[New-imc] melbourne indymedia re-launch

[levin at riseup.net]

Hi new imc,

a new melbourne indymedia collective exists, with very little overlap  
with the old, so we are going through the new imc process again.

cheers
levin



*Proposed IMC Name: *Melbourne Indymedia Collective

*Proposed Indymedia URL* (required): http://melbourne.indymedia.org.au/

Current URL: http://melbourne.indymedia.org.au/

*City*: Melbourne
*State/Province*: Victoria
*Country*: Australia

*Contact Name*
Email: Takver veracity at takver.com, levin at riseup.net or  
imc-melb-eds at indymedia.org.au
Phone:

*Technical Contact Name*: Levin
Email:Levin at riseup.net
Phone:

Regional Focus (Yes)
Issue Focus (No)
Event Focus (No)
Critical Dates (No)

*Supporting Groups*: Melbourne Social Forum, Ross House Melbourne,
(write to perth imc? nz imc?)

*Please write an introductory statement about why you want to
participate in the Indymedia Network. *



The Melbourne Collective wishes to contribute to a movement of grassroots
media-makers providing a platform for the creation of radical, accurate, and
passionate coverage of struggles and movements working for social,
environmental and economic justice in Melbourne and throughout Victoria.


*What kind of resources can you contribute, in terms of
server/bandwidth/technical
and organizing skills?*

The Collective currently has access to a server which it is running its
current site on.  We have a number of
members with technical IT skills but are also receiving IT support from
throughout the inydmedia network in Australia particularly from Sydney and
Perth based activists.


*What kind of outreach have you done to bring together a diverse group
of people?*
The Collective has advertised its meetings via various discussion lists
amongst the Australian Indymedia networks. We have also collected contact
names from running stalls at such events as the Melbourne Social Forum held
in April this year. At the forum we also participated in a workshop with
other members of the Melbourne Independant Media Community such as Engage
Media. We have located our meetings at Ross House which is a Non-profit
space located in Central Melbourne that is home to many activist and
community groups offices ? which we hope will facilitate our linkage to the
Melbourne activist community.

*How does the makeup of your collective reflect the diversity of the
local community (e.g. in realtion to gender-, sexual-, spiritual-,
and/or cultural-identity)?*

As a collective we aim to be critical and reflective about the gender
balance and power dynamics within the group and we are conscious of
the need for inclusivity and diversity. We recognise that the
corporate media is male dominated and we try to reflect the diversity
of our community through outreach and skillsharing.

In addition the collective has adopted ?Principles of Unity? to guide the
collective which states that we ?shall be committed to the principle
of human equality, and shall not discriminate, including discrimination
based upon race, gender, age, class or sexual orientation and are committed
to building diversity within our collective?


*If your group currently does not represent the diversity of the local
   community,
particularly in relation to groups who are underrepresented  in mainstream
society and denied access to vehicles of expression,  what steps will be
taken to address this on an ongoing basis?*

We intend to advertise involvement in the collective at protest and
community events throughout Melbourne. We are also planning to contact
existing social justice and environmental groups to invite them to be
involved. We hope the membership of the collective will therefore be
constantly evolving over time.



*What steps will be taken to involve individuals in workfields new to
them? What measures will be taken to overcome a gendered work division?*

The sharing of skills to allow all members of the collective full
capacity to participate is seen as crucially important to the collective.
Therefore as a part of gaining membership and editorial rights, a
prospective member must attend a skillshare run by the collective to learn
how to operate and edit the site and participate fully in the
consensus decision making. These skillshares will be run regularly
on a needs basis.