In attendance: Anthony, Jackson (secretary), Simon

Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Calendar Distro/Reimbursement – We are underway in getting our fall calendars up around town. Jackson got them printed last Tuesday, and will be reimbursed $25.30 for doing so. (There was also a minor issue at the library when our first batch of them accidentally came out in grayscale; the librarians were nice enough to let us keep those at no charge.) Jackson got calendars out to Salem and Jessie, and they have made progress around town (although neither was present tonight to report more specifically). Simon got his up around UNL City Campus, as usual. Anthony took a couple, and Simon grabbed some extras. Jackson will take the rest of our grayscale copies to Nate later; Nate has been suggesting at recent meetings that it may be worth printing extras in black and white and putting them up in more places, so we figured that we’d let him see where he’d put up these extras.
2. Bonus Event – The 60th Anniversary of Star Trek’s television debut is this weekend. We didn’t quite find space for it on our official fall calendar, but with encouragement on the porch tonight, Jackson committed to having an extra event this Friday where he’ll show a couple of episodes from The Original Series. It should be fun for whoever shows up.

Meeting adjourned: Late (but we were mostly discussing off-topic things on an otherwise slow business night)

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Jessie, Salem, Simon

Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Event Review – We had Winslow’s Wardrobe back in our space last Saturday. They served a couple of folks, including a young UNL student who was very enthusiastic about the experience. We agreed to tentative plans to do another distro here in December.
2. Fall Calendar Update/Distro Plans – Our new designer has created some gorgeous new calendars for the fall season, but the work wasn’t completed in time for Jackson to get them printed for this meeting. (Everyone was pretty impressed with the new design, though.) Jackson pledged to get those printed tomorrow morning, and we discussed plans to get those up around town. Salem will tackle downtown again. Simon will handle UNL as usual. Jessie pledged to hit the far-flung stuff around town as she can drive. Jackson will get calendars to all of them when he was them printed.

Meeting adjourned: 7:40 PM

In attendance: Anthony, Jackson (secretary), Jessie, Nate, Simon
Start time: 7:20 PM

1. Upcoming Event – Winslow’s Wardrobe returns this Saturday, and we’re happy to have them back. Simon will pass word along to UNL’s queer community.
2. Fall Calendar – We have FINALIZED it!

SEPTEMBER

Friday, September 11th, 7-10 PM: Movie Night: Dolores (2017)
Documentary about Chicana labor organizer Dolores Huerta

Saturday, September 26th, 1-3 PM: DIY Keeping Cool Workshop (final name TBD)
Climate Survival on a Budget?

OCTOBER

Monday, October 12th, 4:30-6 PM:
Columbus Day Protest [get details from previous years]

Saturday, October 24th, 1-3 PM:
Climate Change Horror Show (a reading discussion)

Friday, October 30th, 7-10 PM:
Movie Night: His House (about Sudanese immigrants/refugees struggling in the UK),

NOVEMBER

Saturday, November 7th, 1-3 PM: Linux for Luddites (workshop)
Helping you cut corporate software out of your life!

Friday, November 20th, 7-10 PM:
Movie Night: Hacking at Leaves

Meeting adjourned: 8:31 PM

In attendance: Anthony, Jackson (secretary), Jessie, Nate, Salem, Simon
Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review – We had our special Tuesday night movie last week, as we hosted the co-directors of the new documentary The Elements of Mutual Aid. We had one of our biggest turnouts for a movie night ever, and we struggled to fit all of our friends in the space (but we made it work!). Our guests were excited and impressed by our turnout for their movie; they even said our crowd was bigger than some of the audiences they’d drawn in larger cities. Most of the Black Cats in attendance tonight also came for the movie, and everyone had a really good time and would love to see more of that here.

Jackson gave $200 in Black Cat treasury funds to our guests to help with their traveling expenses. He had to propose this last week via Discord because we waited too long to discuss it officially in a Monday night meeting. There was no opposition to this contribution in the room tonight, but we will try to not make a habit of spending money in this way. Jackson is hopeful that our community’s generosity with time and money might put Lincoln and our space “on the map” for other traveling anarchist presentations. Our guests on Tuesday told Jackson that they would be recommending us to their friends.

2. Website – Jackson reports that one of our website domains was renewed last week. He needs to be reimbursed $36.19, and that was approved. Jackson believes our hosting will not be up for renewal until next summer, as we currently pay for it three years at a time because there is a significant discount for doing so.
3. Treasury – The two previous items led to a spontaneous discussion about the general state of our treasury. Salem asked for a current balance, which Jackson could not immediately provide as he hasn’t made a full update in several months. Jackson knew then that we had at least $2000 and committed to working on a full update.

