March 3, 2010: Friends of Safe Amp, Music Waste, are now accepting submissions for their festival in June 2010. For more info, email submissions@musicwaste.ca.
February 21, 2010: No February General Meeting. See you in March!
February 20, 2010: Some friends of Safe Amp have been creating a film about many of the venue closures in Vancouver. It's called No Fun City and they have a new trailer which you can watch here.
February 15, 2010: CBC Radio has offered its studio for use as an all-ages venue. They're calling it free, but it actually costs $64 for security, plus the cost of insurance. I first saw this a few weeks ago, and at that time it seemed unremarkable because there was a mandatory cleaning charge that brought the cost into the $200 range. I just noticed that they have now added the option of cleaning up after yourself, which reduces the price significantly, and actually makes it one of the most affordable rental venues in town. It's only available to registered non-profits, and safe amp is a registered non-profit, so if you are a safe amp member and want to book a safe legal affordable all-ages show there, you totally can. Go here for more info.
February 5, 2010: Minutes from the Jan. 31 General Meeting are now online.
January 24, 2010: Our next general meeting is coming up in one week, and the agenda is now online.
January 21, 2010: A few of us spoke to Vancouver City Council today, as their Planning and Environment Committee accepted a Regulatory Review on Live Performance Venues that was prepared by Cultural Services. You can see a video of the meeting here.
January 10, 2010: There are only 21 days left to make a logo or apply for one of the three permanent volunteer positions we have posted.
January 10, 2010: Our display board has been in action for a while, but now it has its very own webpage.
January 10, 2010: Membership update: we are now up to 101 official members. You could be the 102nd!
January 10, 2010: Financial update: we are now up to $4,435.67, almost a quarter of the way to our $20,000 startup goal. Help us get there faster!
January 10, 2010: Our Fundraising Committee has created some beautiful pieces of merchandise that we are selling to help raise money to pay for the venue.
January 10, 2010: We've placed donation jars in a variety of fine locations in Vancouver.
January 10, 2010: The minutes from the Jan. 3 meeting are now online. Check it out!
December 30, 2009: The location for our Jan. 3 General Meeting is set: Joe's Cafe at 1150 Commercial Drive. Check out our agenda and come on out!
December 30, 2009: We have several new webpages now, including Directors, Audio-visual, and Testimonials. We've also re-written our FAQ and Contact pages. Coming soon: new buttons so all these pages are easily visible from the rest of the site.
December 22, 2009: If you're interested in volunteering for Safe Amp but don't want to wait for the next meeting to get started, check out our brand new volunteer page to see some easy ways that you can help. You may also want to consider applying for one of our long-term volunteer positions... check out our job-board for more information.
December 20, 2009: We're looking for letters of support! They should explain in your own words why Safe Amp is important and what it means to you personally. If you consider yourself 'youth,' be sure to include your age. If you consider yourself 'a professional,' be sure to mention your position and use company letterhead if possible. We'll post all your letters on this website, and may use selected letters in grant applications or other relevant documents. Send all letters to secretary@safeamp.org.
December 19, 2009: SASS will be at the Blim Market tomorrow from 11am-5pm. Come by to sign up as a member, make a donation, get some information, and get your new SASS t-shirts and other awesome swag.
December 18, 2009: We have recorded a Safe Amp Public Service Announcement to air on college and community radio stations. You can download an MP3 of it from here.
December 18, 2009: We've always been careful to not send you all too many messages that end up seeming like junk mail. But there are often things that we want to tell you about, and many of you would probably like to hear them. So, we've decided to set up an optional Safe Amp mailing list. If you want to subscribe, please email secretary@safeamp.org with the words 'mailing list' in the subject. It won't be a heavy email-load... maybe like one per week.
December 10, 2009: The Safe Amplification Site Society now has surveys - we'll be distributing them at the two concerts being held this Saturday. Fill one out and help us gather the quantitative data we need to help make the case for why Vancouver needs a safe amplification site! Update: People were finding the survey too confusing, so we've cancelled it for now. We're working on writing an improved version and will distribute it when it's ready.
December 10, 2009: We now have a fancy new membership form. No more complicated email instructions! Become a Safe Amp member today.
December 5, 2009: We've posted an interpretation that one of our members made of Vancouver's Noise Control Bylaw - there's also a link to the actual bylaw.
December 5, 2009: Sean Ramsay has written an awesome guide for organizing Safe Amp fundraiser shows. Check it out here!
December 5, 2009: We are seeking a logo for use on things like membership cards, letterhead, t-shirts and the like. Simplicity is the key! The successful logo will have equal sides (can be square or circular, but must have equal side measurements), look good in colour AND black & white reproductions, and represent/communicate the missions, values and membership of the Safe Amplification Site Society.
