[Imc-africa] communication with Kola

[Jay]

***

Hello Kola,

Great to hear from you.


>Jay,it had to take me this long to reply to your last mail to me 
>concerning the forming imc nigeria.I had to wait to call for a 
>meeting where we could jointly look at the content of your response to us.
>
>So what am saying in essence is that my response now is the true 
>representation of the position of we the members of the forming imc 
>nigeria.In all 18 of us met at the last meeting that was called to 
>consider critically the details of your last mail to me.

Fantastic!

>
>I must say very emphatically that you ended up confusing us with 
>your last mail as you rightly envisaged,but we would say that some 
>of the issus were well understood.

:))

It's a bit confusing, yes.  I apologize for that.  Something as 
simple as being able to talk on the telelphone generally can clear up 
confusion.  Do you, or any of the people in your group, have access 
to a broadband connection or some way to talk over the internet, like 
via Skype?  If so, you and I could actually talk, and we would be 
able to clear up any confusion very easily.

>
>We are therefore stating categorically clear now that we are 
>interested in becoming a full fledged member of the imc and not any 
>other organisation.Our interest is to relate and attain the status of the IMC.
>

That's great!!!

>As regards activities and possible support of our activities,we are 
>ready to continue to promote the social order even with no support 
>from any where.
>
>We are beginning to learn the rule of the game which is to operate 
>on the pace of the IMC owners and decision makers.
>

Ah yes, that's an important thing.  The IMC network works in very 
interesting ways and decision-making can move along very slowly.  We 
make an effort to have as many people involved in a decision as 
possible, which crosses every international border and every language 
barrier.  Plus, not everyone has internet access all the time, so we 
often have to wait for responses.  So, you can see how sometimes 
things wouldn't go quickly.

By the way, this kind of internet-based international decision making 
is only used in special circumstances, like for accepting a new IMC 
into the network.  All local IMCs make decisions about local matters 
on their own, using their own system, speaking their own language, 
most often meeting face to face.  Of course in those instances 
decisions can be made very quickly!

>Meanwhile Identifying with Nigeria at this crucial stage will be 
>much appreciated,This is the reason why we were so concerned and 
>wanted to get going.
>
>We would continue to meet and expand the membership through 
>activities promoting social justice,freedom of the media and freedom 
>of information,social order and equality of the human being.
>

That's wonderful.  I'm really glad your group has thought about the 
various issues and decided to puruse the route of becoming part of 
the Indymedia network.  It will take more time and more organizing 
work than staying outside of the network but, once the initial 
organizing is behind you and you've joined the network, you will have 
the support of hundreds of local IMCs and tens of thousands of 
indymedia activists everywhere.

So, here are some suggested next steps.  I'll try to lay them out 
clearly, so that may make the e-mail very long!  I apologize for 
that, but I want to give you more information rather than less.

Please don't be discouraged by all this, by the way.  The "new-imc 
process" may seem bureaurcatic, but the reason the indymedia network 
asks all these questions of a group that wants to be an IMC is to 
make sure the new IMC is strong from the beginning.  We've had IMCs 
fall apart because not enough thinking went into them from the 
beginning.  So, we ask people to do a lot of work in the beginning to 
make sure they've throught through all the issues, which we hope will 
lead to a much smoother road in the long term.

First of all, I think we should move this discussion from a private 
conversation back onto the imc-africa e-mail list.  That way other 
people can help out and give advice, and you won't have to rely on me 
and my erratic schedule for forward motion.  If you say it's okay, 
I'll report our discussion to imc-africa and we can go from there.

Second, if you didn't do this at the meeting, I would suggest to 
print up and distribute the following so people in the group can see them:

http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/PrinciplesOfUnity

http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/MembershipCriteria

What are these things?

Well, the Principles of Unity is a statement of the indymedia 
network's shared values.  The principles are very basic, but we ask 
every new imc to agree to them before joining the network.  So, for 
example, a group that wants to make a profit would look at the 
Principles of Unity and see they don't fit into the network.  Since 
your group does seem to fit very well into the network, what you 
should do is look at the Principles of Unity in a meeting, or a 
couple meetings, and see if you agree.  New groups generally look at 
the Principles of Unity at the beginning of the process toward 
joining the network so everyone starts from the same position.  If 
you have any questions, feel free to ask me, the imc-africa list, 
and/or the new-imc working group (new-imc at lists.indymedia.org).

The Membership Criteria document is something you need to send in at 
the very end of your organizing.  This is a list of things an IMC 
group must do or have to join the network.  The reason you should 
look at the document now is that it gives you a good way to assess 
your current state of organizing and to figure out areas that need work.

A first glance the membership criteria may seem extensive, but the 
basic idea is that a new-imc should be a community-based organization 
that is open to the public, not controlled by one political party or 
entity, and be set up to make it most likely to be sustainable.

So, for example, when we say an IMC must "Have a committed membership 
substantial enough to sustain a functional IMC," that means that 
sometimes we get an e-mail from one or two people saying, "we want to 
be an IMC."  If we went ahead and had them join the network, then 
those people moved out of town or got too busy to work on the project 
anymore, there would be no IMC.  In your case, you're already meeting 
with over a dozen people, so you already can respond to this part of 
the criteria with a "yes."

