Minutes from Remix Brighton meeting on Saturday 9th July
Present: E. Griffith-Jones, D. Berry, M.McCallion
Apologies: P. Bennett, N. Strack
1.Launch Event
LOCA has already been contacted about collaborating with Melting Vinyl to put on an event. We agreed that this would be perfect for the Remix Brighton launch event. Melting Vinyl would do most of the promotion. The event would also be part of the Radio One Live events – we should get Radio One coverage. We need to finalise date of event, but should be between October 27th and November 2nd (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/brighton/ ). We would also try and single out Radio One DJ's and talk to them about Creative Commons/Remix Brighton/Copyleft
We need to organise artists for evening. We thought of trying to contact big Creative Commons names like DJ Spooky. We need to compile a list of potential artists and contact them asap. We need a schedule for the evening as soon as possible for promotion materials
2.Sussex University/ Freshers
We agreed to organise a stall for Freshers Fayre, which is around 10th October.
David was keen in helping to organise workshops/talks at the Gardner Arts Centre on Sussex University campus.
3.Registering Remix Brighton as a Community Interest Company (CIC):
“The Community Interest Company (CIC) is a new type of company, designed for social enterprises that want to use their profits and assets for the public good. CICs will be easy to set up, with all the flexibility and certainty of the company form, but with some special features to ensure they are working for the benefit of the community.”
As of 1st July 2005, groups can register as CICs. It was agreed that this was perfect for Remix Brighton – half way between charity and company, and easy to set up. It will cost around £100 – we need to investigate this further.
Registering will give us more credibility with funding organisations. It will also give us legal liability with any money they grant us.
We will need a board of directors and an advisory board of directors.
We will also need an accountant to help us cost our budget etc. We will try and look for an accountant who would do pro-bono work because they are enthused by the project. Edward agreed to ask the Brighton Green Party about their accountant. David agreed to pursue accounting contacts.
We don't have to register as a CIC immediately. We agreed that we could promise the arts council (or whoever funded us) that we would register as one if we received the money.
4.Board of Directors
We would have both a board of directors and an advisory Board. The advisory boards purpose would be to bring people with credibility into the project. It would also prevent us from stepping on peoples toes on the many media projects in Brighton.
Potential Advisory Board Members:
A Councillor – Edward will contact Green Party Councillors, esp Keith Taylor
Sussex/Brighton University academics
Staff/Members of Brighton Institute of Modern Music
Staff/Members of Northbrook College
Members of The Media Pool - we need to investigate if they could provide us with subsidised office space
Members of other Brighton-based record labels
Member(s) of the Brighton Press. David knows the editor of The Insight. Edward knows a journalist in the The Argus.
Members of the Brighton Underground/Music Network
Anna from Melting Vinyl
Sussex Film People?
Fatboy Slim? David has a contact for Fatboy Slim.
Members of Blip art/science forum. They also organise Blip Festival. David and Marcus know an artist from Blip.
5. Funding Applications
We agreed to get copies of successful funding applications as a reference for our own. David will contact Pause 2 Records for a copy of their successful grant application.
We agreed to ask for £150,000. If this doesn't work, then we could always ask for funding for one-off events.
The money would be spent on:
Full-time employee
Office Space
Events
Website
Programmers
etc
Both David and Marcus have experience with costing events and funding applications.
5.The Remix Brighton website
Sampling licenses - We discussed including sampling licenses on the add content page. This would attract more people to use CC licenses. Edward was concerned about license proliferation and incompatibility. David thought that we should not be license dictators, but should give as much choice as possible
Hosting – We need to secure hosting space. Edward will contact Positive Internet again. If this isn't possible, we will ask archive.org for space.
Uploading/Downloading Program – We need a easy to use FTP uploading client like Jamendo for RB. We all agreed that small files are incompatible with formats like Video. We also wanted people to put their source files on the Site. David suggested we incorporate BitTorrent into downloading to distribute bandwidth.
Bringing people together – David complained about Remix Reading not focusing enough on bringing people together in the local area. We would make it easier for people to contact/meet each other.
Domain Name – The website would be www.remixbrighton.org . According to http://www.whois.net/ it is still free – David agreed to register it asap. When users arrived at the site, it would say “Remix Brighton & Hove”.
Logo – The Remix Brighton logo will be remixed by Marcus. We thought that every local remix project should have a slightly remixed logo.
6. Politics/Politicians
We agreed to further discuss how Free Culture UK (FC-UK) would be incorporated into Remix Brighton. It was agreed that Remix Brighton would be an extension of FC-UK. Remix Brighton would be a fun and gentle introduction to copyright etc issues, with links to FC-UK. It was also agreed to discuss this further with Rufus and other members of FC-UK.
We would contact local MPs David Lepper, Des Turner & Celia Barlow and local councilors about various issues. We agreed that we could experiment with online petitions and other online political tools.
7. Potential Future Events
Series of Seminars in Brighton Festival in May 2006 – maybe have a PRS vs. Creative Commons debate. Co-organise events with Neil Cummings & Marysia Lewandowska of [opencongress.omweb.org Open Congress] & Goldsmiths. Blip Festival
8.Summary of Priorities
Set up asap (Edward will do this):
a Remix Brighton wiki
RB mailing list
Put a front page up on www.remixbrighton.org with links to wiki, meeting notes, etc
Write Mission Statement - What is remix Brighton for?
Remix Brighton Blogger/Word Press/ Bloglines – Maybe have a centralised Remix Brighton blogging page, where people who help can add entries
Organise a weekly meeting. The Earth & Stars Pub was suggested. Edward will organise this.
Edward will post to local mailing lists/forums to try and get more people involved initially.
Short-term
Find an accountant Funding application
Long-term
CIC Launch Event