LETTERS
Dear Sisters --
I felt really discouraged on election day this year when I found how many women in my comunity had not voted. Many didn't know whether there was something worth voting for or not. Well, I believe there is always something important to vote for even if it's merely the feminist-supportive candidates.
This year there happened to be a state-wide issue that was pretty important to most of us as women of the working class. The issue was to ban voter-day registration, and it passed. Now it will be a hassle for some of us to get registered for future elections.
Our comunity cannot afford to be unorganized. The opposition (I use this word only for lack of a better one) is together politically and their organization is evident. Ohio elected several right wingers from such groups as the John Birch Society, KKK, and Right to Lifers to represent our state at the National IWY convention.
I know how easy it becomes to immerse ourselves in ourselves. Living in the Cleveland women's community is a very comfortable place for us all but it didn't just happen and it won't go on indefinitely unless we all put energy into keeping it this way. We are learning how to support ourselves and be self-sufficient which is truly beautiful but we can't forget that we live in a larger world. That world certainly is not going to forget about us. There are many ways we can all help, one of which is writing our Senators and urging for an extension on the ERA. The victories can and will taste sweet if we season them right.
Patti Green
dd
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The following letter was received from the Womyn of We Want the Music Collective, sponsors of the Michigan women's music festival which took place in August of this year:
Dear Sisters,
This letter is going out to all womyn who signed up for this year's mailing list or those addresses we have from pre-registration. We wanted to give you a breakdown of where money was spent and to talk about where the problems were in us fully meeting our costs. Although the number of womyn attending the festival should have been sufficient to cover festival expenses and salaries, there were a number of situations which occurred that prevented that from happening.
We were disturbed to discover that a large number of personal cheques which we accepted bounced and amounted to a total of $340.00. In addition to this loss, cash was stolen at the gate by womyn that we entrusted with ticketselling. There were other cases of womyn sneaking tickets out at the gate to friends, or other ways of sneaking in without paying. But these situations, disheartening as they are, were not really the major source of loss.
The biggest problem was that over one third of the estimated womyn who attended got in for free or for reduced rates. Womyn seemed to misinterpret the phrase "unable to afford" to mean that if they budgeted their funds badly that month that they were too poor to pay their share for a womyn's music festival. The idea was suposed to be that womyn
would gauge what was affordable to them on the basis of class background, access to funds, earning power and other privileges or disadvantages as compared to other womyn.
We have also since become aware that the work exchange policy for womyn who can't afford the minimum ticket price is unfair because it still makes those womyn solely responsible for their own lack of privilege. The number of womyn attending the festival who were genuinely unable to pay the ticket price was extremely minimal and should have been easily subsidized by the much larger number of womyn who have access to money.
The situation as it stands is that not only did more privileged womyn fail to compensate for poorer womyn, but many copped pleas of poverty for themselves. We understand that this attitude is coming from feelings of being ripped off as womyn in a man's world, but the end result of this is womyn ripping off other womyn. We feel that it is essential that more responsibility be taken around money issues. Also, many womyn failed to sign up or show up for work and this put a large burden on the womyn who did work.
Financially we were left with $600.91 to divide among the six members of the WWTM Collective. We estimate that as a collective we have put in a minimum of 5,000 hours on this year's festival. Each of us contributed different amounts of energy over an 8-month period, with the major concentration of time being the 3 months prior to the festival. During this peak period a more than full-time commitment was necesary (this meant 16 hours per day for some of us). Beyond the issue of salaries for production collective members there is the reality of needing funds with which to begin work on next year's festival. We have already had to dig into the $600.91 in order to do this mailing and will need funds to cover the many advance expenses necessary to make next year happen. We regret that we were not more aware of the money situation during the festival--if we had been we would have started to deal with it then.
We would suggest that womyn who were short on funds at the time of the festival and paid a reduced rate but who, in all fairness, can afford $20 or more to support this event send us the balance of what was not paid in Michigan and any other additional funds that may now be possible. We would also like to ask that womyn who have access to bulk sums of money contribute small amounts.
We understand that some of the bounced cheques may be the result of checkbook balancing errors or other circumstances that we are unaware of and hope that womyn who are in this position will feel comfortable reimbursing us for those bounced cheques. Also, any womon who entered the festival by sneaking in or who took money while ticketselling we feel should return these monies to us.
We would like to thank those womyn who did kick in extra money for tickets and those womyn who volunteered tremendous amounts of energy and time to make the festival work. We are hopeful that the spirit of the festival will inspire more and more womyn to make this kind of commitment and take this kind of responsibility.
The facts and issues talked about in this letter are not easy for any of us to look at and deal with but are basic in our understanding money in relation to womyn's events and womyn's culture as a whole. It is very important for us to talk about these issues and share this information honestly and we hope that womyn in return share their thoughts with us.
We've gotten a lot of good feedback and suggestions.since the festival and the more ideas and schemes that come in the more the festival will grow. Despite all the problems and difficulties we still feel good about this year's festival and about the fine strong womern energy that shone through. Please send all responses to WWYMC, 1501 Lyons Street, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan 48858.
In Sisterhood and Struggle,
The Women of We Want The Music Collective
phone
FINANCIAL BREAKDOWN
light equipment
instrument rental piano rental health care supplies childcare supplies office supplies printing
electric (lines & service)
$1.597.00
$2,051.00
porta-jons
$855.00
gasoline (collective use) truck rental
$516.00
$244.00
mailings
$378.69
sound equipment rental
$2,500.00
recording (equipment, tape)
$1,786.00
$716.00
$640.00
$500.00
$310.31
$202.00
$172.04
$1,150.02
office (house rental and
$324.81
maintenance, Hysperia)
land rental
$800.00
insurance (land)
$357.00
$708.00
$58.06
$7,154.43
$300.00
$150.00
$903.00
$7,275.00
performers' travel
$7,111.00
technicians' travel (sound,
$2,159.00
lights, recording, stage)
technicians' salary
$3,200.00
$273.00
$90.00
well drilling showers (materials)
food (including food and supplies) security
film (rental and projector/screen)
tent rental and canopies performers' salary
land supplies brush-hogging
stage building materials miscellaneous receipts
diana
lications
$1,305.00 $240.00
$46,111.09
press inc.
4400 Market St., Oakland, Ca. 94608 (415)444-7666
The following letter was received from Diana Press, Inc.:
Dear What She Wants Staff:
You have probably heard about the act of vandalism against Diana Press Tuesday morning October 25. We have been placed in precarious financial condition and we're fighting to stay alive. Five thousand copies of Rita Mae Brown's A Plain Brown Rapper were destroyed creating severe immediate cash-flow problems. Paint, ink, chemicals and Comet cleanser were poured into our machines, including presses and typesetting composers, making it impossible for us to do commercial work to get some money. The typesetting and paste-up of at least three of our fall books were destroyed holding up the printing of our fall line. Other than donations, the only way we have to raise money is to quickly sell our remaining inventory. We are preparing a brochure now advertising the books which were not damaged.
Sincerely,
Coletta Reid
on behalf of the women of Diana Press
What She Wante/December, 1977/page].......