While we were on the subject of money, we had some discussion of what we would like to be doing with what we have. Jackson wants to be sure that we keep about $1000 saved for the likely website hosting renewal next summer. Jackson also thinks that it’s time to replace/upgrade our event chairs, which was a sentiment shared by others in the room. Jackson is also interested in upgrading our projector again, since we still don’t have one with working HDMI ports (and that’s a potential issue if we have presenters wanting to run stuff from their laptops). Salem also asked about the possibility of paid storage to free up more space in our event space, but Jackson was worried that storage units could deplete our treasury in a hurry.

4. Fall Calendar – (Our conversation was so productive that we volunteered for a little bit of overtime on this week’s meeting.)

SEPTEMBER

Date TBD: Movie Night: Dolores (2017) [if we get our hands on it… Anthony’s looking into it]

Saturday, September 26th, 1-3 PM: DIY Keeping Cool Workshop (final name TBD)

OCTOBER

“Climate Change is a Horror Show” / “Climate Change Horror Show” (Rocky Horror parody)
(reading discussion about climate change…)
-> Salem now wonders if the title is too pessimistic?
-> Salem has a few article contenders; they will go into our Discord
-> Simon may have a reading about climate anxiety…
-> Jackson: maybe combine a discussion of climate anxiety with something about people pushing back with solutions?

Columbus Day Protest

Horror Movie Night: His House (about Sudanese immigrants/refugees struggling in the UK)

NOVEMBER

Saturday, November 7th, 1-3 PM: Linux workshop is ON for November (Anthony/Simon) [confirm date next week?]

Movie: Hacking at Leaves

September 26th is only Saturday available in Sept (Huskers play on road); October 17th (road game) and 24th (bye week) available; November 21st is only Saturday with home game, but Nov 7th might be best option for discussion since the football game that week is on Friday the 6th.

Meeting adjourned: 8:48 PM

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Simon
Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Upcoming Event – Our special movie night for The Elements of Mutual Aid is tomorrow. Jackson is very excited to meet our guests, and hopes we can pack the room for them. This event snuck up on us so quick that we never got to officially decide on how much assistance that we would give our guests for their travel expenses. Jackson will propose $200 into our Discord, and see if it meets any opposition…

(We mostly chatted off-topic tonight, in between a number of distractions…)

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

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

1. Event Reviews – We watched Star Trek here on Friday night. Turnout was low, with just a couple of Black Cats joining Jackson to watch and discuss. The discussion was still long and spirited, even if the subjects were hardly focused on the intended themes of the evening.

Salem had to cancel our planned tabling at Disability Pride on Saturday morning. They had another obligation come up out of town, and also had concerns about the extreme heat and a lack of relevant materials tying the Black Cats to disability justice. We are still grateful for the opportunity, and we may try again next year.

2. T-Shirt Idea – Jackson got a t-shirt from a socialist conference almost 10 years ago that says “we hate your boss too. Love, the Socialists.” It doesn’t appear that anyone on the internet is offering these anywhere in 2026. Jackson is interested in making a batch of these sometime, but we’d have to coordinate that with our friends who do graphic design and screen printing. We hope to revisit this idea again soon.
3. Fall Calendar – We discussed this briefly, but didn’t make much progress tonight. Salem had a thought about a reading discussion about the upcoming Super El Niño.

Meeting adjourned: 8:15 PM

In attendance: Anthony, Jackson (secretary), Nate, Salem, Simon
Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Upcoming Events – Star Trek night is this Friday. Jackson has seen some excitement for it during our other recent events; we hope some of those folks will show up on Friday. We’re ready for it.

Salem is also tabling on our behalf at Disability Pride on Saturday. Jackson will have to check whether we have any relevant zines to be copied for distro there. We may only have a couple of library books to show off there…

2. Library Donation – An activist from the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) donated a handful of their books to our lending library. We are happy to take them!
3. Fall Calendar

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

“Climate Change is a Horror Show” (reading discussion about climate change…)
-> Salem now wonders if the title is too pessimistic?
-> Salem has a few article contenders; they will go into our Discord
-> Simon may have a reading about climate anxiety…
-> Jackson: maybe combine a discussion of climate anxiety with something about people pushing back with solutions?

Columbus Day Protest

Horror Movie Night: Anthony recommends His House (about Sudanese immigrants/refugees struggling in the UK), but we’ll wait for him to watch the second half of it before we commit to it.

