join these lists (or others), but actually
help sort out which lists are useful, how to facilitate them while
retaining openness, help make them more useful, that would be great!
It looks like you've got some experienced facilitators on your own
lists.  Have a look through http://lists.indymedia.org/ .

You should also consider making or joining a regional list - my US
geography and indy knowledge is not good enough to tell you where this
is or if there is one - you'll have to look for it - or get it
started! It would be good if you could contact and coordinate with the
Kansas City, Missouri, group, which i guess is close to you, which has
made an initial request, and maybe even help them through the process
while waiting for other US volunteers to pop up on new-imc:

http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-December/003187.html

(2) outreach - natural way to get diversity of topics

The comments below suggest that some more f2f outreach is something
fairly high priority for your group. 

i know you might feel that people from anti-death penalty groups, or
other grassroots groups may be sceptical and ask "why are you not an
official IMC yet?", but by answering that you want them to feel
welcome to be involved in participation in the group *now*, at the time
that initial habits and culture of the group are being put into place,
you will show them that IMC Arkansas will not just be a place where
they are welcome as guests, but where they are welcome to participate
at an organising level.  Even if their initial responses seem
lukewarm, they're more likely to feel the sites is theirs if they know
they can criticise and (consensually) modify your editorial policy,
mission statement, style of running meetings, etc. now rather than
later.

There's also less risk of a few active individuals burning out. So talk
to other groups, invite them to meetings, but of course you can also
encourage them by doing the work of posting some of their articles on 
the site.

http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-ar-ed/2003-January/000005.html

> Although I am for diversity of topics too, I've got to say that it's
> really hard to get away from the anti-war stuff right now; it is a HUGE
> and profound issue. Still, we're just getting this thing going. I'm sure

If you do the "people work" of listening to their "non-war" issues,
inviting them sincerely into the group and making them feel welcome
and able to contribute to the group as a media group, without imposing
the anti-war effort on them, chances are they'll learn a lot about
the war issue that they didn't know before and help link the different
issues together.

BTW, the same situation + advice applies to us here at IMC PL. Our
newswire is dominated by anti-war issues. Nobody decided this, it just
happened, and nobody can control it :)))). But we are planning on f2f
outreach activities for people active on other social issues - such as
nurses and teachers - and hoping they'll participate in decision-making
and in writing articles or in whatever way they're comfortable with.

> that we'll get better rounded as we go along. And there are other issues
> coming up.To tell you the truth, I'm just tickled about the way our site
> is coming together.
> 
> Joe, your idea about the anti-death penalty coalition sounds pretty good
> to me. I'm glad that you want to cover it. But I think that continuing
> Northwest Arkansas coverage is important too. There's a multitude of
> issues hitting the fan here, and  our Wilson Springs coverage is, while
> a big local issue, only a part of it. And with people beginning to
> publish stories from Little Rock and Hendrix, I think we are well on the
> road to being an attractive and multi-issued IMC.
>                   Al
> 
> > From: "Joseph Diffie" <joediffie at hotmail.com>
> > To: imc-ar-ed at lists.indymedia.org
> > 
> > Hey editors
> > 
> > We should think about trying to get a good feature about anti-war activity 
> > together with a lot of links in the text and good photos.  Maybe we should 
> > wait until the next time that there is a lot of action on one day all over 
> > the state.  Maybe we could try to get it on the global indymedia feature 
> > column so that all of these organizers all over the state can get some 
> > global recognition.  Let me know what yall think.
> > 
> > Also we should try to diversify out of NWAR and anti-war activity.  It is 
> > hard becasue nobody else is really publishing much else, but we should try.  
> > I am going to do a feature about anti-death penalty coalition that is 
> > meeting in Fayetteville on Mon.  it is a statewide group and I am going to 
> > publicize our site to them too.
> > 
> > Let me know what yall think
> > 
> > Joe

(3) consensus - more details? - some how-to hints 
> g. Adopt a decision-making policy that is in alignment with consensus
> principles which include open, transparent and egalitarian processes,
> --all our collective's decisions are based on consensus

Are your decisions made at face-to-face (f2f) meetings, or on
the mailing list, or can they be made in either way? Do you have
any formal consensus method ready for the more difficult and/or
important decisions?

In any case, i strongly suggest you print off and read through:

Food not Bombs' practical guide -  On Conflict and Consensus
http://consensus.net/ocaccontents.html   

the Collective Book on Collective Process
http://www.geocities.com/collectivebook/index.html

(4) money - recommend you have a clear process 

http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-ar/2003-January/000125.html

> ... we need someone to set up the 
> financial aspect of our collective (i.e. how to collect money, what the 
> legal ramifications of doing so involve, setting up a bank account, etc.). 

IMHO, you also need to be sure about the process. It might sound easy
now when things are running smoothly and people seem to understand one
another, but it might be good to have some formality about how you
decide on spending money. E.g., should there be a written proposal on
each spending proposal of more than $X to the imc-ar-finance list, if
you make such a list, with a deadline of minimum Y days before the
proposal is considered consensed upon? How much are X and Y? X=500 and
Y=14 ? Or can a decision be made at a f2f meeting? Or would an
informal proposal to the existing imc-ar list without any formal
deadline to wait for comments or blocks be sufficient?

### comments end