3/9/15 Minutes: Earthstock Event, Cuba Forum

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In attendance: Ashley, Jackson (secretary), Sammi (moderator), Ty (moderator)

Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review – Trekkies was on Saturday night; it was a good time as always. Feminist Discussion Group met on Sunday afternoon. It was a good discussion; Ashley liked the way she, Jackson, and Ty split up the introductions of the three waves of feminism. Ty thinks we may have had a few too many awkward moments of silence; he thinks we should prepare more talking points to keep the conversation moving in.

2. Upcoming Events – LSH is meeting here on Thursday night; we’re ready for that.

3. Reimbursement – Jackson got fliers printed, and he wants to be reimbursed $5.35 for them. We all approve.

4. Earth Day Event – We discussed the direction we’re going to take with the Earthstock event. We’ll start with an introduction about environmental injustice, and then break out into group discussion.

5. Cuba Forum – We’re co-sponsoring a forum on Cuba, and we spent some time deciding how we’d promote the event. Ashley will make a Facebook event. We’ll copy some fliers at open hours tomorrow, and Ty will distribute them around town this week.

Meeting adjourned: 7:45 PM

Tabled: Pronoun buttons

3/2/15 Minutes: Cuba Panel, Earthstock

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In attendance: Ashley (secretary), Jackson (moderator), Ty (moderator)
Star time: 7:00

Event review: We had both the Civil Rights discussion as well as Trekkies since our last meeting. The discussion had a pretty good turnout and went well! Trekkies went well too; Jackson played an episode of the animated series to honor Nimoy before the scheduled showing, and it was a nice way to fill up time while we were waiting for all of our guests to arrive. We decide it’d be a good idea to watch an episode of this series at every Trekkies for Humanism event.

Upcoming events: We have another Trekkies Friday, as well as a Feminist Discussion Group this Sunday. For the FDG, we each decide to take a “wave” to research and prepare a short presentation to give at the event. Hamartia is performing again on the 18th, Ashley will have a poster finished in time to print this week.

Cuba Panel: Joe Swanson wanted one of us to serve on a panel for an event at the end of the month about Cuba. It seems the panel filled up fairly quickly, but we’ve been offered sponsorship and have been encouraged to lead the community comment portion of the event. We accept both, and offered to help with promotion.

Reimbursement: Jackson printed the calendars, they cost $14.71. We approve of reimbursement.

Earth Day: Someone needs to use their paypal to pay for our Earth Day booth. Jackson will do it, we approve to reimburse the $35 cost

Pronoun buttons: We’re low on a few varieties of pronoun buttons. We kind of broke right now, but our big fundraiser is soon. We decide to print them after the garage sale.

Book donations: Joe brought us a bunch of books! We also got a couple of donations from a person new to the house! We go through the books and take the ones that will fit into the library, and added the couple that didn’t to the garage sale pile.

Earthstock event: We have 6 weeks until our event. We wanted the event to focus on strategy, “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Effective Environmentalism”. We decide to do an open discussion again, as opposed to a panel. We have more experience with this format, and students might enjoy being talked to and engaged rather than being talked at. Ashley will talk to Nick about this, and ask if there are volunteers who would like to contribute to the event.

Tabled: facilitation skills, pronoun buttons, Earthstock event

2/16/15 Minutes: Donations, Earth Day, Event Facilitation

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In attendance: Ashley (moderator), Jackson (moderator), Ty (secretary)

Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review: Movie night went well! A decent turnout, and a very lively conversation afterwards. A good time all-around!

2. Upcoming Events: The Power Feminist Crafting Circle is meeting here on Tuesday, and Ashley will be there to open the doors for them. What is… the Civil Rights Movement? is on Saturday, and Jackson’s preparing to facilitate the discussion.

3. Library Donations: Brian donated a pile of copies of The Humanist and Socialist Standard. Jackson donated a copy of Voices of A People’s History of the United States.

4. Cancellations: Wednesday’s open hours will be cancelled in order for our members to see Sybrina Fulton speak at UNL. Ashley and Jackson are also speaking at Doane College next Monday, and so the meeting that night will be cancelled as well.

5. Garage Sale Donations: Ashley suggests putting out a tub in the public space to encourage people to bring small donations for the garage sale to events. Everyone agrees that this is a good idea.

6. Hamartia: Max from Hamartia has messaged, asking to play a show here on either March 17th or 18th. Both days are open, so Ashley will hammer out the details with him.

