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Fundraising Update

First off, we wanted to send a huge thank you to all of you who responded to our winter fundraising drive with donations. As of March 1st, we are about 40% of the way to our original goal of $45,000 and have received donations from over 100 people!

For our first member drive ever, we are humbled and grateful at the support of so many people. It's not too late to give (and we still have a ways to go to reach our goal for the year). As we approach our first national gathering (see below) and a large website redesign, know that your donations are being reinvested into ways to bring us all together and build our grassroots mad movement. We are also (always) seeking volunteer grantwriters and development experts to keep our mad ship sailing. If you are interested (or you want tips on how to throw a fundraiser party in your area), please be in touch!

 

USSF Organizing

Join the US Social Forum Icarus Project working group!

WHAT: US Social Forum
WHERE: Detroit, MI
WHEN: June 22-26, 2010

The Icarus Project calls members far and wide to come together this summer at the US Social Forum. We are a member organization of the Forum and sponsoring a workshop on radical mental health. We hope to use this time to build coalitions with other organizations and keep a radical mental health vision in our movements to re-create the world.

Additionally we’re hoping that this time and place will serve as a National Gathering for Icaristas. Ideas at play: renting an Icarus house to inhabit for the week, strategizing about the Project, breaking bread, practicing wellness, and coming together in one place for our first time ever!

How YOU can get involved:

- Participate in the next USSF conference call brainstorm on Sunday, April 4 at 12PM Pacific/3 PM Eastern. Call in number: 218-844-3366 (conf code: ICARUS)

- Email Annie or Angel at [email protected] to be kept in the loop.

- Brainstorm and pursue fundraising to help us cover costs of housing and possibly offer scholarship funds for travel, as well as cover workshop costs.

- Join the discussions on our web forums.

Let's get cracking! June is going to be here before we know it.

More info:

http://ussf2010.org/

https://site.icarusprojectarchive.org/community/icarus-ussf-june-2010

 

 

Mad Love in the Bay Area

We couldn't let the spring go by without giving a big shout out to all the Bay Area Icaristas who made the Feb 14 Mad Love event and fundraiser an awesome experience. Check out the blog post about it here, and look for photos and videos coming soon!

 

Icarus at ReelAbilities Film Fest

On Friday, January 29th, the trailer for forthcoming Icarus-affiliated film Crooked Beauty, "a poetic documentary that explores positive and compassionate models for transforming the experience of madness in our culture" was screened at NYU. This event marked the first and thus far only inclusion of "mental illness" in the disability-themed festival. Read more about Icarus involvement here.

 

Web Redesign

We're launching an ambitious project to redesign our website to make it more user-friendly, expand its possibilities for social networking use, make it more accessible to people using assistive technologies, and in general make it a better place to get and share information, organize projects and events, connect with local groups, etc. Our vision is a more member-driven community where many people are regularly writing articles, submitting art, organizing protests, finding friends, receiving support, sharing curriculum, etc.

If you have a minute, we'd really appreciate your input on what parts of our website are working for you, and what parts, not so much. Chime in on the forums here or email [email protected].

Also, we're definitely in need of volunteer coders with lots or a little experience with HTML, CSS, Drupal 6/7, graphic design, etc.

 

Member Survey

We are almost done with a member survey to help inform our priorities as an organization, identify new volunteers, identify key concerns, spot emerging clusters of people that might want to form a local group, etc. All information will be optional and confidential, but we really hope to expand our working groups and volunteer base and identify some new projects that aren't on our radar, as well as figure out new and better ways to organize and collaborate. Look for it in your email boxes over the next week or two.

 

Call for Essays

As part of the lead up to the US Social Forum this summer, we'd love to feature member essays on our website. Please keep them short-ish - around 500 words - and respond to this prompt:

"Why do you think a radical mental health perspective is vital to the larger global movement for social justice?" and/or "What do you think the radical mental health movement in general, or The Icarus Project in particular, should learn from other movements and organizations working for justice, equity, dignity, and liberation."

Email your essays to [email protected] by May, and we'll try to feature as many of them as possible in the weeks leading up to the USSF. If you include your name and address with your submission - don't worry we won't use your real name unless you want us to - we'll also send you a care package of Icarus stickers and postcards for propaganda (or room decorating) purposes.

 

Local Group Shoutout

We know there are a lot of local groups out there that are off our map here on the internet and in the forums. We'd love to publicize your projects, shower your initiatives with love and attention, and tell the rest of the radical mental health world all the fabulous things you've been up to. Please send any updates for our next quarterly newsletter to [email protected].

 

Icarus on Twitter

Icarus is now on Twitter - Follow us and get notifications of new community bookmarks, new Madness Radio shows, Icarus publications, etc. And be sure to tweet at us stories and links of interest to other TIP members and we will pass them on!

 

A few more notes...

Last, but def not least, we'd like to offer our immense gratitude to Molly for all her tremendous work as the support coordinator for TIP. She's stepping back to spend more time focused on local group organizing and other rad projects that are in the works. We miss her grounded compassion, honesty, and commitment already. For all the work we still have left to do to make our organizational structure more inclusive and transparent, none of what we are building on would have been possible without her patience and presence.

Christin - the mover and shaker behind Minneapolis and Madison local groups and overall awesome person - will be taking over the [email protected] emails and liasoning with local groups. If you feel the call in your heart to be part of the mutual aid and support team at Icarus, please check them out!

We dropped the ball on our all-community call this week, so we're trying again next week. If you want to chat with other Icaristas in real time, feel free to call in 218-844-3366 (conf code: ICARUS)

 

Happy Spring!

The Icarus Coordinating Collective: 
Angel, Annie, Eric, Madigan, and Will