[Imc] UCIMC Board of Directors meeting notes (6/25/01)

[Sascha Meinrath]

The Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC) held its first Board of 
Directors (BoD) meeting on 6/25/01.  The BoD discussed several important 
aspects concerning the current operations and future sustainability of the 
IMC.  Though the BoD is not empowered to implement decisions, below are 
three areas of concern and possible solutions that we feel should be 
discussed by the Steering Committee and interested IMC members.

Present: Sascha Meinrath (note-taker), Mike Lehman, Brian Hagy, Sarah Kanouse

Financial outlook of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC):
	1. need to create new opportunities for fundraising;
	2. will have a budget shortfall in 4 months unless other fundraising 
replaces attrition of founding funders.  Possible solutions:
		a. retail sales;
		b. increased space rental;
		c. sliding scale entrance fees for IMC events;
		d. increased membership;	
		e. grants.

Meeting structures & purposes:
	1. overall, the meeting structures of the IMC have been very successful, 
however, one area of particular concern is that meeting time (i.e.. 
process) is taking away from actionable time (i.e. product).  Thus, we may 
want to revisit either shortening meetings, or holding meetings less 
frequently.
		a. an alternative proposal is to utilize working group e-mail lists more 
fully for decision-making.

Men & Meetings:
	1. the board of directors discussed the overall climate of many IMC 
meetings.  Discussion centered around the issue that meetings often follow 
a typically 'male' debate structure that may make many women 
uncomfortable.  Solution posed:
		a. board discussed monitoring meeting climate with an eye towards how 
discussion takes place and talking with IMC members about ways to decrease 
confrontational styles of debate.

Local news coverage:
	1. the board discussed the need for more extensive local news coverage, 
especially brief items of interest and reporting on activities that IMC 
members are involved with in other organizations.  Solution posed:
		a. news wraps: first proposed by Jason Croft, a news wrap is a several 
paragraph summary of an event/action/topic that can be written in 5-10 
minutes and posted to our website;
		b. encouraging community members to post local coverage to the website -- 
the website has over 1,200 visitors A DAY, thus making it a very good venue 
for posting news stories; in addition, both the UCIMC radio program and the 
UCIMC newspaper draw material from the website.