communications minutes- november

The following are the emails sent back and forth between the communications wg in late november pre face to face meeting
topics include-
website
wc website
outreach letters/advertising/fundraising
contact information

to sum it all up:
moc.liamg|pmachctiwtsivitcaeerf#moc.liamg|pmachctiwtsivitcaeerf is the new fawc email address which glimmer will check
we need someone's address/phone number for contact
we need a webwitch to update the site
glimmer will update wc website with fawc info
we will sent email outreach letters out after the face to face meeting with:
what fawc is
date
description of location (but not exact spot)
food- seeds of peace
call for donations/support
teachers applications?

we wish to create content for other camps/events to promote camp,receive donations, support
launch communications more around imbolc with theme and story and teachers (hopefully!)


nov 20
amara

hey all
here's a little update about our roles as communications, we just had a coordinations call.
so, for the face to face meeting some arrangements need to be made and people communicated with about whos coming, and when, glimmer would you be up to sharing this task? it would involve some emailing and calling.
and, other stuff
camp is august 1-7 at —- lake, but we will be keeping that location and only revealing it upon registration. looks like the best way to communicate would be to describe it as a beautiful wilderness location a couple hours from portland.
the website needs to be updated, along with contact information
this could also involve the registration commitee, we were talking about having a generic email address that communications/registration has access to, and perhaps we rotate who the outreach person is. what do you all think of this?
it would be great to store the info of last years camp on the wiki.
and put a link on the site to the wiki.
neither glimmer nor i know how to do this. gabriel? are you receiving these messages? we haven't heard from you.
my sister may be able to help us put up the site, but she is busy and pregnant, it would be better with us. perhaps we need to find someone that could join our group that has the energy to do this.
the all witch camp page should also be updated, which means sending an email to them and giving them our information, a basic 'camp is happening' piece, that camp is no one turned away for lack of funds, but we ask for donation, and more info available on our website …
also, we talked on the coordinations call that all our notes from meetings of wg be posted on the wiki. perhaps we should put these emails up because they are our meetings right now?

we also need to discuss outreach, advertising, places to send out flyers/info to. a mass email should go out fairly soon to a bunch of lists (after face to face? what do you think?) with our dates. we can write out the call, and send it to as many contacts we have, and ask the greater group to pass it on, that's what happened before.

so here's all that i know about whats going on, i'd like to be able to split it up evenly, work on it together etc.
what do you think about the generic email thing? i could set that up, and we could talk with registrations and see how to work that out (maybe we could cover it until the registration process opens, then they can cover it)

could someone contact the witch camp website, or someone else could, it's pretty easy just find the contact on the witchcamps site and write to them with exactly what information is needed.

the website really should be updated asap, could either of you find someone to do that? or should i ask my sister for now? (she could only be temporary)

sunday n23
gabriel

I'm going to try to just touch on each of these topics point by point, since there is so much to discuss…

camp is august 1-7 at — lake, but we will be keeping that location and only revealing it upon registration. looks like the best way to communicate would be to describe it as a beautiful wilderness location a couple hours from portland.

- Is there anything else we need to include to give people a heads up? - is it Accessible? Is it mountain, desert, forest? Just thinking that a little bit more info will help people's imagination go wild, and also provide a basic context for the camp… "FAWC will be held in a beautiful wilderness location, a few hours drive into the mountains west of Portland" … for example.

the website needs to be updated, along with contact information
this could also involve the registration commitee, we were talking about having a generic email address that communications/registration has access to, and perhaps we rotate who the outreach person is. what do you all think of this?

- I think its a great idea. Really important that we have ONE individual at a time who is handling this email so that there isn't any question of whether an email has been addressed. I think a Communications person makes sense. (I can't in good conscience volunteer myself, sorry). That way they can either respond to general questions, or direct those emails to the right contact person… and Registration, Teacher Selection, Logistics folks, etc. should all have an person who can be responsible for their specific questions.

it would be great to store the info of last years camp on the wiki.
and put a link on the site to the wiki.
neither glimmer nor i know how to do this. gabriel? are you receiving these messages? we haven't heard from you.

- Yes hello, sorry, I'm getting these… I just got married on Samhain, and my life up that point was overwhelmingly about preparing for that day, and I've only just in the last few weeks been getting back to all the work that I started.
With the Wiki link, I think it would be easy, just a matter of putting a hyper link on the web page, but I don't have a lot of experience building websites.

my sister may be able to help us put up the site, but she is busy and pregnant, it would be better with us. perhaps we need to find someone that could join our group that has the energy to do this.

