Midnight Assembly Charitable Trust

Have a look at our session details

A NOTE FROM MIDNIGHT ASSEMBLY POST eFEST the general politic + points of difference

Greetings eFestians!

Was lovely and affirming to see you all in the Wellington Town Hall.
The future of Aotearoan IT is in good hands.
The event was hugely successful for MA. We made lots of vital connections amongst those of you who found us interesting, and strengthened some old ones.

We still encourage everybody to check out our website > www.midnight-assembly.net
Engage in our online competition for a free shirt >
http://www.midnight-assembly.net/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.cgi?b-efest/m-1182226977/s-new/#num1
Interact and contribute to the new 'eFest' discussion area we have created on MA

And more or less continue to brainstorm about how we can pro actively create the positive vision we seem to share for IT in this country.

MA does indeed have detailed plans on how it will create its 'ultimate online network', and we have sponsors who are supporting our vision and wanting to help us create it. However we still want lots of consultation, research, and peer validation, hence why we were trying to stir things up a bit at eFest.
All we need is your shared passion for IT education. And a few million
dollars. Hahahahaha.

Our fund raising efforts will skyrocket once we have our first full time employee. Every grant we are eligible for will be applied for. Every generous millionaire we know of will be emailed!
We are currently in the stage of searching hard for enough money for a
humble salary. If anybody out there is willing to help this charity
begin its endeavors in earnest by helping to raise 20k or so, we would be most receptive.

There was some interesting feedback from the event that we were hoping for; the reservations people had about our branding, the uncertainty about what our intentions are. These feedbacks are totally welcomed, and legitimate.

Our answer: You may take comfort in knowing that as we expand our
branding will diversify, offshoot groups or ambitious projects lead by others will be sponsored and supported by us, and our intentions are quite simply just to strive for an excellence within an IT using society. Our success could very possibly happen through other groups which we support, and not neccasarily our own, and we welcome this. We see MA as just a cool image to put up for the moment, a strong identity
for people to hold on to. But once things are rolling we hope it will
have identity through its autonomous community and its achievements, not through a handful of savvy designers with a particular taste. Things will most definitely change. We are making it real by keeping it real!

You can keep track of our new adventures through our rss feed, located at

*http://www.bloglines.com/blog/m-a
*And you can interact with the online community on our comprehensive
forums: http://www.midnight-assembly.net/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.cgi

Please refer creative, curious, ambitious people our way.

One last note - thank you deeply to those of you who bought t-shirts.
Even just a few sales go a huge way. Much of the materials you saw at eFest were printed with money that came straight out of the pockets of the trustees, organisers, and other people that believe in MA.
Considering we are all young and poor, every $40 sale felt like escaping the 4hrs of minimum-wage employed work that would have otherwise been needed. We have lots invested in this project. As such we make our money at MA go a very long way.

Anyway
You're all fantastic and cheers for making our three days so amazing!
Looking forward to the next eFest already.
...............................................................................................................

The Midnight Assembly Charitable Trust is a youth ran initiative designed to popularise a new kind of youth culture, one that is creatively affirmed in its ambitions for a better world. We create this idealistic culture by organising events in the arts, IT, media, and education. We believe a holistic approach is needed to have lasting, cross-spectrum cultural appeal and effect.

Our approach is occasionally unconventional and is largely concerned with conveying our ideas personally and sincerely, as apposed to institutionally and bureaucratically. This means our design-media has to constantly stand out and offer a more artistic, inspiring perception of our organisation than other youth-networking communities traditionally offer. Specifically in IT, we think this idea can be communicated by software - offering the MA's services and networks - which is embedded in a dynamic, animated interface. We believe interface technology has a long way to go and hope to contribute to the pioneering of more naturally navigable GUIs.

The Trust is at a stage currently where its ideas, concepts and plans outweigh its capital and organisation capacity. We hope to use events like eFest and others to raise excitement, initiative, and support so that we can finally begin nurturing fully the inspired youth communities of Aotearoa and the wider world.

Please check out our fantastic flash animated website www.midnight-assembly.net and leave a message on our forums
http://www.midnight-assembly.net/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.cgi

Look forward to seeing you at eFest 2007!

authorised by
Midnight Assembly Charitable Trust