As one of the founding officers of MI69, i applaud your initiative, though im not convinced that it has to be either/or wrt MI. We've wrestled with the distance issue ourselves and have tried and/or discussed a number of ideas to address the issue - from streaming our meetings online to having held some meetings in places like Chaut and Clayton, to appointing regional representatives to advocate for local areas. This last one is in place, and the only thing we've been lacking is more people like Trevor and Justin who want to step up and become involved. We're more than willing to work with you guys...we could appoint someone as the official regional rep and you could hold local meetings under the 69 umbrella to feed those issues back and be the local on-the-ground point of contact. And with interest and membership outside rochester we can certainly push to make a 'virtual' statewide meeting a reality.
if you'd like to try to see if we can figure something out that would focus and combine our powers to make beneficial changes, rather than splintering it, let me know!