*** anyone interested in joining the Halifax Media Coop Organizing listserv, or attending the next meeting can contact hillary|at|mediacoop.ca *****
Minutes from organizing meeting for the Halifax Media Coop on Monday March 9.
Present: Angela Day, Hillary Lindsay, Glen Canning, Steve Caines, Vivian Belik and Asaf Rashid.
Next meeting: Tuesday March 17th at 5 pm at Alter Egos (Backpackers) on Gottingen.
1) Recap on the month of Feb and where we are now
- 13 presentations
- 11 people signed up as sustainers (at $20/month)
- Over 150 people on our contact list
- Over 300 on facebook
- serious interest from some unions
We need 50 sustainers in order to do what we've been aiming for (paying a part time organizer, paying 4 journalists per month, having an active newswire and active working groups). Currently, the sustainer money we have is going towards Hillary, who is organizing for the Dominion and the Halifax Media Coop.
2) Future Fundraising
- we would like to continue doing the presentation we were doing throughout the month of february.
Organizations/groups already presented to include:
Student Coalition Against War
Kings Journalism School
Ecology Action Centre
Halifax Labour Council
Council of Canadians
Oxfam
Halifax Coalition Against Poverty
Halifax Peace Coalition
CUPE
PSAC
CUPW presentation planned
We'd like to do more union presentations, presentations to profs, perhaps a presentations at the NDP convention this summer?
Hillary's going to contact the Atlantic Council of International Cooperation about a presentation. We decided to brainstorm groups over email and at the next meeting. Please throw out ideas!
- Steve is going to look into the Sackville River's Association becoming an organizational sustainer. Perhaps we could do a lunchtime presentation there too?
- Dru is working on getting a 'thermometer' on the HMC website that tracks the number of sustainers that we have and how many we need.
- Hillary will draft a letter to go out to all our contacts, that includes an update, how folks can plug in/ help out and also asks people to sustain.
- We talked about having a fundraiser at the Bus Stop with bands etc. We decided to table it until the next meeting.
3) Skillshare Series
- We decided to have a journalism skillshare series, in order to continue to build momentum for the HMC, and in order to build a base of contributors to the webiste.
- We decided to start with 3 workshops, print, audio and video
- Hillary will look into location, possibilities sugested included the North Branch Library (which apparently costs money now), Anchor Archive, the Hub, and the GPI offices.
- Dates proposed are:
Tuesday March 31: Print - Faciliatiated by Vivian and Hillary
Tuesday April 7: Audio - Facilitated by David Parker (David, can you do this?)
Tuesday April 21 (there's already an event on the 14th): Video - Facilitated by Glen Canning
- Vivian submitted an application to NSPIRG for funding for the skillshare.
4) Guidelines for posting
- we had a discussion about whether or not stuff posted as stories should be original, or if it's more important to simply have new content up there as the website is just getting of the ground.
- there were no strong feelings either way, we decided to look at the guidelines that existed on the site already for posting, and then brainstorm further guidelines at the next meeting.
- we decided that we should suggest that authors disclose any conflict of interest they might have (ie NSPIRG reporting on an NSPIRG action) at the end of the article
5) New content on website
- Hillary did an interview on Monday about a woman who bought up a block of houses to stop developers from buying it, she'll write up something this week
- Someone from NSPIRG will cover the action against the DSU on Wednesday
- Angela and Vivian are going to cover the talk of a visiting author
- Vivian is looking into doing presentations in first year Journalism classes
- Vivian is going to check out an interesting pot hole on spring garden.
6) Israel Apartheid Week request to sponsor
- We decided that the HMC will cover things, but not sponsor them.
7) Next meeting
Tuesday March 17 at 5pm at Alteregos
On the agenda:
- Skillshare
- Posting Guidelines
- Fundraiser
- Working Groups
The site for the Halifax local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.
