Tag Archives ⇒ online publication

Aggregating our Webs

June 16, 2005
· Martin Kelley

On Beppe­blog, Joe talks about start­ing a clear­ness com­mit­tee [link long gone]to assist him with his strug­gles with Friends. But he also touch­es on some­thing I’ve cer­tain­ly also expe­ri­enced: the impor­tant role this elec­tron­ic fel­low­ship has been playing:

Just the oth­er day I real­ized that I felt more com­fort­able being a Friend since not attend­ing Meet­ing on an ongo­ing basis. My ongo­ing “e‑relationships” via the blo­gos­phere has helped me stay “con­nect­ed”. Observe how pleased I respond­ed to Liz’s recent post (the one that I quot­ed in the post before this one). It’s as if I’m starv­ing for good fel­low­ship of some kind or another.

There’s even more talk about internet-mediated discernment/fellowship in the “com­ments to his followup.

Giv­en all this, I’m not sure if I’ve ever high­light­ed a “vision for an expand­ed Quak­er Ranter site” that I put togeth­er for a “youth lead­er­ship” grant in Third Month:

I’ve been blessed to meet many of my [age] peers with a clear call to inspired min­istry. Most of these Friends have since left the Soci­ety, frus­trat­ed both by month­ly meet­ings and Quak­er bod­ies that did­n’t know what to do with a bold min­istry and by a lack of men­tor­ing elder­ship that could help sea­son these young min­is­ters and deep­en their under­stand­ing of gospel order. I would like to put togeth­er an inde­pen­dent online pub­li­ca­tion… This would explic­it­ly reach out across the dif­fer­ent braches of Friends and even to var­i­ous seek­er move­ments like the so-called “Emer­gent Church Movement.”

As I’ve writ­ten I was select­ed for one of their fel­low­ships (yea!!) but for an amount that was point­ed­ly too low to actu­al­ly fund much (huh??). There’s some­thing in the air how­ev­er. “Quak­er Dhar­ma” is ask­ing sim­i­lar ques­tions and Russ Nel­son’s “Plan­etQuak­er” is a sometimes-awkward auto­mat­ed answer (do its read­ers real­ly want to see the ultra­sounds?). I’m not sure any of these com­bo sites could actu­al­ly work bet­ter than their con­stituent parts. I find myself unin­ter­est­ed in most group blogs, aggre­ga­tors, and for­mal web­sites. The invi­did­ual voice is so important.

And don’t we already have a group project going with all the cross-reading and cross-linking we’re doing. Is that what Joe was talk­ing about? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found some new inter­est­ing blog­ger and went to post a wel­come in their com­ments only to have found that Joe or LizOpp had beat­en me to it. (Some of us are to the point of read­ing each oth­er’s minds. I think I could prob­a­bly write a great Beppe or LizOpp post and vice-versa.) Is this impulse to for­mal­ize these rela­tion­ships just a throw­back to old ideas of publishing?

Maybe the web’s form of hyper­link­ing is actu­al­ly supe­ri­or to Old Media pub­lish­ing. I love how I can put for­ward a strong vision of Quak­erism with­out offend­ing any­one – any put-off read­ers can hit the “back” but­ton. And if a blog I read posts some­thing I don’t agree with, I can sim­ply choose not to com­ment. If life’s just too busy then I just miss a few weeks of posts. With my “Sub­jec­tive Guide to Quak­er Blogs” and my “On the Web” posts I high­light the blog­gers I find par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing, even when I’m not in per­fect the­o­log­i­cal uni­ty. I like that I can have dis­cus­sions back and forth with Friends who I don’t exact­ly agree with.

I have noth­ing to announce, no clear plan for­ward and no mon­ey to do any­thing any­way. But I thought it’d be inter­est­ing to hear what oth­ers have been think­ing along these lines.

Vision for an online magazine

April 1, 2005
· Martin Kelley

In ear­ly 2005, I was nom­i­nat­ed to apply for the Clarence and Lil­ly Pick­ett Endow­ment for Quak­er Lead­er­ship. I decid­ed to dream up the best project I could under the restraints of the lim­it­ed Pick­ett grant sizes. While the endowe­ment was approved their bud­get was lim­it­ed that year (lots of Quak­er youth trav­el to a World Gath­er­ing) and I got a small frac­tion of what I had hoped for. I made an online appeal and con­tri­bu­tions from dozens of Friends dou­bled the Pick­ett Fund grant size!