7. Earth Day: The Lincoln festival is April 18th, and they are now accepting booth reservations. The cost will be $35, and we’ve already committed to doing it. Ty will fill out the paperwork needed.

8. Environmentalism Event: The event we’ll be doing for doing for Earthstock will likely be scheduled on April 15th at 4 PM. We’ll table the discussion of details of the event for future meetings.

9. Calendar: Ashley and Ella had a few design proposals for the spring calendar. We picked a design we liked and they’ll edit it further and come up with the final draft in time to be printed this week.

10. Facilitation Skills: Ashley suggested breaking up event moderation into a person who handles moderating the discussion topics, and a person who makes sure everyone who wants to gets ample opportunity to speak and keeps interruptions of others to a minimum. We’ll give this method a try, as well as doing more research into facilitation techniques.

Meeting adjourned: 7:38 PM

Tabled: Environmentalism Event, Pronoun Buttons

2/9/15 Minutes: Spring Calendar

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In attendance: Ashley, Jackson (secretary), Sammi (moderator), Ty (moderator)

Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review: The Feminist Discussion Group met here yesterday. The turnout was good, despite the event getting posted late. We had a bunch of first-timers over, and that’s always exciting. We did have some minor issues with interruption yesterday, and we maybe should’ve done more moderating there to ensure everyone had a chance to speak. We had a brief discussion of what else we could possibly do, but no decisions were made. Our facilitation skills are tabled for next week.

2. Upcoming Event: We have a movie night on Sunday. We’re ready.

3. Spring Calendar: Our handbills are finished, and Jackson needs to get them printed. Ashley has been sick, so the full-size prints are not ready yet. We will hopefully have them next week. Discussion tabled.

4. Donations: We spent the remainder of the meeting sorting through some donations we received for the yard sale.

Meeting adjourned: 8:10 PM

Tabled: Facilitation skills, Spring Calendar

2/2/15 Minutes: Protest review

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In Attendance: Ashley (secretary), Jackson (moderator), Ty (moderator)
Start Time: 6:43 (meeting held early due to schedule conflicts)

Event review: The “Walk for Life” counter-protest was Saturday. The turnout was great despite the weather, and we had fewer hecklers this year as well! Many of our signs were destroyed by the snow, so we’ll have to have a big sign making party next year. The Angola 3 movie night was cancelled because of the snow.

Upcoming events: The Feminist Discussion Group: Black Feminism is this Sunday. Ashley’s feeling pretty sick, but should be able to handle the event with a little help.

Reimbursement: We approved to reimburse Jackson $6.20 for the posters.

Calendar: Ashley is planning on having the calendar finished by next meeting.

Meeting Adjourned: 6:51

1/26/15 Minutes: Spring Calendar

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In attendance: Ashley (secretary), Jackson (moderator), Ty (moderator)
start time: 7:00

1. Event Review: Trekkies was on Friday, it was fine. The turn out has been lower than usual. Should we try a different day? Jackson suggests maybe a Saturday night instead. The third #BlackLivesMatter event was on Saturday. It was mostly an organizing discussion on how to improve the events. Ashley will talk to Audrey about doing more work marketing wise, as well as adding more structure to the event.

2. Upcoming Events: The counter protest is this weekend! Ashley and Nick Gerken will be providing childcare at the house. Ty is working on a songbook, but there are potential concerns of disrupting the original protest and getting us in serious trouble. Ty is comfortable dropping the idea, since it could be a safety risk. We decide to talk about it with the others who will be protesting. Jackson contacted the ACLU, but nothing was promised. A poster making party is scheduled for Wednesday during open hours. Ty will buy the posters and will be reimbursed.

3. Paper: We are running out of printer paper. Ashley will pick some up next time she stops by an office supply store, reimbursement is approved.

4. Books: Ashley donated a pile of books from her personal collection to the library. We approve of all of them.

5. Calendar:
March:
Trekkies for Humanism: “The Lorelei Signal” (TAS) Saturday 7th @7
Lincoln Secular Humanists Meeting- Thursday 12th @7
Feminist Discussion Group: Feminism 101- Sunday, 8th 2-4
Movie Night: Erin Brockovich- Friday 20th, @7

April:
Yard Sale Fundraiser- 3rd+4th 8-6, 8-1
Trekkies for Humanism: “Night” (VOY) Friday, 10th @7
Movie Night: WALL-E – Thursday, 23rd @7

We’ll be collaborating with EarthStock for the “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Effective Environmentalism” event. The event will happen at UNL, and since we don’t know what room or when the Earth Day festival will happen, we’ll leave it off the calendar.

