As has been previously reported, Will Steeves, a graduate of the University of Toronto, was named Men's Issues Editor of The New Edition Magazine, the student publication of New College, University of Toronto, in September of 1994. As far as anyone associated with the publication has as yet heard, The New Edition (TNE) was the first and only student magazine in Canada or even North America, with an entire one-page section dedicated to Men's Issues. At the time, Transitions Magazine and other men's issues magazines announced the news of this important breakthrough for the men's movement in post secondary educational institutions.
However, all has not been well.
After the first issue of TNE was published in September, the New College Students' Council (NCSC), which funds the publication from student levies, suddenly withdrew funding. The reasons cited were somewhat nebulous indeed, and included a number of very minor procedural issues which had existed for over five years. Needless to say, this made many people at TNE and in the community at large, wonder why these procedural matters had taken so long to be raised as a critical issue, since they had existed without any prior complaint from the NCSC. The popular wisdom was that the raising of such minor procedural issues was merely a smoke screen to give the NCSC legitimacy and to deflect accusations that their attack on TNE was really based on disagreement with the content of the paper.
Nevertheless, TNE endeavored to satisfy the concerns of the NCSC. To begin with, a TNE Board of Directors was formed, which included members of both the NCSC and the TNE masthead, as well as members of the New College community at large. This act in itself satisfied one of the NCSC's major concerns, namely that a TNE Board of Directors had not met for over five years. Their other major concern was that a new TNE Constitution was needed, in order to resolve issues of legal liability. After many long and difficult meetings of the TNE Board of Directors, a TNE Constitution was passed. This Constitution was passed with the agreement of both the TNE masthead representatives and the NCSC representatives, including NCSC President George Luck, as well as NCSC members Margaret Chen and Johanna Schaeffer.
The final major hurdle was simply that the new Constitution needed to be ratified at a meeting of the NCSC, after which time funding would have surely been forthcoming, the major legal issues having been satisfied. However, at an emergency meeting of the NCSC, on Friday, December 9th, held for the purpose of ratifying the TNE Constitution (and therefore also reinstating TNE's funding), the NCSC members voted unanimously against ratifying the new constitution. The fact that even the NCSC's representatives on the TNE Board of Directors, who had given their support to the proposed Constitution and assured TNE that their concerns had been satisfied, even voted against ratification at the NCSC meeting, indicates that they are dealing in bad faith and seemingly have no interest in seeing The New Edition publish.
If the Constitution had been properly ratified as it should have been, TNE would likely have published by January. As it appears now, the TNE Board of Directors will need to meet again and present another Constitution to the NCSC for their next regular monthly meeting, then have it voted upon at the following month's regular meeting, which means that TNE may publish by the end of February or the beginning of March, IF the NCSC could be relied upon to deal in good faith. Given that many people no longer believe that the NCSC is dealing in good faith, the only other option besides relying on NCSC funding, is private funding and donations, as well as advertising, once sufficient funds are gained to publish again.
Consequently, a FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN is being organised. There are three methods by which funds are being raised:
For further information, please e-mail all inquiries to Will Steeves at goid@io.org. Of course, potential advertisers are also welcome.
DISCLAIMER: This campaign is being run privately for the benefit of The New Edition Magazine and is not yet an official campaign of The New Edition Magazine. (To wit: At TNE's next masthead meeting, official recognition of this campaign will be sought. In the meanwhile, any funds raised will hardly be refused, of course).
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