In Attendance: Jackson (secretary), James, Ju Ping, Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:05 PM

1. Event Review – We had our #NoDAPL discussion. We had a huge turnout, and a great discussion. Ju Ping volunteers to run a listserv to better follow up on the results of these discussion.

2. Upcoming Events – Our counter-protest for the Walk For Life is on Saturday! We’ll have a sign-making party on Friday night (7-9 PM), and we’ll open up the house at 8 AM for the very-last minute sign-making opportunity before the protest. Jackson will stay in touch with childcare volunteers to make sure that’s good and organized.

3. Facebook Messages – We received a number of Facebook messages in the last week. Hank in Omaha wrote to us to ask if we’d be interested in hosting a traveling anti-Trump tour being organized through Crimethinc. Jackson has been in contact to see if this something we can do. We also received a semi-anonymous warning from an Omaha Antifa affiliate that regional Neo-Nazis may be looking to doxx known or suspected Antifa or their supporters; we’ll pass this information along to our contacts.

4. Laptop Update/Reimbursement – Jackson used his connections at his second job to restore our found, broken laptop. It’s fully functional, and it cost him $25. He asked for reimbursement since this is collective property, and the reimbursement was okayed.

5. Event Idea – Jackson wants to add a small reading/discussion event build around an essay he read last week, especially since one of our friends (Hendrik) also suggested making a discussion. He’s thinking about adding it on Jan 21st or 28th, if Hendrik is open on either afternoon. We’re all cool with squeezing this in.

Meeting adjourned: 8:40 PM

Tabled items: Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, paper cutter, whiteboard, labels, 7×7 no-slip outdoor mat for porch, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Ty (moderator)
Late: Wyatt, Ju Ping, James

Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Event Reviews – We showed the Chomsky documentary _Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?_ on Friday night. We had a nice turnout and discussion, with several new people attracted to the movie. We might run it again, but Ty noted concern that the movie maybe wasn’t as political as we generally prefer. (The interviews in the film were mostly dealing with his philosophical and scientific opinions.)

We also hosted the discussion “Now What: Organizing Resistance in the Age of Trump” on Saturday afternoon. We had a really good turnout, and Ju Ping took some really good minutes that are now posted to our website. We have some ideas for follow-up events that we need to organize toward in the next year.

2. No DAPL Camp – Wyatt gave us another report on his time up in North Dakota. He’s been gathering money and supplies; he reports he’s not currently needing any material support, but with many ambitious projects in the works there may be major needs soon.

3. Upcoming Event – We’re showing Star Trek V on Friday night. We’re ready for it.

4. Nebraskans For Peace – NFP tagged our group to participate in an online poll to determine NFP’s policy/issue priorities for the next year. Those of us here with Facebook accounts participated, and Ty has scheduled a post for our Facebook page to share the poll.

5. Next Two Weeks – We decided to cancel our last two Monday meetings of the year, since many of our core people won’t be around because of the holidays.

6. Buying Stuff – Ju Ping has tipped Jackson off to a good whiteboard for our purposes on Craigslist. Ju Ping also thinks the hard drive in our public laptop is starting to die, and recommends replacing it (and preferably with an SSD of at least 128 GB of storage). We do commit to investing approximately $40 toward a replacement hard drive.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

Tabled items: Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, paper cutter, whiteboard, labels, 7×7 no-slip outdoor mat for porch, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Ju Ping, Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:05 PM

1. Upcoming Event – Our discussion, “Now What: Organizing Resistance in the Age of Trump” is next Saturday.

Going beyond writing letters to politicians; toward more productive forms of protest (occupations, barricades, boycotts?); critiquing non-violence/not conflating it with legality — property destruction? Police being violent against protestors?/self-defense; Ground Rules? – should we even talk about the election at all? Probably not — let’s keep the focus on the fight ahead… Try to keep emphasis on tactics, try not to bog down in feelings too long;

Tabled sub-item: We decide to thoroughly revisit our discussion on more effectively moderating our discussions next week. This might be very necessary, given the strong feelings many have on this situation and the reality that there could be diversions and distractions.

2. Calendar distro – It’s a work in progress, but Ty and Ju Ping seem confident that they can finish the distro this week.

3. Library Sorting – We spent a little worktime shelving some of our new library books and brainstorming how we may go about re-arranging our library soon.

Meeting adjourned: 8:15 PM

Tabled items: Review moderating discussion next week!, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, paper cutter, whiteboard, labels)

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

1. Upcoming Event – We’re watching Ma Vie En Rose on Friday night. Ty will have the movie ready for us.

2. Winter Calendar finalization –

December:
Friday, December 9th, 7-10PM – Movie Night: Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?
Saturday, December 10th, 1-3 PM – Now What?: Organizing Resistance in the Age of Trump (a community discussion)
Friday, December 16th, 7-10 PM – Movie Night: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

January:
Saturday, January 7th, 1-3 PM – #NoDAPL Discussion: Water Protectors and the Fight Against Climate Change
Monday, January 16th, 7-9 PM – How to Protect Yourself Against Trump’s NSA (a digital workshop)
Date TBD: Walk For Life Counter-Protest (Tentatively Jan 14th?)

February:
Saturday, February 11th, 1-3 PM – What is Imperialism? (a community discussion)
Saturday, February 18th, 7-10 PM – Movie Night: The Black Panthers – Vanguard of the Revolution
Friday, February 24th, 7-10 PM – Showing of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – “Far Beyond The Stars”

Tabled items: December Calendar, Stuff to buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, paper cutter, whiteboard)

Meeting adjourned: 9:15 PM (officially extended to complete the calendar)

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Ty (moderator), Wyatt
Start time: 7:05 PM

1. North Dakota – Wyatt just came back from North Dakota, and he spent some time telling us about what’s going there around the DAPL protests.

