USSF Update

This year TIP presented two workshops at the US Social Forum in Detroit, collaborated on a screening of Ken Paul Rosenthal's documentary Crooked Beauty, as well as gathered in a house for about a week to plot, scheme, dream, cook and be together.

Our workshops Radical Mental Health for Activistsand Collective Liberation and Radical Mental Health (taking care of yourself and each other, and building our movement, respectively) were extraordinarily well attended -- more than a hundred people came -- and we were all inspired and humbled by the growing radical mental health and health/healing justice movements in this country. We came away with a renewed sense of possibility and focus for future coalition building and the importance of the work we are doing. Special thanks to Angel, Annie, Emiko, Kim, Kiran, and Jacks for their facilitation during workshops.

As well, about twenty Icaristas were in and out of the house at different times, and this marked the first but definitely not the last national gathering of TIP members. We encompassed local groups, internet-only Icarus members, people who have been involved in Icarus since its inception as well as people who just heard about us recently. All told, we had Icaristas from New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, California, Massachusetts, Idaho, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and Ontario!  It was so inspiring to be in the same place together and do some planning for the future. Icarus members took part in the Food Justice and Health Justice People's Movement Assemblies, attended workshops on somatic healing together, represented at disability rights and youth rights workshops, and more.

A special special Icarus exclamation of gratitude to Jones - the street medic and activist chauffeur extraordinaire who went above and beyond over the course of the week to make sure people got to where they needed to go and had what they needed. You were the wind beneath our Icarus wings.

* See pictures from the week here!

* See video clips from one of the Icarus workshops here

* Read a first-hand account of an Icarus member's attendance here or our forum thread.

 Fundraising SOS!

At the beginning of this year, we told you our winter fundraiser went about halfway to meeting our goals for the year, and it did. Unfortunately, we are now about halfway through the year which means we are almost out of money.

Stipends for coordinators are currently on hold and we are dipping deep into reserve funds to pay our office rent, our postage and website expenses, etc. We are literally running on fumes and need to raise the second half of our $45,000 goal over the next month.

Our goal of organizing a national Icarus gathering at the US Social Forum was a resounding success - we are looking for $20,000 over the next month to meet our modest financial needs for the rest of the year - including a major website overhaul and the seeding of a few new local groups.

If you have ever thought to yourself, "Maybe I should become an Icarus member..." but didn't follow through, now is the time!

PLEASE DONATE TO ICARUS TODAY

We are also looking for volunteers to do development work, prospect research, grant-writing, and thinking of other out-of-the box fundraising activities.

For a snapshot of our finances so far this year including expenses, number of donors, donations brought in, etc. - please see our financial transparencypage.

If you have already donated to Icarus, thank you so much! Could you send a postcard to a few friends and family members by clicking here and asking them tosupport TIP as well?

Website Update

We are zooming towards an early fall website overhaul, finances be damned! Our new website is built on the back of the latest version of Drupal and we hope that it can become a much broader resource for networking, local group updates, opinion and news about current events, etc.

Background work is going on all the time and we hope to have an in-person "design sprint" sometime in early fall in NYC. If you have an interest or skills in design, content management systems, art/graphics, etc we'd love to have you on board for as little or as much as you want.

Email Eric at admin@theicarusproject.net

If you have thoughts on features you would like to see, please chime in on the forum thread.

Advisory Council

As we grow/change/evolve, it has become apparent that we definitely need a group of people interested in radical mental health and The Icarus Project that aren't necessarily involved in the day-to-day details of the organization. We need folks that canhold the larger vision of where we are headed, to advise and help steer us organizationally and structurally, to help us build stronger and deeper relationships with our allies, and to provide an accountability check for the organizing that is happening.

We would love people that have been involved in Icarus in the past, as well as new faces. People that have different parts of the puzzle -- grassroots organizing experience, nonprofit and coop management experience, surviving/subverting/and working within the mainstream mental health system, tech and social media experience, etc.

Does this sound like a fit for you, or do you have someone to recommend for us to reach out to? If so, please email us at coordinators@theicarusproject.net

Call for Art from the Northeast

TIP is having an art show and fundraiser in conjunction with Small World Coffee in Princeton, NJ in November. We are looking for 30-50 pieces to be shown at the cafe from artists who live in the NJ/PA/NY/MA/CT area. 

If you are interested in an opportunity to both show and sell your work (50/50 split with TIP as an organization), please be in touch with Annie who will be coordinating the event with the cafe.

Other tidbits

- Most of us have read and been really impressed by Robert Whitaker's new book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs and the Rise of Mental Illness in America. If you haven't read it yet, you should check it out. (And props to Mindfreedom and others who rallied to save his keynote opportunity at this year's Alternatives conference.)

- Submissions for Scarsongs, TIP's new zine/collaboration on trauma, activism, social justice and mental health, have been received. Bay Area Icarus folks including Icarus co-founder Jacks McNamara are hard at work on editing it.

- We are currently working on the next edition of theHarm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs. For information on how successful the first run has been, and to find out how to contribute updates, edits, new information, etc please check this thread or contact Will.

- We recently updated our forum moderation policyand had some moderators step down, others step up, etc. We would like to thank all of the forum community members who have volunteered so much of their time over the past few years to keep the forums safe, welcoming, and kick ass.

Special thanks to babblefish, chiaroscuro, ecatcher, flip, dharmageddon, silverelf, inel, dawndelion, and strangedoll in particular.