[Imc-midwest-regional] Re: regional IMC shindig?

[Nick Berveiler]

Hello Everyone from Bloomington-Normal,

After reading a little on the main IMC newsgroup, I saw a couple posts and 
I wanted to let somebody out there know that there has been imaginary ideas 
of a Bloomington-Normal IMC. Myself and several friends of mine have been 
involved in progressive groups here in Bloomington-Normal such as: united 
students against sweatshops, green party, student environmental action 
coalition, NAACP, amnesty international, human rights in general, GLBT, 
vegetarian and animal abuse related issues, and others I can't think of off 
the top of my head. All of these groups have been interrelated to some 
extent and I believe that an independent media center would be successful 
here, however I do not know of anyone who has the time to organize this. 
Most of the politics I am exposed to around here is from connections I have 
made within the political science dept. at ISU, although there are other 
progressive groups in B-N that myself and many other people I know have not 
been in frequent contact with. There is a progressive newspaper, the Post 
Amerikan that publishes every two months, and some of us have been working 
on a website that will announce progressive/activist calender events 
happening in Bloomington Normal. www.pabn.org is our site, it has not been 
updated recently because there is a significant number of people not living 
in Normal due to school being out for the summer.

I am starting to get involved at the Urbana IMC, I volunteer on Sundays 
from 4-6. Next weekend I will drop off some copies of the most recent Post 
Amerikan at the Urbana IMC to give others an idea of the politics here in 
B-N. I am definitely interested in working on building connections between 
major cities in central Illinois, as well as somehow connecting with 
Chicago and the suburbs. I am especially interested in working on issues 
that are related to several different communities. Illinois Power Customers 
United to Save Our Trees is a good example. (www.saveiltrees.org) If there 
is anyone in Urbana who is going to be in charge of planning a regional 
get-together, I would probably be able to get 5 or 6 people to get together 
and share ideas as long as I have enough time to tell others. Hopefully 
this list will pick up discussion.

Nick