Support Independent Media

national | indymedia ireland | news report

Monday April 05, 2004 17:48

by Indymedia Ireland Editorial Group - Indymedia Ireland

indymedia at indymedia dot ie

Indymedia Ireland Launches Funding Appeal

At a time like this, when the right to protest is under attack and the corporate media's reporting of protest movements is straying ever further into the realm of fantasy, we need an independent media source. You need indymedia and indymedia needs you. We have launched a funding appeal - so please help out and give generously...

Support Independent Media in Ireland

For the last 3 years, Indymedia.ie has existed on ad hoc donations, providing a number of resources, not least this website. Since the number of projects has started to grow and become more ambitious, a group has now been founded, the Independent Media Support Group, independent of the Indymedia website, to support this work and help to set up other similar independent media projects.

Anybody can join the Independent media Support group. Membership is currently set at €20 (€10 unwaged). You will be informed of the AGM and the bi-monthly meetings where all fund allocation will be made. Membership forms and the Club Constitution are available to download. You can also view the discussion that followed the announcement of the club formation.

So Why Do We Need Money?

The work of the Indymedia Support Group and all the Indymedia working groups, including the web site editorial collective is done entirely on a voluntary basis. We give up a lot of our time and money because we are dedicated to the idea that information should be free, open and democratic. This will continue. We will continue to donate our time and energy for free and will not accept a penny for our work. However, as the project expands and the traffic grows, we need your help to pay the bills and keep independent media in Ireland going and growing. There are several different areas where we need money to keep the project on track.

As the website grows, continuously increasing it's readership, content and, unfortunately, hosting costs, Indymedia appeals for donations to keep this resource available and Independent. At the time of writing, the website can attract upwards of half a million hits a week, with up to 15,000 unique IP's and 10 gigabytes of data transfer. We do not accept advertising (we take the Independent bit seriously) so we need our users' support to keep paying for our bandwidth, which is becoming far more costly as our traffic increases. We would also like to allow users to be able to upload bigger photos and videos and pdf files. If we can raise a few thousand euros a year to pay for bandwidth, we can provide all of this.
At the end of April an Independent Media Centre will be set up in Dublin to bring the concepts and practice of Open Media off the internet and into the streets - this initiative needs both volunteers and funds. We are putting on a broad programme with dozens of screenings, forums and practical workshops to teach people how to get the most out of new media technology and it will all be free. If successfull it will lead to a more permanent physical independent media presence in Ireland. Although most of the equipment is being provided for free, there are some things that we will have to pay for.
A number of distribution projects are currently in operation or planning, including the Printflare and Audioflare projects and proposed monthly video screenings. Money for printing and materials would allow us to create more of these publications and give them a wider distribution .

How to Donate

You can donate money to Indymedia projects by either taking out a membership (€20) of the support group or giving a donation to a general indymedia fund or a specific indymedia Project. You can do this by using the online donate buttons in the colum to the right, or you can post us a cheque or transfer money into our account. You can also, of course, come along to any of our meetings and donate.

Donate by Cheque Please make cheques payable to Indpendent Media Support Group. If you want to take out a membership, please include a filled-in Membership form. If you want to donate to a specific project, please indicate which project. Current supported projects in need of funds are: Website, Mayday Centre, Printing Newsletters, Copying audio news CDs. Please post to the following address:

Independent Media Support Group, 6 Linenhall Parade, Dublin 7

Funds Transfer To send us money by electronic funds transfer or standing order our details are as follows

Account Name: Independent Media Support Group Branch: Permanent TSB, Henry St. Sorting Code: 990619 Account Number: 85893437

But remember, the most important thing that you can do for indymedia is to get involved. We need money but we also need volunteers. We need people to get involved by writing articles, taking photos and filming events and distributing the information for free over the indymedia network. We need people to volunteer to edit the site, layout printflare and compile the audio newsreels. We need people who want to set information free.