[Imc] (no subject)

[Michael Feltes]

Minutes from the Print Group meeting, 3:00 pm, 30 Sep
2001

Facilitated by Aaron Kunzmann
Minutes by Michael Feltes

Folks present:  John Wason, Robert Dunn, Belden Fields,
Pauline Bartolone, Pinkel Ghandi, Karen Drengler, Aaron
Kunzmann, Darrin Drda

Pinkel and Karen are U of I students taking a class for
their Comp II requirement centering around grant-writing
for non-profits.  They're currently preparing an application
for a $3,000 grant for the public i; let's hope that
they're successful in their endeavour.

Belden is going to use his access to the Social Science
Department mailboxes to make sure that the faculty and
graduate students are seeing the public i.

There is bad placement of the public i in some places

- YMCA
- Student Union
- Route deliveries need to be finetuned
- Are copies getting to the U of I Library Archives?


Darrin arrives:  Hooray!

Darrin's got the October issue finished at 8 pages with
all "must-includes".  There is only one non-local page
with the Barbara Lee speech and the statement from the
Revolutionary Afghan Women's Association.  He could do
12 pages including the national commentary from Zinn,
et. al., but the resulting paper would be very text-heavy.
 The 8 page layout has a good balance between graphics
and text.

They're trying to figure out the techniques to print
out from the iMac to the 11 x 17 printer.

Proofs can be done by tomorrow, proofread and to the
printer by Tuesday.

Technical difficulties involving a lack of greyscales
in last month's issue should be straightened out.

MAIN TOPIC:  Dwindling numbers and morale

Belden talked to Bob McChesney briefly about getting
involved in the paper with grad students.  He seemed
to be positive about the idea; they'll have lunch on
Thursday.

Pauline concerned that academic influences will predominate
in the paper.

Aaron's main concern is that the original vision was
a group of editors pulling together a paper from articles
submitted from the general IMC membership and the larger
C-U community.  The editors, however, have by and large
written most of the articles.

Pinkel and Karen could do legwork on reaching out to
progressive groups in the community.

Belden is concerned about the frequency of the paper.

- Possibly bimonthly would be easier on those involved.

- Clint Finke, ed. of Community Times in W. Lafayette
only runs quarterly issues, and has had success as an
independent viewpoint for seven years

Brent agrees that bimonthly will help, but has concerns
about the timeliness of articles.  Needs to be a balance
between effort and timeliness.

Robert:  What's wrong with running national alternative
articles?  Not everyone has access to a computer.

Pauline questions the need to meet weekly.

John - if we open things up with a large-scale campaign
to recruit more writers, how will we pick from articles
from a diverse range of viewpoints?

Belden - do we view the response section of the online
public i?  There may be valuable commentary which we
could use.

Six basic ideas for rejuvenating the public i:

- go to a bimonthly format
- fewer print group meetings (perhaps eliminating the
meeting during layout or distribution week)
- recruit more writers through focused flyer and/or letter
campaigns
- pull more articles off the Newswire
- have teams of editors concentrate on one issue and
take a break
- take time off to refocus

Pauline and our two grant-writers (thanks so much) will
send form letters to her list of progressive groups soliciting
articles with specific topics to help focus effort and
similarly flyer public spaces (e.g. the co-ops).  

Pinkel brings up a few questions, on whether so few people
can really represent the community?

Our response: we're only as diverse as those people who
want to contribute to the public i.  We're making efforts
to try and reach out to the whole community, but that's
the best we can do.

Pinkel asks about political affiliation.  We take no
stance as an organization, but we naturally reflect the
perspectives of our membership, which is predominantly
"progressive", FWIW.

"We do not exercise a chilling effect on free speech."
 - John

meeting dissolves


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