Don't feel like there are any limits on your creativity for this project! Multiple entries are allowed. Send all submissions to caitlin@safeamp.org as jpeg attachments please. DEADLINE: Midnight, January 31st, 2010. There will be a prize offered for the chosen logo!
November 15, 2009: We've completely redone the donate section of this website. We've added a list of stuff we need, and can now accept monetary donations via Pay Pal and credit cards.
November 5, 2009: Safe Amp director David Mattatall will be speaking in the panel at Media Democracy Day - this Sunday, Nov. 7, at the Vancouver Public Library (350 West Georgia). The event goes from 11am-6pm and the panel starts at 12:50pm.
October 28, 2009: We're now on Twitter. Oh yeah!
October 28, 2009: The Vancouver Courier published a nice little article about the Safe Amplification Site Society today. Check it out on our press page!
October 25, 2009: We had our first monthly General Meeting tonight, and it was fantastic. We're all really excited about the influx of new energy that this meeting brought! You can read the minutes of the meeting here.
October 25, 2009: We now have membership cards! Every official member of the society gets one. If you are a member and have not yet received your card, you can pick it up at the next General Meeting.
October 25, 2009: We now have a collection of beautiful little blue Safe Amp pins, courtesy of our friends at the Regional Assembly of Text. You can buy one (by donation) at any Safe Amp event or have one for free if you attend and participate in our next General Meeting.
October 18, 2009: We have compiled a database of all-ages music venues in Vancouver complete with detailed booking information. Check it out! And if you find anything that's missing or incorrect, email it to venuedatabase@safeamp.org.
October 12, 2009: Starting October 25, we are going to be holding General Meetings on the last Sunday of every month. These meetings will include both at-large and small-group discussion. The discussion groups will largely replace the old inactive committee structure that we have been using up until now. Come on out to the first meeting! All members and non-members are welcome! 7-9pm at Hoko's on Sunday Oct. 25.
October 11, 2009: Our website and email addresses were off-line for a brief period of time this week, but everything is up and running again now. If you tried to email us but got an error message, we apologize! Please try again!
August 7, 2009: A selection of Safe Amp Images are now online, including two group photos taken recently by Steve Louie.
August 6, 2009: Check out our new Frequently Asked Questions page. Update: We re-wrote the FAQ in December, 2009.
July 21, 2009: The Safe Amplification Site Society now has a bank account (actually a credit union account, at VanCity) which means we can now accept cheques and money orders. If you wish to donate by cheque or money order, please click here for more info. Soon we hope to also be able to accept credit cards and Paypal- stay tuned for more info on that. Update: We can now accept donations via credit card or Paypal.
July 16, 2009: Caitlin, who is one of our directors, is going away on tour for the next couple months, and so Rose is stepping up to be an interim director until she gets back. Rose will chair the Grants Committee and co-chair the Fundraising Committee with Jarrett. Jarrett will now be chairing the Press and Lobbying Committee. We are planning to have our first general meeting sometime this Fall, at which point we may hold a vote on whether to create a fifth director position and then another vote to fill that position. Update: We did not create a fifth director position in Fall 2009. We have replaced this committee structure with a new streamlined list of committees which all meet simultaneously at every general meeting.
July 8, 2009: We're having a Safe Amp garage sale fundraiser event this Saturday, starting at 9:00 AM and going throughout the day. It will be at the intersection of E. 10th Ave. and Main Street in Vancouver. If you have anything you would like to donate to sell, please bring it by. And whether you do or don't have stuff to sell, please drop in and consider buying some things. If you have any questions, or if you need help transporting your sellable items, please feel free to contact jarrett@safeamp.org. Thanks!
July 2, 2009: We've now had 6 official Safe Amp events in Vancouver, plus several unofficial ones. And there's a bunch more coming up too! Just a reminder that any member can book an event, and anyone can be a member. We're not a promotions company; we're a collection of people who organize shows independently and band together to work on creating a permanent all-ages venue. Yay!
June 10, 2009: We received our papers in the mail today, formally making us a legally existing non-profit society.
May 29, 2009: We're starting to get some media attention on this project... for example The Georgia Straight wrote about us in their recent Music Notes column. Read this and all other Safe Amp press on our new press page.
May 27, 2009: Our society is now up to 19 official members. Joining is easy! Who will be member number 20? Update: As of Dec. 27, 2009, we are up to 93 official members.
May 19, 2009: And now we have a website! Thanks to Jessica Wilkin for the rad design work.
May 17, 2009: We now have a Myspace page and Facebook group.
