Month 1: Working the Working Groups at the UCIMC

The over-arching goal of my first month of VISTA service has been to understand and coordinate the efforts of the many “working groups” that comprise my host organization, the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (UC-IMC). The UC-IMC is a grassroots organization in the IndyMedia network committed to using media production and distribution as tools for promoting social and economic justice in the Champaign County area. The UC-IMC is a unique non-profit that has many resources but no staff – it is a collective of passionate and talented volunteers who help maintain and provide tools and spaces for independent media creation in a great historic post-office building that includes a stage, radio station, computer lab, production studios, art studios, library, and meeting spaces. These volunteers make it all function by organizing into working groups that focus on one area of community interest or media expertise – so there is a Shows group for live events and stage shows; a Print group that publishes an independent newspaper, the Public i; a radio group that runs WRFU 104.5FM; a Tech group; Web group; and many others. Everything is based on consensus decision-making, some volunteers have more time than others, and some groups are larger and more active than others, so things are vital and creative but loosely organized.

In this framework of total independence and intentional self-organization, Nicole Pion and I as VISTAs are the only actual staff at the IMC. As such, the challenges we have faced during our first month are improving the effectiveness of each group in its media and social outreach projects while also getting those groups to work together rather than separately, and balancing our own time between staffing the building on a daily basis and planning long-term social tech projects. It is demanding and rewarding work, and I greatly benefit from collaborating with Nicole, who is bringing non-profit and outreach experience and a keen social organizing perspective, and the ever tech-savvy Josh King, the mighty VISTA leader of whom legends will be told, at least over the course of this next year. The most significant resources that each of us has found and developed in the past month are partnerships with other organizations and media producers locally. I have begun cultivating working relationships with AWARE (Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort), Urbana Public-access Television (UPTV), the Pygmalion Music Festival, The Sunlight Foundation, and Pogo Studio, and there are many more I hope to contact over the next few months.

Of all my current or completed projects, the one that has been my primary concern is the restoration and updating of the UCIMC Production Room, which doubles as a multimedia production studio and as the VISTA office for Nicole and I. There is of course space always reserved for Josh who comes and works with us several times a week, and who helped us all a great deal by updating our Linux Ubuntu workstations and by providing tech equipment and guidance. Organizing members of the Tech and Shows groups, I have helped re-instate the UCIMC Media Production group to manage the studio and to offer educational and media editing services to the public. I will be meeting late this week with a member of Tech, the WRFU station manager, and Nicole, who is helping us apply for a community grant that will allow us to update our public-access lab and develop a curriculum for open-source media workshops. Already we have set up Linux, PC, and Mac workstations, with a wide variety of open-source, freeware, and commercial studio software programs. I have started a log-in system for accessing the facilities and for donating equipment, and I am building a budget with which to make further improvements.

Other current projects include ongoing training sessions that I am offering to UCIMC volunteers on recording audio from multiple sources, testing and connecting A/V devices, and live sound reinforcement. I have inadvertently become somewhat of a venue manager due to the small size of the volunteer Shows group, and even though I enjoy working with a sound system that I helped set up (look for Chris Evans’ huge cardboard sculptures), this has become a source of direct service that I will have to spend less time doing. My next major workshop will be the re-training of the entire WRFU staff on studio and on-location broadcasting, which will begin late this week and continue through September. Currently I am also editing an AWARE video project and scheduling a webinar on independent and local congressional investigation between Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, WRFU, Public i, and IMC-Web.

My expectations and challenges for the next month will be drafting the first series of media training manuals, developing workshop curriculum on open-source media production, recording PSAs and shows for WRFU, and video projects with the Public i, Shows group, and the Urbana-Champaign Bike Project. I also expect that my future field reports will be shorter. I have much to do and more to learn, and there will need to be as much community networking as technical work in order to achieve my project goals. I look forward to reading everyone else’s reports, and I am ready to be educated and humbled by my fellow VISTAs, who are all doing interesting and impressive work.

Here is a photo of Urbana, IL taken from the roof of the IMC by our supervisor Dan.

Comment from Josh King on August 19, 2008 - 5:02pm

Legends are cool. Especially when sung as viking sagas. In heavy metal videos. Guess what your next assignment is? ;)
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In Solidarity,

Josh King
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CTC*VISTA Leader