Meeting Minutes 8/10/2020. Fall Calendar. Jail Support. Venue Expansion. Website Updates.

Meeting Minutes 8/10/2020. Fall Calendar. Jail Support. Venue Expansion. Website Updates.

In Attendance: Wyatt (Secretary) Ty (Moderator) Jackson

Meeting Begins 7:01pm

>Fall Calendar.
Football was canceled. This opens things up for us. We did get our fall calendar pretty well sorted out. We are doing three events and we will forgo a paper calendar in favor of doing a ‘meme’ calendar.

Three Events:
September: Community Clean Up
October: Can We Vote Our Way Out of This?
November: Guest Speaker on Police Repression: Date TBD

>November Discussion: We need to find a speaker.

Jackson and Wyatt will follow with their connections. Ty will follow up with Will re: Portland connections

>Jail Support Discussion:
Black Cat House is trying to get a jail support system going. Ty gives update on meeting with Atlanta jail support.

ROLES for an effective jail support organization:
1. “Vigil”: drives ’em home, brings snacks, physical support for the folks coming out

2. “Spreadsheet operator”

3. “fundraising agents”

ALSO:
phone banking/re-routing a public phone number to several in the network/post-jail resources

>Emphasizing Venue Aspects of Black Cat House.
As an organization, we want more community people and national people to use the living room to their advantage. Some immediate steps we can take now.

-Adding website tab about “our event space”
-Creating YouTube Channel about black cat house, video series: Garden, Rain Barrels, House Tour, Library Tour, Event Space Feature.
-In the future we want to do more advertising to open up the space.

Meeting Adjourned 8:45pm

 

8/3/20 Minutes: The Future?

In attendance: Jackson, Ty

Start time: 7:10 PM

1. The Future? – Ty has been thinking about whether we ought to make some changes to how we do things. What else should we be doing to better retain folks who visit the House? Should we do more to collaborate with other projects and get people who visit the space more directly plugged into activism? Should we be working harder to make the space a more public venue? Should we be doing more with multimedia publishing, whether it’s reviving the dormant radio project or adding a blog to our website? We didn’t have any answers tonight, but we spent a lot of time on these questions.

2. Jail Support Update – Ty sat in on the e-training on Saturday, and got a lot out of it. The folks who did the training have done this kind of work for a long time, and had a lot of specific advice that we will try to emulate as we move forward on our local bail fund and prisoner support.

3. Fall Calendar – We didn’t have time to deal with this tonight! TABLED

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

7/27/20 Minutes: Jail Support, Fall Calendar

Meeting Start: 7:04 PM

In Attendance: Jackson (moderator), Marc, Ty (secretary), Will

Bail Fund + Further Jail Support: Ty has got the bail fund account website ready to go; it just needs a description. He’s going to also send in a donation of his own just to make sure the account was properly set up to the bank account. We’re making it Lincoln-specific because that’s the most reasonable place for us to give jail support outreach to. Will has invited us to a jail support workshop on Saturday given by some activists in Atlanta in order to further foster a jail support network in Lincoln that we can sustain. We’re going to ask around in the meantime for pro bono lawyers and other people who could offer support. Marc has volunteered to help format any information we want to share into readily accessible and easy-to-distribute formats. Tabled for next week after we learn more at the workshop.

Fall Calendar: We are still looking into potential speakers for our online discussion on police repression. Because of that, we’re leaving the dates potentially open further – not only Saturdays in November, but also possibly considering Friday evenings (we need to remind potential speakers that any scheduling will be done using central time).

For the neighborhood clean-up, Ty proposes September 26. We considered the possibility of having it be in the late afternoon followed by an outdoor gathering/cookout at The Black Cat House but we’ll have to discuss this further.

We may need to get a new canopy for the Can We Vote Our Way Out Of This Mess outdoor discussion.

Scheduled events so far below:

  • Everett-Near South Neighborhood Clean-Up (and Cookout?) – September 26 (10/11 AM? Late afternoon?)
  • Can We Vote Our Way Out Of This Mess? An outdoor community discussion – October 17, 1-3 PM, Black Cat House (outside)
  • Untitled online discussion on police repression of protests – November (Friday evening or Saturday)

Tabled Items: Lincoln jail support, fall calendar

Meeting Adjourned: 8 PM

7/20/20 Minutes: Fall Calendar, Ferguson Movie?