- I've mostly used free blog sites - like Wordpress - and done my best from there. (Here are a couple of the blogs that I've been building <http://psychaparty.wordpress.com/> * <http://ajagabriel.wordpress.com/> ) I don't really know how to build or maintain webpages otherwise. We could look out into the world and see if there is anyone who would do some Karma work for us and build a webpage that is easier for anyone in this WG to update (like a blog) or we could recruit someone who we trust who could take on the role of Webwitch. I'm open to whatever seems best. If we need to find someone outside of our circle, we could always put out the call on the Reclaiming site.

the all witch camp page should also be updated, which means sending an email to them and giving them our information, a basic 'camp is happening' piece, that camp is no one turned away for lack of funds, but we ask for donation, and more info available on our website …

- I think this is super important. The Main Reclaiming Witchcamp site (http://www.witchcamp.org/index.php?id=43&section=WitchCamps) still has Andy Paik as the main contact. We need to get their webmaster a new contact email, address, and phone number, not to mention some small explanation of the camp…
how about this for the Camp is happening piece…

Free Activist Witch Camp
Somewhere in the beautiful wilderness of Oregon

We who proudly call ourselves activists and witches
invite you to join us between August 1st and 7th of 2009 as we journey
between the worlds of magic and action.

Are you ready to turn the world in which you dwell
into a world of which you dream?

FAWC is an annual witch camp devoted to exploring the weaving of magic, community, nature, and action in a wild, safe, and non-hierarchical environment. FAWC depends on donations to realize our vision, but no one is turned away for lack of funds. The camp is currently in the planning stages; check back later for more information.

Website: freewitchcamp.org

Email:

Mailing Address

Phone:

also, we talked on the coordination's call that all our notes from meetings of wg be posted on the wiki. perhaps we should put these emails up because they are our meetings right now?

- YES!

we also need to discuss outreach, advertising, places to send out flyers/info to. a mass email should go out fairly soon to a bunch of lists (after face to face? what do you think?) with our dates. we can write out the call, and send it to as many contacts we have, and ask the greater group to pass it on, that's what happened before.

- I think this is bigger discussion, and I agree that it should take place after the f2f. Maybe we can talk a bit in person and on the phone just to brainstorm regarding this stuff.

so here's all that i know about whats going on, i'd like to be able to split it up evenly, work on it together etc.
what do you think about the generic email thing? i could set that up, and we could talk with registrations and see how to work that out (maybe we could cover it until the registration process opens, then they can cover it)

- Think that's a good idea

could someone contact the witch camp website, or someone else could, it's pretty easy just find the contact on the witchcamps site and write to them with exactly what information is needed.

- I could do it if others can give me the rest of the contact information I need.

the website really should be updated asap, could either of you find someone to do that? or should i ask my sister for now? (she could only be temporary)

- If your sister could update the site just until we can come up with a better solution, that would be great.

sunday n 23
glimmer
* I agree with Gabriel's suggested wording of how we describe location of camp.
* I like the idea of just one person at a time handling email to FAWC. I wouldn't mind being this person ….I have another email account that I currently don't use that we could assign to FAWC correspondence. It is an address that I can get on my phone, so I don't have to be glued to my computer to see messages everyday. That address is moc.liamtekcor|retnuH_ykS_sseltseR#moc.liamtekcor|retnuH_ykS_sseltseR. What do you guys think of that being the contact address and me handling email correspondence?
* Web site updates. I will send updated camp info to WCC. This is actually an action assignment from WCC meeting last week. FYI, WCC is currently in situation of looking for someone to update the whole WCC web site. The person who has been doing it can't continue to do it. I expect a call might be going out to greater reclaiming community to find web site updating talent/volunteer. In the meantime we are hoping that the person who was doing updates will continue to do one or two final updates while we are searching for a new person.
* About those free web sites, the sites you wrote, Gabriel, are super interesting to read (a couple of words I had to look up in my dictionary in that first site :), thanks for sending. I tried to do a blogger web site for FAWC http://freeactivistwitchcamp.blogspot.com/ but not sure if it would be good for anything. Maybe we should talk more about web site in person. Or, maybe we should just put out a call to our camp community to see if we can find a web witch for free camp.
* Advertising: I think sending out an update-outreach email to email lists and other communities soon is a great idea immediately following F2F. I could do this once we have discussed content of what we want to say. In Minnesota we have a group planning outreach support and upcoming rituals to RNC arrestees and I'd like to promote our free camp with this group. Also, WinterWitch Camp is in Wisconsin in Feb and it would be nice to have some flyers to bring to that camp too. Imbolc might also be a nice time to promote our camp. Imbolc is the time of Fire — fire for poetry, fire for justice, fire for activism. So many people around here have been visioning of dragons lately, and I wonder if Imbolc would be the perfect time to make a real call for activist/dragon awakening under the frozen landscapes of our winter minds — a call to folks in our communities to consider planning for summer, consider planning for next August's free activist camp (and maybe send us a few bucks for scholarships while they are at it?).
* More advertising: I'll love to figure out a way to create a UTube video or something else that is creative, fun to watch and easy to send virally to lots of people via email/internet. Do you guys have any ideas about this? I have friends who make UTube videos of their kids, but I've never done it myself….
* Fundraising: maybe we can discuss this at the F2F. How can we tie in communications with ways to get donations for free camp?

