[New-imc] Online form: Proposed new IMC! (Northern England IMC)

[mark at aktivix.org]

Submitted by: Mark or anyone at imc-northern-contact at lists.indymedia.org <mark at aktivix.org> on Friday, June 19th, 2009 @ 6:27:36 am (-0700)

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Online Form Fields
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proposed_imc_name:
Northern England IMC

proposed_imc_url:
northern.indymedia.org

current_url:
 leedsbradford.indymedia.org.uk (and the recently merged york.indymedia.org)

city:
No one specific city

state:
Northern England including but not exclusive to North and West Yorkshire, Humberside, Durham, Tyneside

country:
England, UK

contact_name:
Mark or anyone at imc-northern-contact at lists.indymedia.org

contact_email:
mark at aktivix.org

contact_phone:


tech_name:
JimDog or anyone at imc-northern-contact at lists.indymedia.org

tech_email:
theinnercityhippy at riseup.net

tech_phone:


focus:
regional_focus

critical_dates:
We would like to get our new website up and running and everyone confident with administering it well before august 1st if possible, when we will be providing a 'be the media' kiosk for a large collectively run event in Leeds which is well attended by local grassroots activists and groups. We hope to use this event as our official launch date.

supporting_groups:
The Common Place, The 1in12 Club, The CP IT collective, The treehouse collective, Claptrap, The Unity Day collective amongst many others.

introductory_statement:
We are a new autonomous collective that was formed following the last UK Indymedia network meeting in Leeds in the summer of 2008, where it was confirmed that the previous Leeds/Bradford IMC collective had become inactive and so in effect no longer existed. We advertised our intention to set up a new collective both to those who still remained on the imc-leeds mailing list, and through a series of media activism skillshares in the region which enabled us to seek new and motivated members to resurrect the newswire which still remained unmaintained on the uk site.

Our desire for autonomy and effective, non-heirarchical collective organisation has been of fundamental importance to us in every stage of resurrecting Indymedia coverage in this region. There has also been much discussion as to how we can best provide an open news platform for the use of grassroots campaigns in this region.

The consensus reached through these discussions was that we were strong enough as a collective to become a fully autonomous imc, as opposed to a region of the United Kollectives and that the best way to provide coverage in this region would be to rename ourselves imc Northern England. 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.

By using the neighbourhoods feature of the new site we are creating, which is the same as that developed by imc London, we hope to empower small local campaigns from a wide geographical area as we can provide them each with a neighbourhood specific newswire whilst also allowing their news to reach a wider audience. 

We have also pledged to use this as an opportunity to do a lot of outreach to these areas and hold at least alternate meetings outside Leeds in order to get more people involved in the Indymedia collective process, who may not previously have had the confidence or numbers locally to do so.

By becoming imc Northern England we seek to compliment and not replace the existing city based imc's in the region and fill in the current gaps of coverage between the areas that provide news for imc's Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Scotland and the current Leeds/Bradford. We also pledge to encourage any area that develops a desire to set up their own imc in this area to do so, will fully support them with this and make every effort to have positive and productive engagement with them for the benefit of the global Indymedia movement.

resources:
At the point of our launch we will be hosted by an autonomous tech collective and will do all we can through fundraising and engagement to support and develop their activities. Several members of the collective are active in organising local tech skillshares and this will provide a good way to develop the skills of other collective members who wish to get involved with the technical process. At least one member of the collective is involved with the development of the Hyperactive cms that we will be using. All of the members are active in other projects and many are part of social centre collectives which can provide spaces for meetings.

outreach:
Through a series of media skillshares and meeting with local activist groups we have a good level of diversity in the types of campaigns we are involved with. We also represent a good spread of age and gender diversity. We have also prepared the resources to hold outreach sessions in the region, including a solar powered, mobile 'be the media' centre which can be used at locally happening events and campaigns, and a series of posters which explains who we are, why we are here and how to get involved.

identity_makeup:
We have quite a good gender diversity amongst the active collective members. Our ongoing outreach work will enable us to identify if and how we should represent spiritual beliefs better, though it does currently reflect well those of the local activists we provide a media platform for. In terms of cultural identity, we have members who are part of a good variety of social networks. There is work to be done however to outreach to the various minority ethnic groups in the region and try to engage them within the collective process.

steps_represent_diversity:
Various members of the collective are active in local social centres that provide free support and English lessons to a wide variety of ethnic groups. We seek to engage with these groups and try to get involvement with translating the site into the various languages that are used in this region. We believe that this will enable us to better explain who we are to these groups and seek their involvement in the collective process to the benefit of everybody in the region. We will also actively seek out and invite participation from all groups that are campaigning in a way compatible with our mission statement.


steps_involve_new_workfields:
By continuing our tech and mobile media activism skillshares, and holding meetings in a wider variety of places, we can support people to develop their existing skills and support them to learn new ones. We will also seek to discover what specific skills new members have and encourage them to share those with the group and find ways to incorporate them effectively into the process of our imc. We commit ourselves to always guard against operating with a gendered work division and will make redressing any imbalances of this kind our highest priority should this happen in the future. Our technical collective members represent both genders at present but this is an area which often has a male imbalance. To guard against this happening in the future, we will discuss ways to encourage more equal participation in this part of the process, perhaps with the use of the tech skillshares we help to provide.

username:
Mark or anyone at imc-northern-contact at lists.indymedia.org