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Announcement :: UCIMC |
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Kickoff Party For UC IMC Building Fund Drive This Saturday! |
Current rating: 0 |
by Mike Lehman
(No verified email address) |
23 Oct 2002
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To kick off this campaign, we are going to have -- not another meeting -- a party! On Saturday, October 26, you are invited to the IMC for food and fun from 5 to 7pm. There will be a very brief presentation at 6pm on our vision of a permanent IMC, but mostly we want to mingle, talk, and get YOUR input, building excitement for the Capital Campaign and a permanent home! We hope that you will consider making a commitment then to the Capital Campaign. All funds raised will be committed to a permanent home for the Urbana-Champaign IMC. We look forward to your presence and participation! |
Capital may be a dirty word to some. But the most essential and definitive part of any enterprise is WHO controls the capital. Investing in Independent Media reaps great rewards in information, democracy, and liberation, putting real people, not some stale, retread elite, in the driver's seat of a new news, arts, and information paradigm.
The kickoff party this Saturday, Oct. 26, will give everyone a chance to join together to build a permanent home for what is the fastest growing, most dynamic, and most effective popular movement of the new millennium in our community, the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center.
Come out and enjoy food and drink while joining together to build a bright and growing future for the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center this Saturday!
Dear IMC Supporter,
Just the other day, I heard a remark that one could fund an Independent Media Center for $300 a year. And if our community only needed a virtual IMC -- just a webpage -- this might be true. Right from the beginning, our community's vision of what an IMC should be has been much more expansive and inclusive. We became one of the first brick-and-mortar IMCs to accommodate these many needs and desires.
In the last two years, we have not only created a website that provides an important venue for news and commentary that would not otherwise be aired, but also provided media equipment and production facilities for the IMC Newshour that airs on WEFT, as well as producing material for nationally syndicated news programs. Our free monthly, the Public I, has a press run of 5,000 and our library has a great selection of alternative books and periodicals. We have an active venue for great music, a weekly open Cabaret, and have just opened the new Middle Room Gallery, already booked with shows of local art into next spring.
To house all these programs, we have the IMC itself, to which volunteers have donated thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours so that it can accommodate the hundreds of people who use our facilities every week. However, the future is uncertain. Our wonderful landlords will be leaving town next spring and will be selling the building. Unless we either purchase the building or find someplace else to move, the IMC as you know it may come to an end.
The recent membership meeting authorized the Steering Group to begin a Capital Campaign to assure a permanent home for Indymedia in our community. Buying our current facility is one option, but the Steering Group is committed to looking at all possibilities to ensure the most cost effective long-term solution to the IMC's needs.
Just two years ago, we began when 10 individuals pledged $600 a year each to get the IMC started. We are appealing to the now far larger group in our community that depends on the IMC to make a similar commitment to put the IMC in a permanent home. We need to raise $100,000 for a down payment on a permanent home, along with a fund to cover the costs of making building ownership a viable option. Finding just 100 people who would be willing to donate $1,000 each will make this possible and everyone who donates at least $1,000 will become a life member of the IMC. But we realize that not everyone can make this sort of commitment, so donations of any size to the IMC Capital Campaign are also going to be absolutely necessary.
To kick off this campaign, we are going to have -- not another meeting -- a party! On Saturday, October 26, you are invited to the IMC for food and fun from 5 to 7pm. There will be a very brief presentation at 6pm on our vision of a permanent IMC, but mostly we want to mingle, talk, and get YOUR input, building excitement for the Capital Campaign and a permanent home! We hope that you will consider making a commitment then to the Capital Campaign. All funds raised will be committed to a permanent home for the Urbana-Champaign IMC. We look forward to your presence!
For a successful Capital Campaign,
Mike Lehman
for the Urbana-Champaign IMC Steering Group
I hope to see you there Saturday! |
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The March Toward Our Goal Of $100,000 Off To A Successful Start |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
24 Oct 2002
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The Capital Campaign to purchase a permamnent home fo for the UC IMC began successfully this evening with $4,400 being raised. The Social Equity Group took care of supplying the great food, donated in part by Sandwich Boy and Mirabelle. Thanks to everyone who made it a fun time, including a folk performance by the Mark Erelli and Beth Amsel. |
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More Thanks |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
26 Oct 2002
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These fine institutions also contributed to the success of the Capital Campaign Kickoff Party:
The Jerusalem Restaurant
Strawberry Fields
The Corkscrew
Thank you for your gracious contributions! |