May:
What is…May Day? Saturday 2nd 1-3
Trekkies for Humanism: “The Cloud Minders” (TOS) Friday the 15th @7
Feminist Discussion Group: Women and Labor -Sunday, 17th 2-4
Movie Night: Salt of the Earth- Saturday 23rd @7

Meeting adjourned: 7:51

1/19/15 Minutes: Upcoming Events, Spring Calendar

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In attendance: Ashley (moderator), Jackson (moderator), Sammi, Ty (secretary)
Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review: The Intro to Asexuality happened! Turnout was not as predicted, but it was filled with good discussion and was very laid-back. Sammi also suggests that for future events of this nature, we have questions prepared to address to keep the discussion flowing.

2. Upcoming Events: We have a Trekkies for Humanism coming up, as well as the next installment of #BlackLivesMatter. The Trekkies will be “Measure of a Man” from The Next Generation, and other than setting up the projector and popping some popcorn, we should be set! Ashley and Audrey have the #BLM discussion under control, and Audrey will begin to take minutes of these discussions. There will also be someone coming by to give Ashley and Audrey tips on facilitating events, and Ashley recommends that everyone who can participate to do so, as these could be helpful tips for all of us.

3. Reimbursements: Jackson bought hardware to hang up the Ben Jones painting, which amounts to $4.95. He also printed off the Black History Month fliers, which were $.64. And since he was preapproved for all these purchases, Jackson gets $5.59 from the treasury!

4. Calendar:

March:
Movie Night: Erin Brockovich
Feminist Discussion Group: Feminism 101
Trekkies for Humanism: “The Lorelai Signal” (TAS)

April:
April 10th and 11th: Yard Sale Fundraiser
Lincoln Earth Day Tabling
Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Effective Environmentalism
Movie Night: WALL-E
Trekkies for Humanism: “Night” (VOY)

May:
Movie Night: Salt of the Earth
Trekkies for Humanism: “The Cloudminders” TOS
Feminist Discussion Group: Women and Labor
Potential educational event?

5. Posters: We decided to put up the extra posters we have no room for suggested donations. Ashley will get up pictures and post them on our social media sites.

Meeting adjourned: 8:22 PM

Tabled: May educational event theme, dates for spring calendar

1/12/15 Minutes: Spring Calendar

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In attendance: Ashley (moderator), Jackson (moderator), Sammi, Ty (secretary)
Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review: We had our What is… Cultural Appropriation? Discussion. It was a small crowd, but a good discussion, and drew some new faces into the house. The only improvement we can think of is that the subject is a little bit obscure, and Jackson suggests theming a future event around Halloween, based around the more-mainstream “My Culture Is Not a Costume” campaign.

2. Upcoming Events: The Intro to Asexuality event is this weekend! Sammi and Ty are ready for it, Sammi created a powerpoint with the basics, and Ty will give Ashley the Taking The Cake zine to make copies of. We need to make cupcakes for it, too. We also have the Writing Letters to Political Prisoners event, which Ashley’s got covered.

3. Reimbursements: Jackson spent $10 buying zines (mentioned last meeting) for the House, and we approve of it.

4. The Militant: We decided to get a year’s subscription to The Militant newspaper. Jackson will be in charge of setting that up.

5. Black History Month: Ashley has created two different drafts for a Black History Month flyer. We picked one out and suggested adding a header, and Ashley will mess with it and get it ready for printing this week.

6. Calendar: We began discussing the spring calendar. The big events to consider are Earth Day and May Day.

For Earth Day, we could potentially collaborate with Sustain UNL. We also need to look into tabling at Lincoln’s Earth Day festival again. We’d need to round up some zines to hand out and prepare kid’s kits, but we have most of the major supplies we needed from last year.

April is also time for our yearly fundraiser yard sale. It will be on April 10th and 11th. No events or open hours are to be scheduled the week beforehand in order to use the house space to prepare items.

