[Imc-midwest-regional] new independent media group in cleveland

[patrick turner]

Jay and Sascha,

hi

i wanted to update you on what is happening with the new group working to 
re-establish the cleveland imc site. i also have a few questions on some 
issues i hope you could help us with.

chicken or the egg...

there has been some confusion as to how we can begin to gain experience if 
we dont have access to the site.  should we begin to cover events without 
having anywhere to post our material?

is it ok to post our stories to the global indymedia open newswire?

is it ok to create a seperate website to post our stories and gain 
experience? (there have been some concerns this would conflict with the 
current site and possibly be confusing to the public if/when we get access)

we have also considered asking other imc's in the area to allow us to post 
stories on their sites or work in conjuction with us to cover events.

in reading over some of the new application materials i noticed you suggest 
starting a email list in order to help with outreach efforts. i think this 
is a great idea. and i was wondering if it is possible for us to get 
moderator access to the current cleveland listserv.  because we have been 
using that to communicate and co-ordinate our general meetings. the problem 
is there is no-one moderating the list and it has been getting clogged with 
spam which has detered some people.  at the very least is it possible to 
have someone from the indymedia community "tidy-up" on our behalf :)

now for the next topic...

Annual May 4th Commemoration of Kent State Shootings and Kent State Anti-War 
Commitee Protest of War Without End

this years Kent State Commemoration was a big event.  the organizers are 
hoping these events would be noticed around the world.  there were lots of 
speakers and a march thru the kent state campus that continued into the 
streets of kent and culminated in a protest in one of kents major 
intersection.

we feel this was a important thing for us to be a part of AND a great 
opportunity for us to gain some experience and possibly make a big impact.  
however as i mentioned above we are a little unsure of what is the best way 
to cover these events and more importantly what is the best way to publish 
our story.  as it stands now we have a lot of video footage and we are 
considering publishing written reports via the open publishing feature of 
the imc website.

so far we havent been able to get anything online and many of the activists 
are asking us what is going on.



our next meeting may 12th

these are some things i think we need to have done to help us through the 
process. i will bring them up at our next meeting and see what ppl think.

we need to get a message posted on the current site explaining what is going 
on, why the site isnt being updated and what our group is doing to get 
approved.

we need to have someone moderate the email listserv to get rid of spam so it 
is readable and ppl dont get turned off by it. - OR - we should start a 
seprate email list that is able to be moderated by a few of our members 
(shared moderation duties).

we need to be able to start our own website so ppl can learn some html and 
we can start posting some media. (this should be on one of the free servers 
like geo cities or something so we can share access codes).

the problem with this is it might be confusing having two seprate sites. im 
not sure how to avoid that.

ppl have stopped coming to meetings. i think this is either because they 
feel there is nothing to do until we have access or because we havent been 
publicizing the meetings enough. probably a little of both.


i have been asked by some ppl why the process is taking so long and what 
kind of a time frame you expect for us to get approval. i tried to explain 
that this is totally depends on us an how long it takes us to get organized, 
but if you have any estimate on this please let me know so i can pass it on. 
if you have any areas where you think we need to improve or some short term 
goals we should achieve let us know.

as always any comments, suggestions, concerns, etc please share them with 
us.

email: imc-cleveland at lists.indymedia.org
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-cleveland

thanx,
patrick
patraig at hotmail.com





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