Indymedia Fundraising Update

by Chekov - 1 of imc.ie Sat Nov 12, 2005 13:35

Attendance: Ant, Seedot, Chekov, PaulB, Dunk

1. Seomra Spraoi

Before the meeting three of us went to seomra spraoi to meet people there and discuss proposal. Broadly, we found Seomra Spraoi people to share our concerns about openness, accessibility and use of space.

Discussed proposal to set up Indymedia space in Seomra Spraoi. Main concern was accessibility to public. It was felt that an ideal arrangement would be to take a basement room rather than upstairs room as this would be more accessible to new people. Considering the state of the house, it would probably take a fairly long time to set up such a space. It would probably take until the Spring to have this up and running. There was some debate over what to do in the meantime. PaulB felt that we should look to set up a space as quickly as possible, while seedot felt that we should wait until we can do it properly as we have already invested a lot of work into breaking out of the ghetto and if we were to set up an indymedia space which was inaccessible or poorly put together, it could knock us back. Chekov felt that we could put computers into the building, get them networked and so on, but work towards having a properly set up space before we launch any public Indymedia centre thing.

Positive Space Policy

Seomra Spraoi people expressed importance of 'Positive Space Policy' with us. We agreed on importance of this and agreed to take part in the discussion and formulation of such a policy on our lists. We thought it was important that all potential issues that could arise in the future should be addressed in the debate over this policy and that an Indymedia sub-group would hopefully form made up of people who were keen to work on the physical space project and that they would be mandated by the overall collective to manage the space.

2. Radio Streaming Situation

We had a brief discussion about the kerfuffle over the streaming of the darklight symposium.

Dunk apologised for not getting proper approval and agreed to use the "1 of imc.ie" or some other personal title in the future for projects that had not gone through the approval process. Everybody accepted this apology and seedot offered to go through a feature approval process with dunk to familiarise him with the way that these things worked.

We went on to talk about general ways in which we worked on the list. PaulB felt that some of the criticism of dunk was over the top. This extended into a general debate about ways of communicating on the list. Chekov expressed the opinion that the best way to deal with this is for us to come up with guidelines for acceptable list usage, but in the absence of this that dealing bluntly with abusers of the list was a necessary evil. Other were not sure about this! Ant volunteered to work on a first draft of list guidelines / rules. This was enthusiastically approved all around and Ant's eminent suitability for the job was applauded.

3. Hosting / Fundraising

Chekov gave update on fundraising (see above). We discussed how we would allocate money in the short term since we have not yet met our target of 2,000 yoyos. We decided that we would send 100 yoyos now to Kino and that we would send him another 100 if we met our target.

UPDATE: since the meeting it has emerged that we can get a 25% discount on our hosting bill if we pay for a year up front. This would save us approximately 200 yoyos and would effectively lower our fundraising target by that much. This should be decided on lists.

Ant. also agreed to investigate the possibility of getting our domain name (due in Feb/March) at a cheaper rate from a reseller other than the IEDR.

UPDATE #2: 25% discount offer agreed on lists and paid.

4. International Proposal.

It was agreed that IMC.ie would object to the Sydney IMC proposal on privacy for the reasons that it would place too heavy a burden on admins and that it might give people the impression that we could ensure more privacy than we can actually deliver. We agreed to propose an amendment to the proposal, namely that the text in [square brackets] should be removed from the proposal. If this is accepted, we would support the new point of unity.

All imc's shall be committed to protecting the privacy and anonymity of their users. The logging of internet protocol (IP) information about users shall be kept to the minimum necessary to maintain control over the server (i.e. in the event of an attack). [In the event that logging is necessary, details of the logging shall be made publicly accessible, including duration of logging, what information was stored, and actions taken as result of the logging.]. Collectives are encouraged to have a public policy on IP logging.

Chekov will convey this to global lists.

5. Any Other Business

It was decided that in future, whoever takes the minutes should post them to the lists and, after 48 hours without objections, should post them to the site.

Next Meeting: December 7th.

by Chekov - 1 of imc.ie Sat Nov 12, 2005 13:25

We have now paid our hosting charges for the next year in advance, we got a 25% reduction on this and it cost us just over 600 yoyos. This means that we are fully paid up until November 2006.

We also contributed 100 yoyos towards the projector fundraising benefit (see: http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72489 )
We are happy to report that the projector has now been purchased, meaning that it should be a lot easier for us and others to organise independent media screenings.

Our current balance is 435 euros.

The remaining projects that we aimed to fund are the following:

(i) €200 towards a back up 'solidarity' server which will allow us to back up the site properly and to host larger media files as well as offering assisted hosting to imc groups in the global south.

(ii) €200 towards equipment purchase for a physical imc space to be located in seomra spraoi.

(iii) €300 as an assistance fund for local groups and to pay for travel etc.

(iv) €135 to pay for our domain rental (due in february and we should be able to get a better price).

So, with 435 in the bank, we are just 400 yoyos short of our fundraising goal for the next 6 months. We should be able to get a cheaper price on our domain name (85 yoyos is realistic) and thus lower the target by another 50 to 350.

We are allocating our current funds as follows:

* 100 towards server space immediately (another 100 will be added when and if we raise the full target)
* 85 'ring-fenced' for domain name.
* 250 'working cash' to be spent on items (ii) and (iii) as the money is required.

Thanks once again for the huge and speedy response to our appeal and, if you haven't already given, remember we're just a few hundred yoyos short of our goals and once we reach them, we'll put our cyber-tins away for at least another 6 months.

by Tony Dunlop Fri Nov 04, 2005 07:54 tony at munkiepus dot com

Nochex doesnt start their international system till later in the year. Be a good one too look out for in the future though.

by Tony Dunlop Fri Nov 04, 2005 07:41 tony at munkiepus dot com

Hey just a quick note, wondering why you are using paypal. they charge 20p +3.4% If you took your donations through nochex then they charge 20p + 2.6%. I know its not a huge differnce but hey, its better that the extra percent goes to the people who need it not lining the pockets of the yank fatcat owners of paypal. (nochex is a british company too).

Food for thought for the next time round. ;)