Here then is an edit­ed ver­sion of the pro­pos­al I pre­sent­ed to the Pick­ett Fund in Third Month 2005; it has sub­se­quent­ly been approved by the Over­seers of my meet­ing, Atlantic City Area Month­ly Meeting.

What involvement have you had in Quaker-related activities/service projects for the betterment of your community/world?

Ten years ago I found­ed Non​vi​o​lence​.org, a cut­ting edge “New Media” web­site that now reach­es over a mil­lion vis­i­tors a year. I have been involved with a num­ber of Philadel­phia peace groups (e.g.,Food Not Bombs, the Philadel­phia Inde­pen­dent Media Cen­ter, Act for Peace in the Mid­dle East). I have served my month­ly meet­ing as co-clerk and as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to year­ly meet­ing bod­ies. I recent­ly led a well-received “Quak­erism 101” course at Med­ford (NJ) Month­ly Meet­ing and will co-lead a work­shop called “Strangers to the Covenant” at this year’s FGC Gath­er­ing. I have orga­nized Young Adult Friends at the year­ly and nation­al lev­els, serv­ing for­mal­ly and infor­mal­ly in var­i­ous capac­i­ties. I am quite involved with Quak­ers Unit­ing in Pub­li­ca­tions, an inter­na­tion­al asso­ci­a­tion of Quak­er pub­lish­ers, authors and book­sellers. Eigh­teen months ago I start­ed a small Quak­er min­istry web­site that has inspired a num­ber of younger Friends inter­est­ed in explor­ing min­istry and wit­ness. For the past six years I have worked for Friends Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence; for two of those years I was con­cur­rent­ly also work­ing for Friends Jour­nal.

What is the nature of the internship, creative activity or service project for which you seek funding?

I’ve served with var­i­ous Young Adult Friends group­ings and com­mit­tees for ten years. In that time I’ve been blessed to meet many of my peers with a clear call to inspired min­istry. Most of these Friends have since left the Soci­ety, frus­trat­ed both by month­ly meet­ings and Quak­er bod­ies that did­n’t know what to do with a bold min­istry and by a lack of men­tor­ing elder­ship that could help sea­son and steady these young min­is­ters and deep­en their under­stand­ing of gospel order.

I would like to put togeth­er an inde­pen­dent online pub­li­ca­tion. This would address the iso­la­tion that most seri­ous young Friends feel and would give a focus to our work togeth­er. The pub­li­ca­tion would also have a quar­ter­ly print edition.

It’s impor­tant to build face-to-face rela­tion­ships too, to build an advi­so­ry board but also a base of con­trib­u­tors and to give extra encour­age­ment to fledg­ling min­istries. I would like to trav­el to dif­fer­ent young adult com­mu­ni­ties to share sto­ries and inspi­ra­tion. This would explic­it reach out across the dif­fer­ent braches of Friends and even to var­i­ous seek­er move­ments like the so-called “Emer­gent Church Movement.”

What amount are you requesting and how will it be used in the project? What other financial resources for your project are you considering?

$7800. Web host­ing: $900 for 18 months. Soft­ware: $300. Print pub­li­ca­tion: $3000 for 6 quar­ter­ly issues at $500 per issue. Trav­el: $1600 for four trips aver­ag­ing $400 each. $2000 for mini-sabbatical time set­ting up site.

The Pick­ett Fund would be a val­i­da­tion of sorts for this vision. I would also turn to oth­er youth fel­low­ship and year­ly meet­ing trav­el funds that sup­port the work.

What is the time frame for your project? 18 months, to be reviewed/revisioned then.

When did/will it begin? This sum­mer. When will it end? Decem­ber 2006.

In what specific ways will the project further your leadership potential in Quaker service?

It’s time that I for­mal­ize some of the work I’ve been doing and make it more of a col­lec­tive effort. It will be good to see for­mal month­ly meet­ing recog­ni­tion of this min­istry and to have insti­tu­tion­al Quak­er sup­port. I hope to learn much by being involved with so many won­der­ful Friends and hope to help pull togeth­er more of a sense of mis­sion among a num­ber of younger Friends.