6/10/15 Minutes: Sama concert

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

1. Event Review – We showed Selma on Saturday night. It was our best turnout for a movie night in a while. The discussion was ok too.

2. Upcoming Event – Trekkies For Humanism is back on Friday night. We’re ready for it.

3. Sama – Sama wants to do a concert and discussion on LGBTQ issues at our house on Thursday, August 13th. She played a concert here last year, and she was political enough for our standards. We agree to allow the event. Jackson will email her to confirm the date, and see if she has a flier already designed.

4. What’s Next? – We spent the rest of the meeting trying to look ahead at what we should be doing over the next several months. We didn’t make any decisions; this discussion is sure to continue over the coming weeks.

Meeting adjourned: 7:45 PM

6/3/15 Minutes: Selma, Copy Machine

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

1. Upcoming Event – We’re showing Selma here on Saturday night. We’ll be adding the DVD to our lending library. Jackson bought the movie, and we agree to reimburse him $7.96 for it. Ty will make a post on facebook the Monday after the movie, announcing that we have the DVD in our library.

2. Copy Machine – Ashley suggests we consider spending more money on a copy machine. The one we have she bought for $30, and she thinks we could use an upgrade. We have the money, and have already spent a lot on commercial printing since ours broke. We budget $200 for the copy machine, Ashley will start the hunt. As far as budget goes, a large paper cutter would be nice. We’ll look into getting one, and see how the treasury looks then.

Meeting Adjourned: 7:26

5/27/15 Minutes: A short, boring meeting

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:01 PM

1. Event Review – We showed Salt of the Earth on Saturday. We had a fair turnout, and it was a good time.

Meeting adjourned: 7:14 PM

5/20/15 Minutes: Library reimbursements, more calendars needed

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

1. Event Review – We had a Trekkies on Friday, and a Feminist Discussion Group on Sunday. Turnout was low at both events; we may need to do more advertising and outreach. Ty tabled for us at Corn This Way on Saturday; he passed out a few fliers and spread word about our organization.

2. Upcoming Events – We’re showing Salt of the Earth here on Saturday. We’re ready for it. Ty will also be representing the house as a speaker for a Militant Labor Forum in Omaha on Friday night. He’ll be speaking on the intersections of working class issues and LGBT issues.

3. Library Reimbursement – Jackson bought two books for the library, and sought reimbursement for them. Both books are accepted into the library, and he is reimbursed in full for them ($15.35). Ashley also cautions us that we need another bookshelf for the library very soon, if not immediately. We’ll have to start looking more seriously.

4. Calendar printing – We underestimated the number of handbills we needed. Jackson will try to get more printed tomorrow.

Since our agenda was so short this week, we spent the rest of the meeting doing a little bit of housework.

Meeting adjourned: 7:25 PM

5/13/15 Minutes: Upcoming Events, Calendar Distribution, Reimbursement

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

Upcoming Events: Trekkies and Feminist Discussion Group are this week! Trekkies is on Friday, and it’s as easy as just getting the projector set up. FDG is on Sunday, and it’s a very broad topic, so we’ll do some general research to get some talking points on some women involved in labor activism. Ty and Ashley will also be going up to Omaha to table at Corn This Way on Saturday, we have zines and buttons made and fliers and calendars printed. Ty asks if there is a possibility for gas to Omaha and back to be reimbursed. Preapproval wasn’t given, but reimbursement will be considered next meeting.

Donations: Brian donated miscellaneous cool stuff, including office supplies, stickers, and a flag!

Library: Jackson brought several books that were all approved for the library. Jackson would like to be reimbursed for $80 for the cost of them. Ashley has voted absentee in favor of reimbursing, so this passes. The library treasury only has $40, so we will reimburse the remaining half when money is next allotted to the library fund.

Reimbursements: Ty spent $44 on printing zines. Jackson paid $7.22 on printing calendars. Both costs are approved for reimbursement.

Calendar Distribution: Ty needs some help distributing calendars at the end of this month. Jackson has agreed to help out. Ty will provide him a list of the usual distribution locations.

Meeting Adjourned: 7:23 PM

5/6/15 Minutes: May Day, Summer Calendar

In attendance: Jackson (moderator), Ty (secretary)
Start time: 7:08 PM

Event Review: What is May Day? had a low turnout, but the discussion was very good. We do want to do something more substantial for May Day next year, but we’ll have to get a lot of support for it. A march would be nice to get organized if possible. May Day falls on a Sunday next year, and our problem with marches have been not engaging those who can’t afford to take the day off when it falls on a weekday. That Sunday might be a nice opportunity to get marches back up.

Upcoming Events: No events coming up in the week, but we do need to get Facebook events up and edit the ones that are already up.