In attendence: Jackson (secretary), Marc, Ty, Wyatt
Start time: 7:15 PM

1. Ferguson Movie – The activists who made the documentary Touch the Sky about Ferguson, Missouri contacted us to to say they’re going to be making the movie more available for showings starting in mid-August. We discussed our situation, and we’re not optimistic about doing another showing for it next month. We’re not comfortable with an in-house screening, we lack the means to do an outdoor movie screening, and we’ve been unimpressed with our efforts at online movie nights. At very least, we agree to do some social media posts about the movie when it is released online to encourage our online followers to see the film.

2. Future Events During Time of Pandemic – We had an extended discussion tonight about what our events should look like for the foreseeable future. We’re eager to try some in-person events during the fall, when weather will be mild enough for us to do them outdoors. We should see whether we need to buy a canopy tent, or whether we can borrow one.

3. Fall Calendar – We’re leaning towards doing one event a month through the fall. The neighborhood clean-up for September, Can We Vote Our Way Out of This Mess? for mid-October (preferably out in the yard), and we’re leaning towards some kind of event on police repression for November. There was some discussion of it being an online discussion, and maybe checking with some of our connections to see if we could feature one or several speakers from places like Portland or Standing Rock.

Meeting adjourned: 8:20 PM

7/13/20 Meeting Minutes: Ecofascism, Upcoming Garden Day, Fall Brainstorming.

Meeting Minutes 7/13/2020: Ecofascism, Upcoming Garden Day, Fall Brainstorming.

In Attendance: Marc (Moderator) Ty, Jackson, Wyatt (Secretary)

>Event Review – EcoFascism

Ty, Marc, Tanner, and Adam had a good conversation about recognizing ecofascist language. The term Deep Ecology was started by a Nazi. Sometimes people on the left use this term. Participants indicated interest in more conversations about ecology in the frame of Covid, Climate Change, overpopulation? and ecofascist rhetoric. Jackson brings up concerns that not many people showed up compared to the social media reach. Maybe we need to re-frame the issue?

Participants also followed up with exchange of readings. Jitsi online platform worked pretty well.

>Upcoming Events

Harvest Day is August 22nd. We should post the fb event next week.

“The summer heat is here and the garden is growing! Join us on August 22nd to harvest potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, pumpkins, and more, from our front yard garden. Eat stuff and take stuff home for you and your family. Learn about what plants look like before they make it to grocery store shelves and learn about just how good garden veggies taste. Also, check our our 1000+ gallon rain barrel system. Learn about the successes and failures we have experienced through the phases of experimentation we have endeavored over the last two years. Hear about our experiences gardening during climate change and under the City regime.”

Frame the event as an educational opportunity to explain the rain barrels and what potatoes look like. Harvest tomatoes, carrots, beets, peppers, squash and pumpkins.

>Bail fund Update

The bank account is set up and debit cards are ready. Now we just need to fund-raise!

>Fall Calendar 2020
Ty likes the idea of a community trash pick up day. Early October or September.

More ecofascism discussion ideas?

Longevity of leftist organizations and movements? Compare NoDAPL v BLM Furgeson? How to keep activist movements focused, mobilized, moving forward? Police repression of protest participants?

Whats going on with Electoral Politics? Can we vote our way out of this mess? Mid October.

We are considering giving an in person events in the fall, using masks and hand sanitizer. We have about 2 or 3 weeks to get the fall calendar ready. We may consider doing physical calendars again.

Adjourned 8:22pm

6/22/20 Minutes: Upcoming Events

In attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:00 PM

July Event: What is Ecofascism? is on July 11th. Marc had the preliminary idea for the event, so he will write a draft for the event description and send it to the rest of the group to workshop. It will be online via Jitsi Meet again. Marc will get that to the group in the next couple days.

Bail Fund: We got the account, we dropped the ball on the burner phone so we’re going to grab it soon. Lincoln protests are dying down in intensity but there will eventually be the need of bail funds on a broader local level again, so we’re still going to proceed in setting up an Action Network for it.

Fall Calendar: We started talking about fall a little bit – an idea for an October outdoor conversation circle came up. Possibly coinciding with Halloween? It’s still up in the air because how Lincoln will deal with COVID once the UNL fall semester starts has yet to be seen. We’ll table this further.

Tabled: Fall Calendar

Meeting Adjourned: 7:30 PM