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September 30, 2010: Robertson Money on its way!
You will be happy to know that we are informed by Cole & Partners that the monies for claimants in the Robertson v. Thompson class action suit will be dispersed in October. Just in time to buy a new computer (I almost wrote typewriter ribbon)!
September 21, 2010: Sign up here ASAP!
Bill C-32 (An Act to Amend the Copyright Act), as it stands, will create hardship for the creator community. New exceptions, and especially the educational exception, will result in revenue losses to Canadian writers and publishers in the millions of dollars from a reduction in unit sales and collective licensing revenues for reproduction. This is expropriation and a sudden and alarming increase in uncompensated uses of your works.
www.copyrightgetitright.ca aims to raise the level of awareness and understanding regarding our concerns about the impact of Bill C-32 (An Act to Amend the Copyright Act) on the sustainability of Canada's vibrant Creative Industry. Join your voice to the growing number of individuals who feel that Bill C-32 must be amended so that, without hardship to consumers, Canada's creators suffer no hardship either. Visit the www.copyrightgetitright.ca and sign-up now.
September 17, 2010: Fearmongering by the Copylefters
Read John Degen on the hyperbole of our political adversaries:
http://johndegen.blogspot.com/
September 01, 2010: Regional Conferences are a very welcome development
This is an opinion piece by Excutive Director Sandy Crawley and does not constitute official PWAC policy.
I was privileged to attend a professional development conference that was held in Sackville, New Brunswick in July. It was a brilliant success. Certainly, the organizers, all volunteers from PWAC Chapters in the Atlantic region, would have been happy to accept more than the 28 official registrants. Yet, the intimacy that the small group was able to achieve in the idyllic setting of Mount Allison University gave me, as a relatively recent member (2005) and now your staffer, a sense of what I imagine PWAC was like over the first 20 years or so of our history. The freelancers who show up at our events tend to be very open and generous souls and by the end of the gathering we had that first evening I felt that we all knew each other having laughed and sung together and shared stories and perspectives on writers issues but also on life. The ranks of participants in the professional development sessions that followed were nearly doubled by registrants who took part interactively online through the productive contribution of PWAC Atlantic-At-Large president George Butters.
I think the success of this "mini-conference" offers a model that we should encourage and build upon as a national organization. A minority but influential voice in our ranks has expressed concern over the prospect of a more-or-less permanent partnership with the magazine industry by holding our annual general meeting and national conference at the industry-wide gathering, MagNet, that PWAC helped to found in 2008. It is no secret to those engaged in the issue that your small but dedicated staff of two believe this would be a wise and important step in our path towards an image of professionalization of our organization within a mature industry. I have no doubt that our ability to effect positive change in the interest of freelance writers is greatly enhanced by our presence at MagNet and the access it provides to the leadership of the periodical sector that defines our cultural contribution and the public policy rationale for ongoing support for PWAC.
At the same time, I recognize the resistance to "Toronto-centricity" that contributes to some long-standing members' objection to the idea of trekking to Toronto every year to meet. I have encountered this perspective in virtually every arts organization with whom I have had contact in my work as an activist for over twenty years. It's natural. The resentment of decisions being made in a vacuum by people who sometime seem to misperceive that this metropolis on the edge of Lake Ontario is the "centre of the universe". I actually share this impulse, because I believe that innovation and positive change tends to spring from the margins, not the complacent centre.
However, I suggest that an organization of freelance writers such as PWAC is marginalized by definition and that assuming our rightful place at the annual industry gathering is an appropriate mitigating step we should take. This brings me back to the event in Sackville. When the potential for a permanent partnership with MagNet arose I was not your Executive Director but I was serving on the PWAC board as treasurer. I suggested at that time that the MagNet connection was desirable and that the alienation of members who treasure the past pattern of moving our AGM around the country could be addressed by exactly the kind of event that took place in New Brunswick this July.
From a practical point-of-view PWAC can support regional conferences such as the New Brunswick model at an exponentially greater saving of staff time and resources than by clinging to the policy of moving our conference and AGM every year. Erstwhile Executive Director John Degen calculated that he spent at least one quarter of his time on the National Conference & AGM before the MagNet partnership. The savings in both financial and human resource terms for 2009 and 2010 are clear. 2011 will be a real test for us since the previous board decided to hold our conference and AGM next year in the great city of Montreal. Since the board has accepted the idea that we need to maintain our partnership at MagNet, which takes place two weeks before we meet in Montreal, we are faced with the necessity of ensuring that the industry-wide gathering has a full component of professional development opportunities for writers (we intend to match the complement of 20 sessions for scribes that we achieved in 2010) plus producing a bang-up conference on a stand-alone basis in Montreal. I have no doubt that we can do it. It must be recognized, though, that other initiatives will inevitably be affected by the decision. (The reader should also know that the previous era characterized by individual PWAC chapters bearing the brunt of conference/AGMs resulted in burn-out and a low standard of fiduciary accountability and that a previous board wisely decided to shift the lead responsibility to the national organization.)
Later in September PWAC members will be receiving a survey intended to help the board determine a model for our annual gatherings for the future. The options boil down to three: sever our partnership with MagNet, commit to a permanent partnership, or hold our AGM in concert with the industry every second year with stand-alone PWAC gatherings in between (depending on the willingness of our MagNet partners Magazines Canada and the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors willingness to accept this intermittancy). While this third option seems to satisfy both perspectives, it should be clear that it is the most labour-intensive from the staff point-of-view and therefore will affect our productivity on the other services and programs we offer. It?s a question of setting priorities.
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