Calendar:

Edits that need to be made:
Meetings are now Wednesdays at 7 pm
Open hours need to be removed from the summer calendar
Add “p” consistently after times for all events for consistency
Add “All events are free and open to the public. The Black Cat House is all-ages and wheelchair accessible.”
Italicize movie titles if possible

We made minor formatting edits to the titles, they’ve been changed below:

June 6th, 7:00p – Movie Night: Selma
June 12th, 7:00p – Trekkies For Humanism: “In The Hands of the Prophets” (DS9)
June 20th, 7:00p – Movie Night: FernGully: The Last Rainforest
July 2nd, 7:00p – Movie Night: Elysium
July 18th, 7:00p – Movie Night: 416 (A local documentary on Nebraska’s anti-gay marriage law)
July 24th, 7:00p – Trekkies For Humanism: “The Outcast” (TNG)
August 1st, 7:00p – Movie Night: Grave of the Fireflies
August 15th, 7:00p – Movie Night: Killing Us Softly
August 21st, 7:00p – Trekkies For Humanism: “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (TOS)

We decided on gold as the color of the summer calendar.

Reimbursement: Button parts were purchased, and button designs were printed! We had already agreed that reimbursement be given. Button printing was $4.01, and the parts were $64.71. Jackson will be reimbursed for both.

Meeting Adjourned: 7:35 PM

4/29/15 Minutes: Summer Calendar, Button Parts

In attendance: Ashley (secretary), Jackson (moderator), Kyria, Matt, Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:01

Event Review: We had a movie night on Thursday, but it was a bust. We’ll give the movie back to Sammi next time we see them. Jackson was in Grand Island on Sunday speaking on Cuba again.

Upcoming: What is…May Day is Saturday, Jackson will be doing the event alone since both Ashley and Ty have to work. We’re not worried, it’s in very capable hands.

Treasury: We have over $708 in the general treasury. Jackson suggests waiting until we buy what the house needs before moving cash into the other treasuries. We need a new copy machine, as well as a paper cutter. Ella is wanting to move forward with the new website, so we’ll also need to be looking into new hosting. Ashley will look out for the print supplies, while Jackson will look into hosting.

Library Donations: Jackson and Ty have donations for the library. Ashley suggests getting a new bookshelf sooner rather than later. We have a lead or two, but we’ll keep our eyes out.

Button Parts: We need more button parts! Jackson thought our last order was for 500, but it was actually for 1000. We agree to get another order of 1000. We approve reimbursement.

Calendar: Ashley pretty much has the calendar ready to go, we just need to pick a color. We like gold or lavender, Ashley will come back next week with both colors and see which one we like better.

June 6th – Movie Night: Selma
June 12th – Trekkies For Humanism: In The Hands of the Prophets (DS9)
June 20th – Movie Night: FernGully
July 2nd – Movie Night: Elysium
July 18th – Movie Night: 416
July 24th – Trekkies For Humanism: The Outcast (TNG)
August 1st – Movie Night: Grave of the Fireflies
August 15th – Movie Night: killing us softly
August 21st – Trekkies For Humanism: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (TOS)

Other movies to show later: pervert’s guide to cinema, In Time, gas land

Meeting Adjourned: 8:21

4/22/15 Minutes: Treasury, Summer Calendar

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

Event Review: We did a discussion event for Earthstock. Those there didn’t really latch onto the environmental justice part of the discussion, but we did have a great discussion regardless. We also should’ve promoted this a lot more, and Ashley thinks as a collective we could do to improve in that department. Ashley believes that an open model of discussion like this event could empower students, and that we should try to go out of our way to do events at other venues like UNL more often.

We also tabled at Lincoln Earth Day, which was a little rained out. However, there was still a decent turnout for the weather, and we passed out several buttons and fliers and got some donations. We were also very close by Nebraskans For Peace’s booth, and we were able to do a little bit of networking while we were there.

Upcoming Events: WALL-E is tomorrow night! We have the movie and the room is already mostly set-up for a movie showing. Jackson will also be going to Grand Island to represent the house on a forum about Cuba on Sunday.

Yard Sale Donations: There are some miscellaneous parts amongst our yard sale stuff; Ashley wants to get rid of it rather than save it for the next sale. We all agreed.

Button Parts: We need more button parts! Jackson will search for more parts in bulk. Ty says we need to print off more LGBTQ flag buttons, and also requests an aromantic flag. Ashley will try to make a button for The Black Cat House itself.

Militant: As The Militant is a weekly newspaper, there are too many to archive. Jackson suggests keeping the last five issues should be available, and anything older be given out. Ashley also suggests getting a magazine or newspaper rack to store them rather than just have them sit in a pile on the desk.