With May Day, we didn’t do any major events last year. May Day falls on a First Friday, so while it would be ambitious, we could get in contact with local radical artists and hold an art show themed around working class issues. An alternative would be to hold a whole month of smaller events themed around labor history. A Women and Labor-themed Feminist Discussion Group, one or two movie nights (Salt of the Earth), and an educational event on the history of the labor movement and how it compares today were ideas thrown out. The International Socialist Organization at UNL was suggested as a potential partner for any events. We’re thinking “The Cloudminders” from TOS as our Trekkies for Humanism in May.

March is Women’s History Month, so another Feminist Discussion Group and an educational event themed around that would be appropriate. Ashley and Jackson, our resident mega-Trekkies, will think of solid feminist episodes of Star Trek to show.

7. Posters: We had the Interference Archive mail us several posters out of the blue, and we need to figure out where they’re all gonna go! We retired some posters from our wall and put up some new ones.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

Treasury Log 2015 (General/Library/Speakers)

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GENERAL TREASURY

We started the year with $137.40.

January 12th Update

New donation: We received $21.02 in our donations box.

New debits:

1) Jackson was reimbursed $8.03 for fliers printed after our last meeting of 2014. This was approved at the January 5th meeting.
2) Jackson was reimbursed $60 for buying a painting for the collective space from artist Ben Jones. This was approved at the January 5th meeting.
3) Jackson was reimbursed $10 for buying zines for the house. This was pre-approved on January 5th and confirmed at the January 12th meeting.

These total $78.03 in new deductions from our treasury. Altogether our treasury decreased by $57.01, to a new overall balance of $80.39.

January 25th Update

New donations:

1) Jackson donated $10.
2) We received $2 from Nick for a duplicate poster.
3) We received $2.20 in our donations box.

These total $14.20 in new donations.

New debits:

1) We paid $35 to take out a one-year subscription to the Militant newspaper. This was agreed to at the January 12th meeting.
2) Jackson is reimbursed $4.95 for buying hardware to be used in hanging up our new painting from Ben Jones in the public space. This was pre-approved at the January 5th meeting, and confirmed at the January 19th meeting.
3) Jackson is reimbursed $0.64 for flier printing. This was pre-approved at the January 12th meeting, and confirmed at the January 19th meeting.

These total $40.59 in new debits.

Overall our treasury is decreasing $26.39, to a new overall balance of $54.

March 2nd Update

New donation: We received $26 in our donations box.

New debits:

1) Jackson was reimbursed $6.20 for poster printing. This was approved at the February 2nd meeting.
2) Jackson was reimbursed $14.71 for spring calendar printing. This was approved at the March 2nd meeting.
3) We paid $35 to reserve a table at Earth Day. This was approved at the March 2nd meeting.

These total $55.91 in new debits.

Overall, our treasury is decreasing $29.91, to a new overall balance of $24.09.

April 29th Update

New donations:

1) Our yard sale brought in $704.66!
2) $20 were collected from our donations box.
3) $7.56 were collected from our tabling at Earth Day.

These total $732.22 in new donations.

New debits:

1) Jackson was reimbursed $5.35 for flier printing. This was approved at the March 9th meeting.
2) Jackson was reimbursed $35.99 for buying the house a case of printer paper. This was approved at the April 6th meeting.
3) Jackson was reimbursed $6.69 on printing related to a new batch of pronoun buttons. This was approved at the April 13th meeting.

These total $48.03 in new debits.

Overall, our treasury is increasing $684.19, to a new overall balance of $708.28.

May 9th Update

New debits:

1) Jackson was reimbursed $4.01 for button-related printing. This was pre-approved at the April 29th meeting, and confirmed on May 6th.
2) Jackson was reimbursed $64.71 for ordering button parts. This was pre-approved at the April 29th meeting, and confirmed on May 6th.

Overall, our treasury decreased $68.72. Our balance is now $639.56.

May 25th Update

New donation: we received $32.11 in our donations box.

New debits:

1) Ty is reimbursed $44 for zine printing. This was approved at the May 13th meeting.
2) Jackson is reimbursed $7.22 for calendar printing. This was approved at the May 13th meeting.

These total $51.22 in new debits.

Overall, our treasury decreased $19.11. Our balance is now $620.45.

August 14th Update

New donations:

1) We received $71 in donations at Star City Pride, mostly for our LGBTQ-themed buttons.

2) We received $20 for pressing some buttons for a local band.

3) We received $58.85 in our donations box.

These total $149.85 in new donations.

