In attendance: Jackson, Marc (sorta), Nate, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:20 PM

Upcoming Event: Intersectona-LEE-ty is going to be this Thursday, 7pm! The event was posted very last minute so we’re sharing in several channels. We have some YouTube videos that Dance will use as part of the presentation, so just something we need to keep in mind.

Ty will pay for expanding our Dropbox again so that we have the space to record it as well.

Movie Night: Showing Judas and the Black Messiah on the 18th at 7pm! Jackson’s going to draft the event description and we’re hoping to get that up tomorrow.

Winter Calendar:

Any month: Potential guest speaker? E.P.C.O.T. documentary/company town discussion? Sci-fi film?

December –
Friday, December 9, 7 PM: Movie Night: Behind the Shield: The Power & Politics of the NFL

January – ?
February –
Black Musicians and Liberation?
Political Game Night?

Meeting Adjourned: 8:45 PM

Tabled: Winter Calendar

In Attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review – Candyman was a total bust. Facebook interaction was practically non-existent, but we did get the event up on pretty short notice.
   
2. November Events – Intersectiona-LEE-ty is in less than two weeks! We worked on that event description to get that up pronto. Jackson volunteered to draft a description for Judas and the Black Messiah by the end of this week.
   
3. Modes of Communication – We discussed alternate channels for communicating with people, including trying an email listserv again.
   
4. Library Donation – We went through a box of donations to see what to include into the collection.
   
5. Winter Calendar –

Any month: Potential guest speaker? E.P.C.O.T. documentary/company town discussion? Sci-fi film?

December –
Movie Night: Behind the Shield: The Power & Politics of the NFL
January – ?
February –
Black Musicians and Liberation?
Political Game Night?

Meeting Adjourned: 8:53 PM

Tabled Items: Winter Calendar

In attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)
Meeting start: 7:03 PM

1.) August Event: Description has been approved, so we got it posted tonight!

2.) Website Reimbursement: It’s time to renew our domain name, which Jackson is handling. It will be $33.99 to do so, which we’ll reimburse him for.

3.) Library Donation: Jackson had multiple library donations, including graphic novels, quick-read informational books, and several contributions for the Kitten Corner.

4.) Email: We received an email from an online used bookseller that Jackson recently purchased from. This seller drew the connection between Jackson and The Black Cat House, and sent a list of other books that they would be willing to send to us for free for the library. We looked over the list and all seemed like good titles, stuff definitely right at home on the library shelves. Ty drafted and sent an email to accept the offer.

5.) Fall Calendar
Sunday, September 11, (1-3 PM?)
Urban Gardening Plant IDing Tour (title pending)

September, date/time pending
OutNE workshop

Monday, October 10th, 4:30-6:30 PM
Anti-Columbus Day Protest (at the Federal Building, 16th & O)

Friday, October 28, 7:00-? PM
Halloween Movie Night
Ideas = Candyman, Us, Nope (Peele), Posessor (B. Cronenberg), Crimes of the Future (D. Cronenberg)

November 10th, 7-8:30 PM
“Intersectiona-LEE-ty”: How Bruce Lee Embodies Intersectionality (a Jitsi talk by Professor Lori Dance)

Date/time pending:
Prison Abolition for Beginners
Movie Night: Judas and the Black Messiah

Possibilities: pro-choice event, documentary

Blackout dates: 9/3, 9/10, 9/17, 10/1, 10/8, 10/29, 11/5, 11/19

Meeting adjourned: 8:28 PM

Meeting start: 7:20 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary)

1. Upcoming Event: We have a movie night, “Pride” on Saturday! Have to continue tidying the room, but otherwise we have everything we need.
2. Library Donations: Jackson got some more donations for the library! Ty sorted through them a bit, and there are some stacks that we’d like some other members’ opinions on, but some of the books got accepted into the library outright. Thanks, Jackson!
3. Projector: Jackson got us a new working projector! He spent $160.88 on it. He got preapproved by other members for reimbursement on this, but this is officially documenting the total for reimbursement. He also highly recommends buying a remote for it to serve our ambition to get this projector mounted instead of on a cart, as well as an extra bulb for it to have on hand. These are also OK’d for reimbursement when he finds them at a good price.
4. OutNE: OutNE reached out to us regarding our interest in volunteering and/or hosting future events of theirs. We’re opting to volunteer as individuals rather than as a group. But as far as hosting, assuming schedules work out we’re down to host future events. If any get scheduled for fall, we can potentially put it on our fall calendar.

