[Imc-uk-network] [imc-leeds] Sheffield is in the North of England!

[theinnercityhippy at riseup.net]

hi.

It's a bit late to follow up on this in detail for myself so can i propose
a full response is discussed at our next imc meeting in scarborough on the
5th july? As all our meetings are open we would of course welcome any
interested parties to come along and get involved, however my personal
feeling is that our process is open and public and so the onus should be
on other imc's to contact us as we are not seeking to replace any existing
city based imc's but to compliment them.

As a brief personal response however, anyone who has been following the
current debate on the imc-uk-process list will no doubt have been made
aware that at present we are not an autonomous imc but a regional part of
the *imc uk network*. Since we will be leaving imc uk to become
autonomous, we do not currently have a fully fledged independent media
centre anywhere in the north of england. In fact the closest one was york
until we merged, followed by scotland and then london. Imc uk has a very
different structure to what we are creating here, and our success or
failure in creating an alternative will be down to the engagement of the
users of our new site and not the need to compromise on something as
unimportant as a name with an altogether different network.

I really wouldn't like to see any of this spilling onto this list so can i
recommend that anyone with a view or interest that is not specific to our
collective join the imc-uk-process list and get involved in the debate
there.

Solidarity

JimDog*

> Hi
>
> I've a couple of concerns regarding the Northern Indymedia project:
>
> - The name, "Northern Indymedia" or "North of England Indymedia" will
>   clearly be understood by people to include the northern cities of
>   Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool and this is something you make
>   clear in your draft New IMC application:
>
>     "Northern England IMC"
>
>     "Northern England including but not exclusive to North and West
>     Yorkshire, Humberside, Durham, Tyneside"
>
>     "By becoming imc Northern England we seek to compliment and not
>     replace the existing city based imcâs in the region and fill in the
>     current gaps of coverage between the areas that provide news for
>     imcâs manchester, liverpool, scotland and the current
>     leeds/bradford."
>
>     "This is intended to be a deliberately vague name as it reflects the
>     fact that a large number of users of our current site are posting
>     reports from outside areas that would have any natural
>     identification with Leeds or Bradford, though we are their nearest
>     imc."
>
>     https://we.riseup.net/imc-northern/new-imc-form
>
>   And your draft Mission Statement:
>
>     "Northern Indymedia :
>
>         * provides a forum for all those in Northern England"
>
>   If this name is to stay then the outreach needs to also cover these
>   cities and also, since there are IMC activists on the ground in these
>   cities include these activists. This could include, for starters
>   contacting the existing lists for these cities:
>
>     http://lists.indymedia.org/imc-sheffield
>     http://lists.indymedia.org/imc-manchester
>     http://lists.indymedia.org/imc-liverpool
>
>   And then things such as holding meetings in these cities etc etc.
>
>   If it *isn't* the intention to include these cities then surely a name
>   is needed that makes it clear that they are not included in the
>   project and if anyone doubts that "Northern" includes these 3 cities
>   then look, for example, at this Wikipedia page:
>
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_England
>
> - Negativity towards IMC UK, I don't think it's necessary to include
>   negative statments such as these in your outreach material:
>
>     "What have been the limitations of IMC-UK?
>
>     Unfortunately, IMC Northern feels that the UK experiment has failed,
>     because of poor relationships with the groups Indymedia was set up
>     to represent and internal disagreements amongst Indymedia activists
>     about how things should be done. It has been very hard to organise a
>     single output medium (the UK website) amongst a network of people
>     who werenât actually working in a single collective. This has lead
>     to a deterioration in quality and a general apathy towards Indymedia
>     in this country which is not felt in other areas around the world.
>     As a result of these problems, some local groups have already left
>     to form autonomous IMCs. We want to join this exodus from IMC-UK to
>     make something better for our region."
>
>   I think it would be far better to concentrate on the *positive* ways
>   in which you intend to improve things rather than using this outreach
>   process as a way of attacking IMC UK.
>
> Chris
>
> --
> http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/
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