Hey all, (yes this will be addressed like an open letter)

This platform, or whatever the fuck it is, is coming up on it’s four year anniversary in October of this year. This is cause for celebration, but also reflection. If we are being honest, it’s a been a long ass time since serious effort has been put into this project. We haven’t done a podcast in probably a year, we’ve only posted about twelve times this year and we’ve basically now been reduced to being the pinnacle of animal liberation link passing on twitter/facebook.

The problem can be found even in the writing above – although I say “we” a lot this hasn’t been a collaborative project for years. It arguably wasn’t ever a collaborative project. I still believe in this project, however, as the amount of organizing I was doing on the ground grew this project was one of the first things to get pushed back. That’s just how it is.

Throughout the years I’ve put out the call for writers and some really great people stepped up, Rasha Taha, Cro Meg Cath, Tara Pelette and Rain Willow all come to mind, however, we never really opened the project up more than that and as a result never brought in sustained collaboration. We are at a point now where if that doesn’t change, I am most likely going to let the spam comments add into the thousands and just scrap it. The costs associated with the site and hosting the shows isn’t a lot, but over time and considering we aren’t really using those services, it adds up. (As I write this I had to get my libsyn password reset because it’s been so long since I logged in that I don’t even remember it). I would much rather direct those funds to monthly giving campaigns (shamless plug = Niagara ADL).

Saying this though is really tough. We have kept decent traffic to the site even without regular updates, we’ve had podcasts downloaded over 18,000 times, we’ve got an established and decent size social media reach (3,100+ facebook, 1,800+ on twitter) and we have everything in place needed for a site with regular updates and an extended reach. Scrapping this site doesn’t make a lot of sense. That is where you (yes, you!) come in.

I had a conversation recently with a friend who books shows and we both talked about how burned out we are when it comes to booking/promoting shows and how shitty punx somehow manage to thrive. He told me he set a bar for himself – if he can’t find five people who are willing to work on booking/promoting a show with him, then there clearly isn’t enough interest and no reason to do it. It highlighted to me that individuals can’t build scenes/communities by themselves. I innately knew this, but somehow still pushed forward alone on projects because I thought if I believed in them enough, and worked hard enough, others would get on board. Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn’t. I’m proud of the things we accomplished here, the people, ideas and tactics we gave voice to, the prisoner support we did, the fundraising we did for sanctuaries – all of that is ace. However, we have also plateaued with no contingency plan.

The bar I am setting is two more people. If by the end of August this project can’t bring on two more people who are willing to dedicate their time, help with the vision and content of the site, then we will close up our internet shop. I have three posts right now lined up, those will go up and in October we will have an official funeral. If however, we can find those people, I hope we can rebuild this site and push it passed it’s current high water mark.

If you think that person could be you here are the basics of what we are looking for: passionate, angry people with a desire to learn, grow and share skills in order to increase an opposition to human dominance. We don’t need expertise – I’ve never had it myself – we just need hard workers.

xo