Treasury: Jackson needs to do a treasury update! We got quite a lot of money from the fundraiser, but we don’t know what to do with it unless we figure out exactly how much we have. We’re thinking about spending it on a new copier (potentially one with color capabilities), a paper cutter, earmarking some for web hosting, and the library and speaker funds.

A Novel Idea: A Novel Idea apparently has run out of our spring calendars! Unfortunately, we’re also out of them ourselves, so we can’t copy anymore.

Calendar: Ty suggests a summer movie festival, we agree that it’ll be a good idea!

June 6th – Movie Night:
June 12th – Trekkies For Humanism: In The Hands of the Prophets (DS9)
June 20th – Movie Night:
July 2nd – Movie Night:
July 18th – Movie Night: 416
July 24th – Trekkies For Humanism: The Outcast (TNG)
August 1st – Movie Night: Grave of the Fireflies
August 15th – Movie Night:
August 21st – Trekkies For Humanism: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (TOS)

Movies to decide on: Elysium, Moon, Dr. Strangelove, Michael Moore documentary, Killing Us Softly, Selma

Adjourned: 8:25 PM

4/13/15 Minutes: Schedule Changes

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

Event review: Trekkies was on Friday, everything went well.

Upcoming events: We have an event at UNL on Wednesday. Jackson and Ty are getting ready and are going to finalize things tomorrow. We’re also tabling at the Earth Day event this weekend. Ashley will be out of town, but Ty will be manning the stand and is looking for volunteers. Ty picked out a pile of zines that would be good to distribute, Ashley will find time to make copies before Friday. Along with the zines, we’ll also have buttons for sale and free pronoun buttons. We have a ton of general fliers, we just need to cut them. We may or may not have more calendars, but spring is almost over anyway.

Reimbursement: Jackson spent $6.69 on pronoun buttons, reimbursement was preapproved.

Meeting Time: Ty’s new job has him working Monday nights. We decided in previous minutes that the best way to deal with this was to change meeting times. Ashley suggests Wednesday nights at 7. Jackson would like to move the meetings back to Monday when Ty’s schedule can accommodate it, but we all approve of changing the meeting time immediately.

Open Hours: The event Wednesday is scheduled during open hours. We decide to cancel open hours so we can all be there.

Meeting Adjourned: 7:25
Tabled: Summer calendar

4/6/15 Minutes: Yard Sale recap, Earthstock

n attendance: Ashley (moderator), Jackson (secretary), Rachael
Start time: 7:01 PM

1. Event Review – Our garage sale was extremely successful, as we raised just over $700. We’re going to wait to discuss how we’d like to spend it until we hear from Ty. The volunteers were very helpful; we should continue to ask for them in future years. (And we could have used them before the sale as well, during the sorting/pricing phase.) We had a few issues with not being able to get all of our (many) last-minute donations processed in time for the sale; maybe we should pester declared donators to get us their stuff a little earlier next year? Ashley wonders whether we should solicit for baked goods.

2. Upcoming Event – Trekkies is Friday. We’re pretty much ready for it; we just need to clean the last of our yard sale leftovers out of the public space. Ashley will try to get the last of our borrowed yard-sale tables out of here before the event.

3. Meeting Time – Ty is unable to make our Monday night meetings for the foreseeable future as there is a schedule conflict with his new job. We’ll need to figure out a new meeting time; we’ll talk with Ty outside of the meeting (since he isn’t here).

4. Library Donation – Jackson bought a copy of the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible for the library, since it’s a book we’ve discussed wanting for some time. He doesn’t want to be reimbursed for it. We agree to add the book to the library.

5. Reimbursement – We needed paper for our printer and copier. Jackson bought a case of it, and would like to be reimbursed now that we have money again. We agree to reimburse him $35.99 for it.

6. Earthstock – We’re a little over a week away from our environmentalism discussion at UNL’s Earthstock. Ashley will ask Nick if we can run a PowerPoint for our presentation part of the event; if we can, Jackson and Ty need to figure out ASAP what we need Ashley to put into it. Jackson has found an article that may have some useful information for our presentation, and suggests that everyone read it: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/anthropocene-capitalism-climate-change/

7. Vacation – Ashley wants to be released from all Black Cat responsibilities for the month of May, because she is burned out and needs to focus on personal needs for a little while. She recommends that we cancel open hours for the month, or at least for the days she would’ve been responsible for. We may wait and talk to Ty outside of this meeting to make a final decision regarding open hours.

8. Pronoun Buttons – We are running low on at least some of our pronoun button varieties. Ashley will take inventory of our remaining pronoun buttons, and get an order to Jackson so he can get more papers printed this week.

Meeting adjourned: 7:33 PM