Meeting adjourned: 7:45 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty

Meeting Start: 7:10 PM

1. Event Review: The discussion drew a spirited group. The writer of the article in question was present, who seemed pretty enthused that we were holding a discussion on his piece. As were many familiar faces to us, though rarer that we have them all for the same discussion day! A little denser read that most of our usual articles chosen, and the reading was finished in about 40 minutes and Jackson reports that they really only got to scratch the surface of the article’s potential discussion material.

2. Buttons: Marc and Ty borrowed the button maker for the week for making pronoun buttons for their wedding. They will pay back the House for all materials used. But in the meantime, Marc is also pressing designs for Black Cat purposes, and wants to know whether he should make others besides political and pride flag designs, and new pronoun button designs. Jackson brings up the new cat logos, and wonder whether some would make good buttons.

3. Black Musicians and Liberation: We have not had much luck in getting in further panelists, and we don’t have a lot of time yet. Also complicating matters is the personal loss suffered by UNL and specifically its Black faculty with the passing of Anna Shavers. We will be getting back to the panelist we were aiming to get on board, to see if he would be willing to do an interview with Dance and Q&A, but given that’s not what we had initially asked him about, he may say no. We do have a potential backup in the form of Marvin Lynn’s offer to do an online presentation on critical race theory, one of the topics he specializes in. This, we’re really intrigued on taking him up on regardless, it’s just a matter of when.

4. Spring Calendar: We basically have the calendar ready to go. For the stuff we’re still waiting on, Marc will work on the spring calendar design so that we can change it up real fast and we can get it printed.
   Saturday, March 12, 1-3 PM: Intersectional Feminism for Beginners
   Saturday, April 2, 1-3 PM: Garden Day Workshop
   Saturday, April 16, 1-3 PM [tentative]: Library Open House
   Saturday, May 7, 1-3 PM: January 6th Insurrection (a reading discussion)
   Friday, May 20, 8 AM – 6 PM & Saturday, May 21, 8 AM – 2 PM: Yard Sale Fundraiser

Meeting adjourned: 8:40 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary)
Meeting Start: 7:05 PM

1. Upcoming Event: We have the Marxist morality article reading this Saturday. We’re reasonably confident about content – just a matter of attendance at this point.
2. Library Donation: Jackson has brought the library a few donations, including multiple books by Arundhati Roy. Technically a few overlapping essays between them, but after a quick discussion on accessibility and shelf space, Jackson and Ty determined that it would not be a waste of shelf space to accept the overlapping material.
3. Collaboration email: We were reached out to by a collective based in Jerusalem. They do similar online/in-person education events to us on various topics, and provided some fliers of recent discussion series they have done. They’re interested in global solidarity and collaboration, and want to see whether we’d be interested in similar. We’ll reach out to them about this, and chat more about the prospect when we have more of our own collective members at an upcoming meeting.
4. Email: Ty is still having trouble with our official email channels. But we got into the main hosting again! So it should be okay.
5. Website/Facebook: This will be tabled for further discussion, but basically Facebook is losing traction as a platform and we need to prioritize our own website.

Tabled: Website, Spring Calendar [NEED TO GET DONE NEXT WEEK]

Meeting Adjourned: 8:15 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary)
Meeting Start: 7:25 PM

1. Upcoming Event: We have our online panel on Social Justice in Christianity this Saturday! Dance has looked over the questions and they’ve been sent to our now three panelists, as Wyatt had successfully made contact with a Call to Action representative during our break.

We have not been able to flier as well as we hoped, but we had help compiling a list of some good churches in the area to reach out to. Jackson contacted six on social media, and had some back-and-forth conversation with a representative from one of them. At the very least, we can share the Youtube link with them once it’s posted.

We’re going to continue reaching out to who we can, and Jackson will flier around the usual First Friday routes so that those walking by will access.

2. Library Donations: We had a great many donations! Our friend Eric has donated a copy of his recently edited horror story anthology, Antifa Splatterpunk.
3. Counter-Protest: Jackson will work on the event description so we can get that event posted ASAP. We have decided not to offer child care this year due to COVID risk still being high and cases rising recently. For the same reason we won’t have a sign-making party, but we still have many signs from years prior.

