News from Vanguard

Hello all, hope you are doing well.

I bring news from the underground. Vanguard had it's first two projects, and they were not spectacular failures, despite our best efforts. First up was the print sale. We managed to raise $160 bucks! Pretty good for an upstart group of "bleeding hearts" activists. I had a blast, had some great conversations, and met some great people. After that triumphant showing, we bravely set off on our next undertaking, ignoring the warnings of our peers and all common sense. This project was intended to promote, of all ridiculous things, sustainability and environmental concerns. Originally slated as a group project, to take place during the lead up days of the conference put on by Youth Action Montreal (the one with Al Gore and David Suzuki as keynote speakers), it was forestalled by the first two days of the conference being canceled, due to low registration (they were apparently charging $15o. Go figure)

Undaunted, our intrepid protagonists soldiered on, contacting Youth Action and R4 at Concordia, and proposing that, since most of the legwork was done already, why not take advantage of said work by incorporating it into your advertising campaigns? R4 agreed, and the posters were adopted. The original plan, was to have posters promoting sustainability, using all recycled and recyclable materials. These were to be done using stencils (cut by us), which would then be turned by workshop attendees into posters.

Since there was longer any workshops, and therefore no attendees, we did the posters ourselves. I printed 13 by hand, after having received a fair (great) amount of help cutting the stencils and gathering the materials and research. They were all printed on cardboard, cut from boxes that we rescued from the garbage's of local businesses (with permission of course). Each one was different, and each one was unique. I will take pictures of the posters and post them up here as soon as I've a chance to take them.

The posters by the way, will be used to promote a %1 increase in tuition costs, in order to introduce sustainability programs on campus, such as recyclable materials being used in the school cafeterias and stores etc. Madness I know. It is our intention to bring this same insanity to Dawson, as it seems to us like a pretty fun thing to try to do. You know for a laugh.

Other than that, we are hard at work plotting our insidious Vernissage and Book Launch, which will hitherto be referred to as "the incidents". We are shooting for the 25th of April at the club Les Minots, so if any friends, family or kindred spirits are interested in attending, don't bother, we don't want you there anyway. But if you must come, contact me for more details. Don't bother phoning, I don't actually go home anymore. E-mail is the best method for communication, although I can't guarantee that avenue will bring you any more success either. If any one's interested, we can also put you on the mailing list, if we must. Or you can check out our blog www.vanguardcoalition.blogspot.com, you know, if you have time to waste.

Cheers,

Matt X

P.S: Big love to my friends and family, you know who you are.