Organizer – today & tomorrow

Thanks to folks who bought a 2012 Slingshot organizer – selling them funds this paper! We still have copies available if you want to buy one or make a wholesale order. If you like the Slingshot paper, please support us financially by buying an organizer. We’re offering a special deal to any occupations that want to distribute organizers as a fundraiser or give-away. If you have ideas of ways to give free surplus copies to low-income teens or other folks who are unable to afford one, let us know. Email slingshot@tao.ca.

So far the only major error we’ve spotted is that the full month calendar on a page for September doesn’t have the days of the week in the same order as a standard calendar. Instead of being arranged SMTWTFS, it is MTWTFSS. The days of the week aren’t written in on that page, so please write them in correctly yourself. We’ll try to proofread that section more carefully next year.

Sales were down a lot this year, continuing a pattern of decreasing sales over the last few years. Aside from the effects of recession and the declining number of independent bookstores that exist to carry the organizer, it seems like demand for a paper calendar is falling off as many people get smart phones. Our cousin the War Resister’s League Peace calendar which started publishing in 1955 announced that 2012 would be their last year in response to shrinking sales. If trends continue, Slingshot collective needs to consider alternate ways to raise funds pay to print the paper.

One idea floating around is to make an organizer “app” for the iphone and other smart phones. Making an “app” doesn’t seem as do-it-yourself as making the organizer, so we need help. If you know how to develop smart phone applications and want to help make a Slingshot organizer app, let us know. Also, let us know if you think it should be free (with an option to donate) or should we charge a few pennies? The idea would be a calendar with radical historical dates, radical graphics, a menstrual calendar, and a radical contact list, plus access to helpful DIY features. Let us know if you have ideas for what other bells and whistles we should consider.

Until paper is totally dead, we’ll be working on the 2013 organizer this summer. It will be available around October 1. Let us know if you want to help us make the 2013 organizer. Here is a timeline for the work:

• In May and June, we’ll edit, correct and improve the list of historical dates. Deadline for finishing: June 22. The following dates in particular need more radical events, so if you want to do some research, email us and we’ll email you what we have so you can add to it:

• January 25, 28

• February 9, 16-18, 22, 24, 25

• March 2, 13, 17, 18

• April 6, 13, 16, 19

• May 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23

• June 3, 22, 27, 30,

• July 6, 11, 19, 24, 29, 30, 31

• August 4, 5, 11, 13, 14, 17, 21, 26

• September 1, 6, 10 22-25, 29, 30

• October 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 16, 29, 31

• November 2, 3, 7, 10-12, 14, 15, 24, 26, 28-30

• December 22-24, 31

We particularly like adding events from 2011/12 to the list of historical dates.

• If you want to design a section of the calendar, let us know or send us random art by June 22. Deadline to finish calendar pages or give us suggestions for 2013 is July 27.

• We need all new or confirmed radical contact listings and cover art submissions by July 27.

• If you have ideas for the short features we publish in the back, let us know by July 27. We try to print different features every year.

• If you’re in the Bay Area July 28/29 or August 4/5, we loving having help with the final organizer design — all done by hand, which is extra fun. Contact us. We especially need to find some really careful proofreaders.