Icarus Staff Call Meeting Minutes 5/2/07

Next staff call: Wed. May 9th at 3 pm EST. We miss Will!!!

check-ins.

Tour
will be discussed in detail at tour organizing call on Saturday afternoon at 3 pm EST.
brief discussion of the idea of inspiring icarus events to take place at the same time in cities that we can't physically get to. segwayed into discussion of us having our shit together to get packets of materials sent out to local organizers doing simultaneous events. Ashley suggested that we schedule some specific mail-out dates in August and September that could be workparties to get the goods out. Madigan liked this idea. Also, Ashley and Sascha met this awesome woman Lizzie on Tues. night who is a touring musician who is working on setting up touring co-ops with houses across the country where folks on tour can stay and tour in a more sustainable way... she wants to help with tour organizing/inspiration in some way, and offered her home in columbus, missouri (which is right in the middle of the country) if we need somewhere to crash and re-group. You can find out more about her at http://lizziewestlife.com

Bookkeeper
Oryx isn't going to do it. Ashley got back in touch with her friend, the local yoga studio director, who does bookkeeping at home as a side job, to see if she would be interested. Sent her specs, details, etc. She's very interested. Usually charges $25 an hour, but said she would be willing to charge us $20 since we're a non-profit. I'm going to meet with her on Tuesday and discuss further. Seems very promising. She is stable, reliable, experienced, and not dealing with personal madness. Might be a good steady person to take on essential role in an organized way. Ashley will report back at next staff call.

This Friday: Sascha will be in NYC. meeting with Alan Doyle and other stuff. checking in at FH.

Neil and Liz would be happy to have their essays put up on the Icarus website. Neil will be on David Oaks' mindfreedom radion show next week.

CivicCRM contact database: seems like with all this tour planning and networking going on, it would be good to get this rocking. alicia has expressed interest in working on it, but wouldn't have time until she quits her other job, which she says she's going to do in 8 weeks or so, and she may want more Icarus hours at that point. But this is unreliable and uncertain at this point. Then we discussed reaching out to reliable, smart NYC icarus people, like alex, and seeing if they might be interested in helping out with this.

Materials Planning
Discussed getting more collaboration and feedback from icaristas in general on our publications, and moving away from the model of the national staff kinda secretly working on some new big project and then – poof – revealing it. Sketched a list of potential materials. It is large. Ashley mentioned wanting to get more people involved in working on materials, and specifically getting more people with the skillsets that allow us to actually get things finished and to the printer (final editing, layout, graphic design, etc.) Ashley feels a bit overwhelmed being the only person with the computer-crunching finalizing-skillset, since her mental health is shaky and deadlines are hard for her, and she's not always capable of rising to the challenge. Also – we have lots of capable and amazing writers in the Icarus network. So we proposed:

Forming a Materials Workgroup
Ashley's going to write up a description of some of the various tasks involved in getting Icarus materials out there, and the subject areas we're thinking of covering, and start reaching out to icarus organizers, website folks, and other allies like visual resistance, to see if we can form an Icarus materials workgroup and start prioritizing, coordinating, writing, and delegating as a group rather than having so much fall on staff, and local folks feel like they're not really being involved/consulted.

Potential Materials It Would Be Useful to Have Soon

stickers/postcards
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new TIP postcard w/basic info about what we are, and contact info
other stickers

brochures/guides
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mad maps
drug guide
media talking points
nat'l/local collab
updated version of support manual?
college-focused organizing materials?
topical discussion guides and fact-sheets

what is icarus info
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FAQ/brochure
mission statement
printed versions of local/nat'l collab doc, wellness policy, other documents that already exist but only in digital form

graphics/posters
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new graphics, comics, and posters. reach out to our artist friends and collaborators.