Archive:2008-06-09

This is a Core Team meeting in IRC. The Core Team is meeting at 7 PM PDT / 10 PM EST.

Attendance/introductions
If you put your ?def into jibot, it makes introductions go a LOT faster. If you have no idea what this means, we'll explain in the meeting :)

SFC inboxes

 * Who should be checking our e-mail? Who wants to check our e-mail?
 * We have a bunch of shared IMAP accounts, we may be transitioning to OTRS in the future
 * We have three main inboxes right now:
 * freedom@fc.o is the general inbox
 * newgroup@fc.o is for people starting new chapters
 * media@fc.o is for media inquiries
 * others are mentioned at e-mail but that list is out of date and many of those addresses no longer exist, or are not being checked by anyone

Communal phone numbers + press contacts

 * We can make communal phone numbers for SFC using GrandCentral, by making a single phone number forward to several phones at once. That way, if any one person is available, they can pick up the phone and answer it.  This would even give us communal voicemail, if nobody picks up!
 * Nelson has several GrandCentral invites Actually, I just logged in and they seem to have vanished/expired... I had one left over that I had sent to myself, so I was still able to create a single phone number for SFC, but I do not have more than one phone number available. --Nelson 19:01, 4 May 2008 (EDT)
 * Is there anything functionally wrong with this approach, or evil about Google+GrandCentral that makes it not ideologically compatible?
 * Should we have a press contact phone number? I think so, because it makes it easier for reporters on a deadline to reach us quickly, which helps us get more press.  If so, who should the number forward to?  (How many people can share a GrandCentral account?)
 * Would other communal phone numbers be useful? Such as a "chapter help hotline"?  Or are phones a silly way to do things in this day and age?

Chapter Kickstarter
I just started editing the material and working on a print version (what I've got so far located here--mostly just the intro and a bit of how-to stuff written so far). Feel free to edit anything on the wiki page. Here's some things I could especially use help with:
 * Event/campaign write-ups. Did your chapter participate in the Open Access day of action? Did you put on a CC Art Show? Maybe another event that isn't listed on the kickstarter page yet? I could really use a one-page write-up of what your chapter did, how it went, and what advice you'd give for doing it again. I don't care which one you pick, and the writing doesn't have to be pretty--I just need your sage wisdom and experience. My chapter didn't do every one of the many possible free culture-related events, so I simply can't write all of them.
 * General how-to-be-an-activist advice. How do you get people to keep coming to meetings? How do you keep people motivated? How do you balance organizing events and advocacy with internal discussion and education and fostering team spirit? How do you effectively persuade recalcitrant administrators, professors, or others to change their policies? Again, please pass on any sage wisdom (or grizzled advice) you have so the young, impressionable chapters of tomorrow can learn from your experience!

Add your input to the wiki, [mailto:karen@freeculture.org email it to me], or if you like, talk to me in IRC about it after the meeting.

Sparky Awards ideas

 * Celebrity power
 * SPARC would like to have some sort of film-related notable person to be involved with the awards, ideally a celebrity. Anyone know any celebrities?
 * How about people from Facebook, YouTube, etc?

campusprogress.org
I just found this neat site. it's relevant in that they're students, and they're interested in progress. it might be neat to work with these guys in some capacity: possibly just writing a letter or blog post for them, or perhaps petitioning to add more free culture issues to their list of issues and campaigns. a possible issue is that this site doesn't seem all that nonpartisan, even though their parent group, american progress, claims to be. i'm not sure whether or not this is important. --Parker

New Business
What didn't we get to cover this meeting that should be placed on the agenda for next meeting? (This is a good way to make these agendas more participatory.)


 * The Sparky awards

Attending

 * conley
 * mllerustad
 * skyfaller
 * ftobia
 * sarterus
 * reevessa
 * KB3LWJ
 * Pamagester

Org Communication
we frequently do not respond to them at all, or only respond months later skyfaller doesn't have time to respond to everyone, so we will expand access to be able to read and respond to those emails.
 * The way it is now: people email us, e.g. to start new chapters.

e.g. standardized "how to start a chapter" text website how you can get involved with SFC and how you can start a chapter but the above is too big to be focusing on right now.
 * skyfaller suggests a prewritten text for common situations
 *  and it should all be laid out more clearly on the

interested in starting a chapter?") that you need to be somewhat trained in order to answer.
 * there are a number of questions ("are people at my school

email address, so you can answer questions too when you know what you're doing (if you're interested):
 * people interested in getting access to the shared IMAP


 * Inbox orientation meeting on Weds at 10pm EST

Chapter Kickstarter

 * mllerustad did some work on it and made a printable version.


 * printable version: http://www.nosve.com/activistpacket.doc
 * and mllerustad will re-post this document in ODT by the next meeting

an event their chapter did and write one of those for him. put it on the wiki or email mllerustad.
 * mllerustad will continue work on it, and is enlisting the rest of us to pick

Additional notes

 * [19:34]		just don't delete anything until we're moving into the final draft stage
 * [19:34]		rearrange and add


 * [19:37]	 	hm, yeah, we will probably want to have a meeting just for editing once we have a draft.


 * [19:38]		in fact, even writing about a failure in detail can be interesting and educational
 * [19:38]		if you know why it failed or how you could do it better next time

theoretical SFC/Campus Progress overlap
We all agreed that we should stay apolitical but that it's totally cool if we collaborate with other organizations on FC stuff


 * [19:49]	 	anyway, for this to happen, we should probably just wait until our next campaign that has to do with school-related stuff
 * [19:49]	 	and just remember that they exist
 * [19:49]	 	yeah, I don't think it's actionable now.

This has something to do with an open textbook project which we should remember and bring up again at the beginning of school / end of summer so that when kids look for books, we can point them in a direction

some debate about whether it's a good idea or not each curriculum is different should focus on professors and departments


 * [19:55]		the Student PIRGs are working on the issue and we can help them push the free textbooks angle more http://www.maketextbooksaffordable.org/
 * [19:55]		library organizations are starting to get interested, like SPARC where I am interning this summer

Next Core Team Meeting
Next week, Monday, 06-16-08 10pm EST