Open Media Co-op Organizing Meeting 11/17 6 p.m.
We interrupt our regular editorial schedule to bring you an important announcement. Over the last year we've written a number of times about our work on launching an Open Media Co-operative as a democratically-run business wing of Open Media Boston. Well now it's go time. Next week, on Nov. 17th at 6 p.m. we're having an organizing meeting for the co-op at the Community Church of Boston, and you're all invited. The first part of the meeting will be public; so if you're just curious about the new co-op, and want to hear more, come on down. The second part of the meeting will be for those of you who are ready to commit a few bucks a month to helping Open Media Boston achieve economic independence ... and keep providing you progressive news and views about Boston and environs week in and week out. Read on for more details. Hope to see you there! If you're planning to come, let us know at info@openmediaboston.org or on our Facebook event page. (And be sure to take the survey at the bottom of this announcement whether you can make the meeting or not. Thanks!)
**INVITATION**
(please forward widely)
Boston area progressives are cordially invited to attend the
Open Media Co-operative Organizing Meeting
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
6-8 p.m.
Community Church of Boston
Guatemala Room
565 Boylston St.
3rd Floor
Boston
(right near Copley Square Green and Orange Line T stops)
Map: http://bit.ly/9AbubV
**AGENDA**
The meeting will be divided into two parts.
The first part - which will last about 30 minutes - will be for the general public and will explain the history of the idea of founding a consumer co-op for an online news publication like Open Media Boston, how we'd like it to work, and how people can get involved.
The second part - which will last about an hour and a half - will be for people who decide to commit to joining the Open Media Co-op as its founding members, pledge a minimum of (roughly) $3 a month, and get involved with regular work on the co-op.
Light refreshments will be served.
**GOAL**
The goal of the Open Media Co-op is to help build Open Media Boston into a progressive news publication that is sustainable over the long term. We'd like more paid staff, we'd like to pay our freelancers, we'd like to come out more often than weekly, and we'd like to compete with the mainstream media for an ever-growing share of the Boston area news audience. We think a co-op is the alternative economic organizational form most likely to help us reach our goal.
**BACKGROUND**
As stated in a number of Open Media Boston editorials, we're starting a co-op because we think it may be the only way to survive and thrive over the long term - and keep on providing the kind of quality metro news coverage and progressive editorial stances that we know our audience has come to expect.
We also think that a co-op will be popular with our largely progressive audience - because a co-operator will mean getting directly involved in democratically-running a media business.
Rather than being a passive investor or donor or subscriber, co-operators will help make Open Media Boston go - putting in some cash and "sweat equity" every month to provide themselves with up-to-the-minute news about their community and the world around it. News that's produced by journalists who have a strong commitment to democracy and social justice. To "afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted" as the old adage goes. Which unfortunately is not the standard for news media in this day and age.
Each Open Media Co-op member will get to cast votes that determine how the co-op runs and therefore how Open Media Boston grows over the months and years to come. Open Media Boston will become a member-owned publication - which we think will be a real advance - and blaze a path for future media co-ops to follow all over the country.
**SURVEY**
We'd like to encourage anyone who is interested in the Open Media Co-op concept to take a few minutes to fill out our survey - whether you can make our organizing meeting or not. We'll be using the data from the survey to gauge community interest in the concept and identify what kind of participation we can expect from our co-operators.
Just click the following link to get to the survey on Google
Questions? Comments? Email us at info@openmediaboston.org.
