Month 10: IMC Fest & A Return to Research

Stephen Fonzo — Sat, 09 May 2009 23:18:53 +0000

April-May started with the IMC Fest, three days of music featuring nearly 30 local performers and an art show in partnership with the Champaign-Urbana Boneyard Arts Festival. I was stage manager and worked with volunteer stage and sound techs, as well as artists, to keep us on schedule and make sure everything was working. The event, which was great fun and raised money for our organization, was largely planned and organized by Dan Blah, our VISTA Supervisor at the IMC. The weekend gave us a chance to promote the IMC, attract new members, and support the thriving artistic community here in C-U.

On the training side, I offered three sessions - one on WordPress; one on radio automation (using ZaraRadio); and one on live sound. For those curious about live sound, you will see by searching the Internet that most training guides or courses are not free. Here are some links to free information to get you started: Basic Introduction by Lou Gross; sound reinforcement system article on Wikipedia; and mixing article from Wikipedia.

Nearly everything else this month has been about preparing for the summer. For the IMC as a whole, this has meant the recruiting of over a dozen summer youth positions, funded through the Champaign Consortium and organized by Nicole, while making internal space and institutional improvements for staff and guests. For me, this has meant getting ready for my last two months as a CTC*VISTA and working towards leaving a useful legacy in media training documentation. So far this year, I have offered dozens on hands-on workshops, helped to create and organize two large fundraisers, built partnerships with other local organizations, formalized working group procedures, and updated and suggested improvements to the IMC's production facilities, all of which have involved networking and collaborating and spending long hours at the IMC working with others. Throughout the course of these last ten months, I have kept detailed notes and drafted some training materials, but seldom have had the time to sit down and compile it all. So, from now until mid-July I will be working more independently on creating and archiving training documents, and have already begun doing more research to this end.

During April and May I did most of the substantive budget and curriculum development for the first session of the Don Moyers Boys & Girls Club's Teen Computer Lab program, which will begin in June. This has included outlining computer workstation and media peripheral specifications (with guidance from VISTA Leader Josh King), compiling training materials and exercises, organizing meetings of team partners, and researching new and innovative technologies, especially Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) for use in the lab.

Here are just a few links that I have found to be very helpful in my research and documentation:
- List of open source software packages
- FLOSS Manuals
- The OSSWin Project: Open Source for Windows

There is much more available, but those are decent places to start.

My Letter to John Mayer...I'm Not Waiting

danielle martin — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 20:52:00 +0000

Dear Mr. Mayer,

I've been a fan of your songwriting and style for quite a while. I've persisted in this admiration even in the face of people calling you a "sell-out", your experimentation with new genres, and your screaming female co-ed fan base. Many times, I've marveled on how well you articulated moments of behavior and feelings around growing as a post college adult and finding a purpose in the world. I tend to actually pay for your albums and listen to what you have to say, as do millions of other people. In this way, I've become a consumer of both your goods and your philosophy.

But I am also an activist. I believe every person has a story and deserves to be heard. I speak out for what I believe, but I also made a now two-year commitment an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers In Service to America) to actually take action to support my beliefs as well. And while I try to read and listen to as many voices as I can to both support and challenge my beliefs, the one voice I refuse to give audience is one of apathy.

In my work as a VISTA (especially with my placement this year with the housing developments of Boston and Massachusetts), I've listened to many types of voices: voices of fear of walking down a street to participate in GED programs because of gang violence; voices of anger around misrepresentation in the media; voices of exhaustion about the powerlessness caused by bureaucratic systems and ignorance of opportunity. Many of these voices are not heard beyond the walls of small community centers, church basements, or under funded technology programs, and certainly not in the mainstream media or on the floor of Congress. And I have to admit there were moments in the past couple weeks where I was shocked that people were hesitant to share their voice with me because of who I am and where I come from.

Here’s why I’m writing to you. Your song "Waiting on the World to Change" angers me - not because I disagree when it calls out an unpopular war, media bias, or corporate owned media content, but because its proposed solution is to abide. I'm glad you “care” and have awareness that “the fight ain’t fair.” But I’m discouraged to hear that you know these things, but have chosen to use your far-reaching voice to encourage our shared generation to merely “wait” for it all to blow over until power comes to us by default.

While working with non-profits, I’ve encountered a surprising fear of change in the way we do things, even though our missions is often to exact change in other institutions, systems, and individuals. In the face of such stoicism, some fellow VISTAs have expressed frustration and say “why doesn’t that older generation just loosen up a bit or let us take the lead?” In our role of building capacity in the war against poverty and disempowerment in one short year, there’s no room for VISTAs to wait for the voice of the people we serve to be heard. We’re not volunteers in waiting for America. We’re “standing at a distance” from the sources of funding and power in our communities, but we’re trying to improve the system and enact change NOW because the need is not always in the far off future

So every “we” uttered in your song angers me, because you purport to represent my fellow VISTAs and I…and you don’t. If you feel misunderstood, Mr. Mayer, then I’d wish you’d turn your writing talent and power to reach millions of listeners toward highlighting the work of few who are trying to empower people to make change, if you’re not willing to do it yourself.

Sincerely,

Danielle Martin

VISTA Leader

CTC VISTA Project / MassIMPACT

P.S. Please note: the opinions in this letter are solely my own and do not represent those of the CTC VISTA Project or MassIMPACT. In addition, you could also begin to remedy this situation by providing free tickets to your shows to any interested AmeriCorps volunteers and giving them a chance to share their work with your audiences. VISTAs love free tickets.

Digital Arts Service Corps - music

Month 10: IMC Fest & A Return to Research

My Letter to John Mayer...I'm Not Waiting