monday n 24
gabriel

Hi Glimmer,

  • I would love it if you were willing to be the Email Witch for this phase of camp. Thanks. If Amara approves, lets make it so. As for the address, it would be nice if we could set up a generic address (moc.liamg|cwaf#moc.liamg|cwaf, or riseup.org, or rocketmail.com, etc) that we can just pass on to whoever is going to be the point person. For privacy sake it would make sense to start from scratch, and for clarity to make the address relate to camp. Just a thought.
  • Great news about WCC. I suppose we just need an email address for info, and a mailing address, and a phone number. Any suggestions for the latter? Should it be one of us? Or Jude Elf?
  • I think we should talk more about the website in person. I won't be there, but hopefully I can meet up with Amara, or call and do a conference call with you two while yr there. We should talk to Amara about her sisters's site and see what it would take to update it ourselves. We should probably talk about whether we want to build a new one, or just add to what's already there. The URL is priceless, so we might want to just work with what's there, or find someone else to redesign it a little bit.
  • I really like Imbolc as the Camp's launch date. I think that's really powerful.

We should go ahead and get a basic early warning about camp (like a press release style thing) so that people can start marking their New Year calendar. Just a simple announcement of dates and maybe an early call for donations and assistance. It could also include a call for teacher's applications if that gets sorted out. That could all go out as soon as we are ready.
What I'd love is to see a wider launch of information timed with Imbolc. It would be good if we had the Theme and Story worked out by then and we could develop a visual theme to go with it. This could be a good goal to set… visual branding, website, and early announcement of camp along with call for donations. Would be people be able to register by then? Is that too early?
It would also be amazing if we could coordinate this launch with events (dance parties, raffles, concerts, public rituals, etc) that benefit FAWC. These could act as fundraisers AND ways to get the word out about camp.

  • I think the Youtube idea is great. I could probably do this… I'd love some input from everyone…. but I'm sure I have some friends who could help me make something great. I'd like to know the theme of camp before getting started in earnest…

wedseday n 26
amara
hey i don't have much time to respond to the other wonderful input in the past few days, but this is an easy and immediate thing to respond to…
i also think a generic, new email adress is great and i support whatever domain is most accessible to glimmer who i am most definitely support in wearing the contact cap.
i don't know if jude is the best adress, she is going through a lot right now, and is also no longer on the finances commitee, which is a purpose of having an adress— to send cheques to. but it might help to ask her, she may still be open to it?
if someone is willing to have their number out, it might be helpful, especially before camp for immediate questions. oh! i think it should be someone on registrations! (and if we go ahead with the gatekeeping process, there would need to be people to contact from registrations over phone or email for campers to set intentions and then recieve the information of where camp is)

wed n26
gabriel

I'd say that's an affirmative on the new email address… moc.liamg|cwaf#moc.liamg|cwaf would be great. Let us both know the password and username when it's all made so that we can check it if for any reason you're not able. When we get closer to registration time, we can pass it over to their contact person. As for phone - lets see if there is anyone who'd be willing. Everyone has different kinds of access to communications - I knew a woman who lived on a communal farm with a single phone attatched to a tree a few miles from her shelter and no other contact with the world (except snailmail). I think it'd be important for closer to the time of camp, for people who need a contact while travelling or if there needs to be an emergency contact… Maybe we should bring this up in the f2f as a specific Communications WG question, along with mailing address.

friday n28
glimmer

I am sending this message from our new email address.
I can commit to checking this email address, if not daily than at least every other day, and I can commit to making sure that anyone who writes to us at this address gets a timely response.

So, our new email address is moc.liamg|pmaChctiWtsivitcAeerF#moc.liamg|pmaChctiWtsivitcAeerF

Until we actually put up flyers or get closer to camp I think we are okay without a mailing address or phone number. We can talk about that later. For right now, I will give updated camp dates and email contact information to WCC and hopefully we can get that basic information updated on the web pages.

Love to you both,

sat n30
amara (to yahoo group)

hey all!
glimmer has created an email address for fawc communications,
moc.liamg|pmachctiwtsivitcaeerf#moc.liamg|pmachctiwtsivitcaeerf. for now glimmer will be checking it and responding, which could change to someone on the registrations/welcoming wg closer to camp.
so folks can be directed there for any questions.

be well
amara + communications wg

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