FSC Rings In The New Year

CANOGA PARK, Calif. – After enduring a few changes of the guard toward the end of 2003, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) is aiming its sights on the New Year, new opportunities, new membership, and a continued commitment to protecting the free speech rights of the adult entertainment industry.

With a new roster of board members slated to be announced next week at Internext, the FSC is also planning a general membership meeting on Jan. 23, 2004 as an outreach gesture to members of the adult entertainment community who are interested in learning more about free speech rights and joining up with their official trade organization.

"We are always interested in better branding for the FSC," Executive Director Kat Sunlove told XBiz. "And our membership meeting is a great way to focus on our current members as well as new members and help them become more informed about the issues they are facing in their businesses and how other people are handling those same issues."

According to Sunlove, the membership meeting will also be an opportunity to hear several speakers explain the legalities of the "Can-Spam Act" and various patent and intellectual property issues facing the adult entertainment industry.

In October of 2003, FSC Executive Director Bill Lyon stepped down from his post of three years and was replaced by Sunlove, formerly legislative affairs director for the FSC. At the time, Sunlove agreed to serve on an interim basis for six months to a year.

Shortly after Lyon's resignation was tendered, board member William Margold tendered his resignation at the FSC's last board meeting in order to devote more time to Protecting Adult Welfare (P.A.W.), a non-profit welfare organization he founded in the 1990s to support adult entertainment industry talent in various stages of need.

In the meantime, Sunlove has focused the FSC's goals on recruiting new members, reactivating old members, increasing fund-raising activities to reduce FSC's financial dependence on dues, and developing new free speech initiatives like a voter education drive to help members and FSC supporters better understand the issues at stake in the coming national election.

"We are looking forward to increased activities and fund-raising in the New Year," Sunlove said. "FSC has been around for a long time and we will have some new programs this year, but we won't stop providing the services that we already provide for our current members."

Some of the new activities the FSC is working on include organizing conferences specifically dedicated to the discussion of First Amendment rights, a silent auction, cocktail party events, and a possible bingo gaming initiative, which Sunlove said could be enormously lucrative as a fund-raising tool for the FSC.

The FSC's general membership meeting will kick-off with cocktails at 5:30 pm, followed by a prospective membership meeting at 6:30 pm. The location of the meeting is still not determined but will be announced in the coming weeks.

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