New debits:

1) Jackson was reimbursed $2.14 for printing costs related to fliers and a button-making project. These were pre-approved at the June 24th meeting, and confirmed at the July 1st meeting.

2) Jackson was reimbursed $17.64 for replacing the broken toilet seat in the public restroom. This was approved at the July 15th meeting.

3) Jackson was reimbursed $3.21 for buying new dry-erase markers for the house. This was approved at the July 22nd meeting.

4) Jackson was reimbursed $134.63 for paying for our web-hosting expenses. This was approved at the July 29th meeting.

5) Jackson was reimbursed $172.59 for buying our new copy machine. This was approved at the August 12th meeting.

These total $330.21 in new debits.

Overall, our treasury decreased $180.36. Our balance is now $440.09.

September 7th Update

New donation: We received $200 from A Novel Idea Bookstore. Awesome!

New debits:

1) Jackson was reimbursed $6.69 for getting our fall calendars printed. This was approved at the August 26th meeting.

2) We agreed to donate $115 to the crowdfunding of Equality Press’ first book. This was approved at the September 7th meeting.

3) We agreed to donate $100 to the crowdfunding of We Are Vital’s neighborhood canvassing project. This was approved at the September 7th meeting.

These total $221.69 in new debits.

Altogether, our treasury is decreasing $21.69. Our overall balance is now $418.40.

October 19th Update

New debits

1) Ty is reimbursed $13.94 for printing costs. This was approved at the October 19th meeting.

2) Jackson is reimbursed $100 for making a donation on the collective’s behalf toward Ella’s fundraiser. This was approved at the October 19th meeting.

These total $113.94 in new debits. Our overall balance is now $304.46.

December 9th Update

New debit: Ty is reimbursed $1.99 for paying for renting a movie for our movie night. This was approved at the December 7th meeting. Our balance is now $302.47.

LIBRARY TREASURY

We started the year with $0.

April 29th Update

Jackson donated $40. We now have $40.

May 25th Update

New donation: Jackson donated $100

New debits:

1) Jackson is reimbursed $80 for buying several books for the library. This was approved at the May 13th meeting.
2) Jackson is reimbursed $15.35 for buying two more books for the library. This was approved at the May 20th meeting.

These total $95.35 in new debits. Altogether, our treasury is increasing $4.65. Our new balance is $44.65.

SPEAKERS TREASURY

We started the year with $50.

1/5/15 Minutes: Painting, Prison Zine, Delegating

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In attendance: Ashley (moderator), Jackson (secretary), Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review

We’ve had two events since our last meeting.

The Solstice party was on Friday the 19th. The pizza and soda were a hit. The turnout was good, but it probably isn’t great enough that we need to do it in restaurants. We’ll probably continue to host them here.

We also had our second “Black Lives Matter” discussion on Saturday the 20th. Ashley will be meeting with Audrey within a week of the next one to coordinate that. (The day-of plan didn’t work last month, when Audrey had a personal issue that kept her until event time.) Audrey will also be taking minutes for the discussions from now on, since that was requested on the Facebook group.

2. Upcoming Events

“What is Cultural Appropriation?” is this Saturday. Ashley will be out of town this weekend, so Jackson and Ty need to step up. Ashley knows of a zine that would be appropriate as a handout, so she’ll try to make copies during open hours this week.

3. Reimbursements (Fliers, Painting)

Jackson will be reimbursed for the fliers he was asked to print during a previous meeting. The total spent on those was $8.03.

Jackson has also asked to be reimbursed for an original painting by Ben Jones to be hung in the public space. We all approve and reimburse him for the $60 he paid for it. Ashley also suggests pre-approval for reimbursement for any supplies that may be needed to hang this large, heavy painting in our collective space. We all agree to this as well.

4. Prison Zine

We’ve been offered some zines about prison by a friend of Scott Crow’s. We’ve been offered at $2 apiece, and we’ve agreed that we can five for $10. We’ll put one in the library, one in our zine archive, and we’ll have three spares that we’ll figure out what to do with later.

5. Books

We received a pile of books from Ben Jones. We’ll be adding all of them to our lending library.

6. Delegating

Ashley is overworked, and wants to hand off some of the other collective work to other members. Ashley will be doing less work on other people’s events. Online event promotion (on our website and Facebook) will now be done collectively during weekly meetings. Ty will now be responsible for half of our open hours. We’ll also try to handle our Facebook presence more collectively.

Meeting adjourned: 7:40 PM