MINUTES OF A RED RAG COLLECTIVE MEETING HELD ON 16 JANUARY 1983 at 24 NORWOOD ROAD

12 people present.

MONEY

When the printing of the early January issue had been paid for, we
would be overdrawn by about £20. Expected income was £50 from
standing orders at the beginning of February (22 people) and whatever
come in meanwhile in donations - which had totalled about £29 over
the previous 4 weeks. Production costs were running at about £60
per issue, set against income of £25 plus donations per issue. We
did not have the money, or prospect of it, to produce a late January
issue in the usual format. Nor had we the guaranteed income to afford
to continue production on the present scale.

FUTURE PRODUCTION AND CONTENTS

It was agreed that in future a check would be made before each issue
as to money in hand and the issue would be no bigger than we had the
money to pay for. It was thought that a litho'd 4-pager cost about
£25 - roughly equal to the standing order income. It was agreed
that the next issue should be 4 sides, duplicated using paper,
stencils, etc left over from the days of duplicating. It was also
agreed that the ents guide and the going out guide were valued by
readers and should be maintained. News could be digested, opinion and
comment could be edited or omitted, the front cover could be used for
material, illustrations could be ditched, the re-printing of leaflets
produced by worthy causes stopped, and any paid ads accepted only on
the basis of cash in advance. It was not possible to lay down specific
or detailed guidance on the editing of articles, but the general
feeling seemed to be that authors should be consulted if at all
possible and the aim would be to preserve the sense and the
facts/arguments but reduce the length. If we dropped the fortnightly
production schedule it would be virtually impossible to compile
worthwhile events and going out guides. It was noted that the better
issues had produced better donations, but that recent issues had
contained some articles of rather variable standard.

FUND RAISING

A whip-round produced £5.07, despite everyone being hard-up.

There had been a suggestion that Bulmershe Students Union might take,
and pay for, 50 copies; someone was pursuing.

If production schedules matched, and the addresses fitted in with
existing rounds, and distribution was reliable, RTUC might well be
willing to pay a bit less than second class postage to have Red Rag
deliver items RTUC would otherwise post. Chris B to give Chris S a
list of possible addresses. The dates would not match in the next
couple of months, however.

Liz intended to raid Milman Road basement, in doing so she would
consider whether it formed the basis for a jumble sale.

Paid ads - only viable if issues printed. Assuming pages containing
paid ads were printed by Acorn at commercial rates, the full cost of
printing a sheet containing ads and editorial matter could be covered
by the ads, and they would still be very cheap to advertisers. (They
would all need to be clearly marked to show they were paid ads; they
might cover outlets and events or extend to wholefood and other small
businesses too, we might restrict them to no more than a page each for
the sake of appearance - these questions were left open). DEFINITELY
cash in advance.

PRODUCTION ARRANGEMENTS

If we had to edit, it was agreed to try doing it in open session,
advertised in the previous issue - agreed to make it the Thursday
evening and a phone number to ring for where.

The Production Groups were unbalanced and Mark's change of job would
make it worse. It would help if each Group had someone able to take
copies to distributors. On a show of hands, 3 people were willing to
work regularly, another 4 or 5 to help on a casual basis. Agreed to
advertise in the next issue for production workers as well as money
and probably hold a meeting for those interested the following Sunday.
Production Group re-constitution deferred until then.

21 January 1903

C C Borgars