When we say, an IMC should "have open and public meetings (no one 
group can have exclusionary 'ownership' of an IMC,)" that means that 
if you have meetings of your IMC you should be as open about them as 
possible to enable people from all part of the community to come.  We 
don't want any political party controlling an IMC, or even any one 
particular organization -- people have to feel comfortable joining 
the organization, and the organization has to do outreach to bring in 
people from the community, or else it's not a community-based 
IMC.  So, though your members are part of an association already, you 
can satisfy this requirement easily by making sure to spread the word 
of your IMC meetings and making a plan to reach out beyond the bounds 
of your group.  Once of you've made that commitment, you can respond 
to this part of the criteria with a "yes" as well.

So, as you see, you can look at the list and think it's long, but the 
criteria are easy to fill very quickly if you have a well-organized group.

Both of these are found, along with a description of the whole 
new-imc process, at http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcHowTo

Once your group has taken a look at the Principles of Unity and the 
Membership Criteria, the first real step toward formally starting the 
process of becoming a new-imc is to write a short introduction about 
your group and fill out the form at 
"http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewIMCForm."  This form 
automatically goes to several places in the Indymedia network, 
alerting the new-imc working group and others throughout the network 
that your IMC is in the works.  If none of us knew you, once the New 
IMC form came through, we would try to find someone in the network 
who is geographically close to you to contact you and talk with you 
about Indymedia.  Since you and I already in touch, and, more 
importantly, since you're already in contact with imc-africa, we 
would just all confirm to the network that you're already well along the way.

So, to summarize, the next steps will be:
1) circulate the Principles of Unity and make sure your group agrees.
2) look at the Membership Criteria for a guide to the current 
strengths and weaknesses of your group
3) When you're ready, write an introduction and fill out the New IMC form.

Then, you and I, or you and someone else from imc-africa and/or the 
new-imc working group, will communicate about your organizing and try 
to answer any questions you have without further confusion!

In conclusion, I'd like to leave you with a few questions people from 
the network may ask about your IMC before it joins the network, in 
addition to the basic stuff in the membership criteria.  Once you 
have answers to all these things, you're very far along the process.

-- if you're going to call yourselves the "Nigeria IMC" rather than, 
let's say, the Lagos or Benin City IMC, that implies you have 
organizers all over the country. Do you?  (I believe I've already 
asked this question to you, and I think you said your association has 
representation from different parts of the country)

-- how do members of your group communicate?  do you have a public 
e-mail list?  even if you don't use e-mail regularly to communicate 
would you be willing/able to put your meeting minutes on a public 
e-mail list?  (meeting face-to-face is best of course, but can 
certainly be restrictive, especially if your IMC is trying to 
represent an entire country.  If you communicate via a listserve, 
that's really helpful to people who aren't located nearby, though of 
course internet access is quite restricted in Nigeria so that may 
create inequalities too.  There should at least be a place on-line to 
keep an archive of minutes from meetings, and for people who do have 
internet access but can't physically make it to meetings to have a 
way to become part of the group.  You can apply for an e-mail list by 
sending filling out the form here: 
https://newlist.indymedia.org/.  You can find more information about 
how to administer the listhere: 
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Sysadmin/ListWorkFAQ) .  There may 
already be a NigeriaIMC list in the system so the listwork people may 
ask the imc-africa working group or the new-imc working group if they 
can give you the passwords.)

-- Are there any social justice organizations that are part of the 
organizing of the IMC?

There will also probably be diversity questions:
-- is your IMC composed of people from different 
ethnic/cultural/language groups (Yoruba/Hausa/Igbo etc?) .
-- is there relgious/gender/economic/class/age diversity?

The diversity questions are important because if you have an IMC 
composed of people from across society, your IMC will be more 
welcoming, less likely to be controlled by one group and also much 
stronger in case you run into trouble from government officials or 
anyone who may not like what you're doing.  No IMC has a perfect 
answer to the diversity questions, by the way!  Every single IMC is 
wrestling with some kind of diversity issue, or many.  The important 
thing is that you have a commitment to your IMC being composed of 
different types of people, and that you work hard toward that making 
that happen.

Okay, now I've thrown a zillion more questions at you.  Apologies for 
that, but I want to make sure to lay as many things out on the table 
from the beginning, so you won't be surprised as we go along.  When 
all is said and done, all these things can be boiled down to one 
word: ORGANIZE.  If your IMC is well-organized, and a lot of thought 
and work has already gone into your work, you can probably respond to 
the membership criteria questions in a few minutes.

By the way, everyone in the network understands that the new-imc 
process takes a long time.  Do start the process now, but in the 
meantime we can start getting information together to ask the network 
to help with funding for your information center project.  If you're 
already engaged in the new-imc process, I think the imc-finance group 
will be likely to help with a bit of money.  Remember, there is a 
very limited amount of money in the imc-finance account -- only 
several thousand dollars -- and there isn't any fundraising going on 
to add to that account, so the stronger your proposal and the more it 
looks like seed money (money to start a self-sustaining project) than 
general operating money that has to be replaced each year, the more 
excited people on that group will be.

Be well!
Jay

***

Hello jay,

Please we met as i promised and decided to take some steps towards 
the formalisation of our membership as a new IMC.

Thanks and regards to all.

Its me
kola