Tabling discussion of seeing who may want to be involved in planning the counter-protest, and a contact person for people day-of.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:30 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary), Wyatt
Meeting start: 7:05 PM

1. Upcoming Event: We’re playing The Matrix on Friday! Jackson will get the room set up on Thursday.
2. Social Justice in Christianity Panel: Marc drafted the description for the event, which the rest of us reviewed and edited. We got the bios for our panelists and moderator to include with the description. Our outreach to a potential third panelist didn’t get any response; we are going to reach out on a broader level to see if someone besides the local chapter may be interested in speaking on this panel. If not, we think the two panelists we already have are a strong enough backing to the event.

We’re going to give the questions we would like to ask the panelist to Dance first, as she is the one who’d be asking them and so she should be able to tweak the wording. Then we will send her pass of the questions to our panelists so they can start thinking on how they might answer.

Marc is working on the banner image for this event. We discussed also making handbills specifically for this event, with the link now that we have it. We’ll ask Marc whether he can put this together, then we’ll print a run of 50 and distribute, particularly to local progressive churches.

Meeting adjourned: 8:42 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary), Wyatt

Meeting start: 7:11 PM

1. Upcoming Event: Labor vs. Capitalism is coming up this Saturday! We did seem to have a few people interested in the discussion for its intended purpose of learning new things, so we want to establish at the beginning of the discussion that people can and should interrupt to ask for definition as they need. Perhaps using the jargon giraffe? A way to lighten the mood and making things accessible. We should also ask as part of the usual icebreakers, what people want to learn as a part of the discussion in order to steer the conversation in the direction they wish to go.

1.5. Library Meeting: We are meeting with Naomi at 11 ahead of the discussion on Saturday in order to do some library organizing.

2. December Movie: Jackson put together a description for The Matrix showing. We reviewed it, we liked it, and other than some tiny tweaks to the closing paragraph, it’s good to post!
3. Calendar Distro: The calendars and handbills are printed, and looks great! Now we just need to post them around.

Jackson: Haymarket
Marc: East campus, Mo Java
Ty: City campus
Wyatt: UU church, South/17th locations, Downtown

4. Logo Designs: We looked over the logo designs that Arden sent. We love the cats! The font might not work well for the sometimes subpar printing we have to resort to when we’re pressed for time, so Marc will reach out about it.
5. January Panel: We have not yet reached out to Call to Action about whether they would have someone interested in participating.

Meeting adjourned: 8:33 PM

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

Upcoming Event: Women and Christianity discussion is this Saturday. We didn’t post it on the website – oops! Ty took care of it during the meeting. We are going to have it as an in-person, masked-up discussion indoors, as it will be way too cold for an outdoor event. We will be hiding the snack table to remove a temptation for anyone to unmask.

Library donation: Wyatt has brought a couple books to donate, and we have approved both for addition to our library.

Reimbursement: Wyatt paid our artist friend $50 to create our new logo, and we approve his reimbursal for this.

Winter Calendar: Last meeting we talked about having more 101 events since we’ve noticed an uptick in people reaching out wondering how to get involved. Jackson proposed a 101 on labor vs. capital which we can use to also relate it to the strikes that have happened/are happening over the course of this year. This we’ll do on Saturday, December 4th, usual 1-3. We will postpone making a decision on whether this will be online or in-person until after this Saturday’s event.

We’ve got two panelists and a moderator for the liberation theology panel. We’ll try to get a third panelist, but now we are going to focus on scheduling. We will send some date/time options to those in the panel to see what works best for them. We’ll propose Thursday evening and Saturday during our usual discussion time. As far as the third panelist, we realized that our guest speakers have no Catholic representation and that given the Lincoln diocese is the one of the most reactionary conservative dioceses in the world, it seems like a notable oversight not to include. Once more details are finalized, we’re going to reach out to Call to Action to see if any of their representatives would like to participate.

As for the Black Musicians and Liberation, planning is still in the works. We would love to get an international perspective, and our prospective moderator may have some contacts.

Saturday, December 4, 1-3 PM – Labor vs. Capital for Beginners
January, date and time TBD – Liberation theology panel (event name TBD)
Saturday, January 29, 10 AM, north side of the Capitol – Counter-Protest the Anti-Choice Walk for Life
February, date and time TBD – Black Musicians and Liberation

Meeting adjourned: 8:32 PM