[Imc] Rethinking My Role...

[mfeltes at ucimc.org]

There are no papers at the Urbana Library- and at various strategic points
around town.  I take it from lack of response to Johns questions that no 
one printed out new delivery sheets.

We have to get a delivery coordinator person ASAP.

I'm not going to do it from the IMC. I was perfectly willing to do it my own
way from my home computer before I went to Vermont, it got usurped, and 
has been a mess ever since. It is not brain surgery. Would require about 
5-6 hours a month.

Please, someone step forward for this job.  Someone... not with an idea
about it... but who will actually just do it.

We don't need a bunch of meetings about it. We don't need a committee. It
just needs to be done.

Sandra


Every criticism here is completely justified, Sandra.  My stewardship of the 
distribution routes has been a signal failure.  I should never have taken it 
from you in the first place.  I'm sorry.

I would like to remind the group, however, of my early efforts to build up 
the distribution system into a less taxing entity.  Remember the flyers 
that I designed?  The ones that I paid to have photocopied out of my own 
funds?  Do you remember how I set up the front table with these flyers 
and asked you to post them at your stops?  The entire idea was to take 
the burden of distributing the papers off the editorial collective and bring in 
new blood.  The initiative met with stony indifference from the Print Group, 
and I'm using my flyers as printing paper.  Now, this certainly does not 
excuse my neglect of the basics of the job, but you can understand how 
my enthusiasm might be dampened.

My enthusiasm is dampened.  That's a good phrase, and accurate.  I'm 
doing a LOT of work right now at the IMC, but very little of it is related to 
what I really enjoy, and what I thought we were about in the first place, 
producing news.  I haven't written a story since my Firestone article.  I 
haven't produced an audio piece since the Pacifism in Action Newshour, 
and that wasn't really news.  I've gotten sucked in to the maintainance of 
the IMC and its parts as organizations because I perceive such need 
there, but they are sapping my energy and passion because I have no 
love for them.  

I did not want to be an editor of the public i.  John pestered me about it for 
two months.  My name was actually put on the masthead without my 
consent before I gave in and let de facto become de jure.  However, you 
will notice that I have been Labor Editor in name only.  I haven't solicited 
any articles for the public i, except for the GEO article from Laura Neil, and 
I didn't pursue that lead with any vigor.  Why?  I don't like to do it.  I have a 
problem asking people who I do not know to invest time or money for me, 
a perfect stranger; it's the same block that has made me uncomfortable 
about approaching businesses for underwriting support, and it's the 
same feeling that made me a bad popcorn seller in Cub Scouts and a 
bad candy bar seller in a Catholic grade school.  

Effective immediately, I am stepping down as Labor/Economics Editor, 
Spokesperson from the Print Group to the Steering Group, and 
Distribution Coordinator.  

I hope that I will feel comfortable at some point in the future in returning to 
the public i in the role that I envisioned originally, that of a writer, and that 
my enthusiasm for this alternative media will return.

Michael Feltes