2. Nebraskans For Peace Conference – Wyatt and Jackson discussed some of their takes from the NFP conference that they both attended on Saturday.

3. Upcoming Event – “Can We Vote Our Way Out of This Mess?” is this Saturday! We need to promote it, and continue to think about what we want to open the talk with.

Winter Calendar –

Discussion ideas:

DAPL? (hopefully in Late Jan when Wyatt could be available or at least have materials to share)

A response to the election? (“Did We Vote Our Way Out of This Mess?”)

Imperialism?

Movies:
December:
Movie Night: Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?
Movie Night: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

January:
Walk For Life Counter-Protest

February:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – “Far Beyond The Stars”

Tentative Events:
Movie Night: Rebuilding Hope: Sudan’s Lost Boys Return Home
Race: The Power of an Illusion (three-part documentary series)

Note: Ty will not be able to be around for February 17-19 as he’ll be at MBLGTACC in Chicago.

Library – We agree that Ty will be reimbursed $7 for buying us 7 new library books, including six collections of Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For!

Also, Haymarket Books is having a huge 50% off sale and we want to take major advantage of it. We agreed that we will put up to $300 of our general treasury into the library, and Jackson and Wyatt will each be donating another $20 to the library out of pocket. Altogether, we seemingly have a budget of up to $520 to upgrade our library.

Meeting adjourned: 9:10 PM (including a vote to formally extend the meeting… a lot going on tonight!)

Tabled items: Stuff to buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, paper cutter)

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:02 PM

1. Event Review – We had our discussion on debt on Saturday. We had a good turnout, and the discussion was great. We should probably schedule another discussion on this subject again down the road. We didn’t get around to testing our new moderation techniques. We didn’t need them on Saturday, but it would still be good to review those and be ready to use them soon. The election discussion may require more moderating.

2. Getting November Events Online – We spent the rest of our meeting putting our November events up on Facebook and our website.

Meeting adjourned: 8:20 PM

Tabled items: Stuff to buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, paper cutter)

Reminders: “Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?” for Winter Calendar

In attendance: Ju Ping, Ty (moderator)
Late: Jackson (secretary)

Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Event Review – Ju Ping’s Ubuntu workshop was on Saturday. He was able to help a couple of visitors who came by for technical assistance.

2. Columbus Day – There have been some changes in the larger Columbus Day rally at the Capitol, and it will now be starting later than initially discussed. The good news is that their rally no longer conflicts time-wise with ours; the bad news is that there seems to be some dissension and disorganization within that larger action. We have tentatively agreed to return to our original plan of holding our rally at the Federal Building from 5 to 6ish, and then possibly joining the Capitol rally for a little while as well at or just after 6. We’ve also learned that there will be a Columbus Day action in Omaha on the Saturday before the holiday, and we may investigate our options for participating in that as well.

3. Online Promotion – We spent some meeting time putting up Facebook events for October events.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

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

1. Event Review – We showed Dr. Strangelove on Friday. We’d hoped for a few more people, but we enjoyed the film and the discussion afterward.

2. Upcoming Event – We’re showing Just Do It this Friday. We have the movie, and we’re ready to go.

3. Tabling @ LGBTQA – Ty and Ju Ping will be tabling for us at a resource fair on Thursday. We’re making buttons tonight to hand out there.

4. Reimbursement – Ty needs to get repaid $7.78 for getting more handbills and button papers printed. We agree unanimously.

5. Columbus Day – Jackson has been notified of another Columbus Day action that has been organized at the same time as the one we’ve scheduled. We have tentatively decided to cancel our protest and join with their action. Jackson will be in communication with their organizers to see if we can be of any assistance.

Meeting adjourned: 8:05 PM

Tabled items: Stuff to buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, paper cutter)

Reminders: “Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?” for Winter Calendar

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:03 PM

1. Reimbursement – Jackson finally found a replacement keyboard for our damaged collective laptop. It cost him $37.39, and we agree to reimburse him for it.

2. Work time – We finished adding our September events to Facebook and our website.

Meeting adjourned: 7:40 PM

In Attendance: Jackson (secretary), Ju Ping, Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Fall Calendar:

Our calendar is finalized! Ty will get them printed and distributed on Wednesday!

September
Friday the 9th: Movie Night: Dr. Strangelove
Friday the 16th: Movie Night: Just Do It
Saturday the 24th: Liberate Your Computer! An Open House Ubuntu Workshop

October
Saturday the 8th: Movie Night: Joe Hill
Monday the 10th: Protest Against Columbus Day
Saturday the 15th: Capitalism and Debt: A Community Discussion

November
Saturday the 5th: Can We Vote Our Way Out of This Mess? A Community Discussion
Friday the 18th: Movie Night: Ma Vie en Rose

2. Meeting Moderation

Ty did a bit of research on the subject, and we discussed the findings. Major tips included: appointing a facilitator, emphasizing the “step up” rather than the “step back” (asking quiet people, especially those who are looking for an opening “what’s on your mind?”), democratically preparing an agenda at the beginning of the meeting (“what were you hoping to discuss when you decided to come to this event?”; possibly encouraging off-topicish suggestions to be scheduled at later discussions), and prioritizing making everyone comfortable enough to contribute at any discussion.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:20 PM

Tabled items: Stuff to buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, longarm stapler, paper cutter)

Reminders: “Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?” for Winter Calendar