[Imc-cleveland] notes from c-imc mini-meeting february 26, 2006

[p-indy216 at riseup.net]

hey, just wanted to let everyone know a group of folks who are interested
in working with c-imc met at my house to have a brunchy chat and discuss
indymedia.  most of them havent been able to make it to our regular
meetings because of schedule conflicts but were eager to meet and it just
ended up last sunday was the day, sorry i didnt mention it sooner.

anyway here is what we discussed, (we = patrick, abigail, josh, uma, and
lisa)


c-imc mini-meeting february 26, 2006

We went over the meeting notes from the last meeting. patrick answered any
questions that came up as to the best of his ability.

on meeting time - we agreed 11am on Sundays was the best time to meet and
suggested my house as a possible location to meet, we have internet and
couches.

abigail said she would be interested in writing a weekly column on
Prisons/Prisoners. she also made some suggestions of things they did in
omaha we could try, like meeting weekly to discuss editorial stuff.

we talked about the radio show a bit too. there is interest in doing more
interviews, we may need to get a phone card for long distance interviews
over the phone. we can find a time to do prerecorded interviews at the
radio station, id like to have a list of good music readily available,
both instrumental and with vocals. send suggestions to me, and josh
suggested we use music headers for each stories.

josh also went to the year of grassroots networking event at CSu and had
some notes. he attended the workshop titled "role of grassroots media" and
said the discussion never got around to the topic of grassroots media,
instead it focused on the numerous complaints about mainstream media. some
of which are relevant and important to discuss. one observation that was
mentioned was that commercials are one main reason people watch tv (they
give people a break from the action, which facilitates people watching for
longer periods. josh suggested we can use this technique on the radio
show, have more music/breaks)  also that representatives from some groups
are more easily dismissed and other people given more credablity depending
on how they are presented.

other things discussed included talking about how news is
crafted/perceived and doing skill shares (how to write stories, etc)

josh is interested in producing an old skool handbill each week or two
weeks that has a select number of stories on it, this can be emailed out
and people or supporting locations can print a few out and distribute.

community news events - this would be an open mic type of event or open
forum where people can discuss a hot button issue or particular news
article.

high school news corps - going off an idea kris had we can contact local
high school newspaper staff and other groups that work with youth on media
like PRYME youth media in collinwood, and another in slavic village that
is doing media literacy, and sponsor a training/contest and feature a
story each week or every story.

also brought up the campus activism/news category, we should reach out to
contacts at all the local uni's and colleges and encourage them to post
stuff relevant to whats goin on their campus.

finally their was two tabling opportunites this past weekend and it was
obseved that imc flyers were MIA, (i think there were some buried on the
infoshop table) so...
josh volunteered to work up a new current flyer. he wants to know what
information needs to be on it!

~p