NOVEMBER

Movie: Hacking at Leaves

(We also spent some time with Anthony and Simon discussing their future Linux workshop, which is probably happening in the winter.)

Anthony also has an idea for a library-centric event. Something like a scavenger hunt where people get clues and have to find the book in our library that they’re pointing to. He admits it’s something of a standby event that we could plug in whenever we have an open date on our calendar. We’ll continue to workshop the concept.

Odds & Ends We Didn’t Get to Discuss Tonight:

Hero Worship

• separating good ideas/good work from the bad stuff?
• critique of purity politics
• critique of thought/political leaders
• mythologizing of Founding Fathers / Great White Men like Teddy Roosevelt or JFK

DIY Keeping Cool Workshop for September (Anthony, Nate have knowledge)

Is there a good Dolores Huerta documentary for September? Maybe Dolores (2017)?

September 26th is only Saturday available in Sept (Huskers play on road); October 17th (road game) and 24th (bye week) available; November 21st is only Saturday with home game, but Nov 7th might be best option for discussion since the football game that week is on Friday the 6th.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

In attendance: Anthony, Holly, Jackson (secretary), Maghie, Miah, Simon
Start time: 7:05 PM

1. Event Review – Our “Whose Freedom?” discussion was last Saturday. The discussion wasn’t as focused as Jackson would have preferred, but the folks who showed up had a good time. (Several of those folks were back here tonight, and we continued some of those tangents on the porch.) The majority of the folks in our circle on Saturday were Black, and that’s not very typical of events in Lincoln.

(We had a long and spirited discussion on the porch tonight, but very little of it stuck to Black Cat business…)

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM?

In attendance: Holly, Jackson (secretary), Miah, Simon
Start time: 7:05 PM

1. Upcoming Event – Our “Whose Freedom?” discussion is this Saturday. Jackson is particularly excited for it.
2. Fall Calendar

Hero Worship

• separating good ideas/good work from the bad stuff?
• critique of purity politics
• critique of thought/political leaders
• mythologizing of Founding Fathers / Great White Men like Teddy Roosevelt or JFK

October Horror? Twilight Zone episodes? (Simon); climate doom?; Don’t Look Up

Simon probably has good articles for a climate horror reading discussion

Simon could co-teach a Linux workshop with Anthony; he’s taught that class at UNL already

From last week:

Hacking at Leaves or Skins movie night for Native American month

Columbus Day Protest

“Climate Change is a Horror Show” (reading discussion about climate change…)

DIY Keeping Cool Workshop for September (Anthony, Nate have knowledge)

Anthony may have time for Linux workshop, but it still may be best to save it for winter?

Is there a good Dolores Huerta documentary for September? Maybe Dolores (2017)?

Hero worship discussion?

Horror movie for October (Vivarium? The Lobster?)

September 26th is only Saturday available in Sept (Huskers play on road); October 17th (road game) and 24th (bye week) available; November 21st is only Saturday with home game, but Nov 7th might be best option for discussion since the football game that week is on Friday the 6th.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

In attendance: Anthony, Jackson (secretary), Nate, Salem
Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Event Reviews – We had a busy weekend!

On Friday night, we had our I Saw the TV Glow movie night. We had our best movie turnout in a while. We had several new friends in the space for the first time; most of them credited our fliers being posted around town, but the cross-pollination with Free Pride probably helped too.

Salem tabled for us at Free Pride on Saturday. (We’re also grateful to Jess for giving Salem a ride with all of our stuff.) Salem reported that a lot of folks there were already familiar with us, but Jackson reiterated that it’s always good for us to be out there reconnecting with old friends in the community. We collected more emails for the newsletter. Salem also reports that we need more queer swag; we are now completely out of the “bash back” stickers.

2. Fall Calendar – We started brainstorming for it, and made pretty good progress!

Hacking at Leaves or Skins movie night for Native American month

Columbus Day Protest

“Climate Change is a Horror Show” (reading discussion about climate change…)

DIY Keeping Cool Workshop for September (Anthony, Nate have knowledge)

Anthony may have time for Linux workshop, but it still may be best to save it for winter?

Is there a good Dolores Huerta documentary for September? Maybe Dolores (2017)?

Hero worship discussion?

Horror movie for October (Vivarium? The Lobster?)

September 26th is only Saturday available in Sept (Huskers play on road); October 17th (road game) and 24th (bye week) available; November 21st is only Saturday with home game, but Nov 7th might be best option for discussion since the football game that week is on Friday the 6th.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM