10/17/22 Minutes: Fall Events

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

  1. Event Review – Our discussion “Prison Abolition for Beginners” flopped! We’re going to have to continue better advertising our events.
  2. Upcoming Event – Our next event is going to be our Candyman (2021) movie night. We’re going to get online advertisements up soon, as Marc has a draft for us to consider tonight.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

9/19/22 Minutes: Upcoming Event Prep, Library Donations

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

  1. Event Review – Aryn from OutNebraska was here on Thursday night to give a workshop. Our turnout was smallish, but the folks who came were definitely engaged. Our library was also very popular with our new folks. Jackson noticed that the event wasn’t showing up properly on our Black Cat House Facebook page, possibly because OutNebraska created the event and tagged us in as co-hosts. Ty is pleased with the precedent of this and wants to see us having more co-hosted events in the future.
  2. Upcoming Event – We have a movie this Friday night. Our projector is still being repaired, so it may not be ready for Friday. We may have to check one out from Love Library, and hope that we have a laptop and soundbar that will talk to it. The technical details are a bit more convoluted than usual, but we think we have a plan.
  3. Book Donations – We spent the remainder of our meeting time sorting through a backlog of books that have been donated to us over the past several weeks. There were many good titles that we will be adding to our library.

Meeting adjourned: 8:35 PM

8/22/22 Minutes: Fall Calendar Finalization, Website Planning

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

  1. Upcoming Event – Marc’s zine workshop is this Saturday! He’s feeling good about it.
  2. Fall Calendar – Marc has a draft for our fall calendar. We fine-tuned some of the event descriptions. Unfortunately, Jackson still hasn’t received confirmation of whether we will have access to The Color of Care for September 23rd. We decided to advertise our September movie night as a Social Justice Documentary Night (title TBA), while dedicating our November movie night to Judas and the Black Messiah. Marc will be getting the calendar files to the UNL print shop tomorrow and Jackson will be picking them up on Wednesday.

Sunday, September 11, 1-3 PM: “Urban Foraging,” a tour about recognizing edible plants
Thursday, September 15, 7 PM: “Changing Hearts and Minds: Talking to your Family and Neighbors about LGBTQ+ People,” a workshop we’re co-hosting with OutNebraska about how to help folks understand and support LGBTQ+ folks
September 23, 7-10 PM: Movie Night: Social Justice Documentary (Title TBA)
October 10, 4-6 PM: Anti-Columbus Day Protest
October 15, 1-3 PM: “Prison Abolition for Beginners,” a community discussion
October 28, 7-10 PM: Halloween Movie Night – Jordan Peele’s Candyman
November 10, 7-8:30 PM: Intersectiona-LEE-ty: How Bruce Lee Embodies Intersectionality, a digital discussion with Professor Lori Dance (this will be recorded as well)
November 18, 7-10 PM: Movie Night: Judas and the Black Messiah

  1. Website Improvements – We spent the last hour of the meeting in an extended discussion about the improvements we want to see made on our website. We’re eager to see what Marc can do with our ideas.

Meeting adjourned: 8:55 PM

Tabled Issues: Emailing list, indoor tour video/photography

7/18/22 Minutes: Fall Calendar Planning

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

  1. Event Review – We had our abortion rights discussion on Saturday. We had eight new people in the room, who all found us through the Facebook event. It was a great discussion that everyone seemed very engaged in, even with a self-described theocrat in the room trying to prosletyze us. (Thankfully, they left early when the attempt went nowhere.) Jackson collected emails from several of the attendees and needs to get an email out to them soon with a DIY abortion care zine we have access to. He will also use the opportunity to follow up with them about a suggestion made at the discussion to hold more of these pro-choice meetings in the coming months, possibly formatted as a “social activists’ support group” as one of our guests suggested.
  2. Library Donation – Jackson is donating a book about anarchism to the library.
  3. Fall Calendar

We still are planning on collaborating with OutNebraska in September, but Ty needs to follow up with Aryn soon.

We may do more pro-choice events, since there was a lot of enthusaism for follow-up on that issue at our discussion this month.

Marc suggested via group chat last week that maybe it’s time for us to do an event about mass incarceration/prison abolition.

“Intersectiona-LEE-ty”: How Bruce Lee Models/Embodies Intersectionality (Working title); talk by Professor Dance; Jitsi discussion recorded for YouTube; November 10th, 7-8:30 PM

Possible movie night(s): Judas and the Black Messiah

Recurring events to renew: Anti-Columbus Day protest, Halloween Movie Night

Collaborative idea: DIO Fest is supposed to be returning on October 8th

We have also heard from some close friends that they’d be interested in running an event, showing a movie, inviting colleagues, etc.

Blackout Dates:

Husker home football games are on: 9/3, 9/10, 9/17, 10/1, 10/29, 11/5, 11/19

DIO-Fest will also be on October 8th, so we don’t want to compete with them on that day.

Meeting adjourned: 8:35 PM

6/13/22 Minutes: Accessibility Work

Jackson and Wyatt were the only ones available tonight. We had some discussion about making the space more accessible, and then committed time tonight to actually cleaning up parts of the space indoors and outdoors towards being more ready for our next public event on June 25th.

5/16/22 Minutes: Yard Sale, Tabling Opportunity, Summer Calendar

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

  1. Yard Sale – Our annual fundraiser is this weekend! It’ll be a lot of work, but we had worktime tonight to price almost all of our currently collected donations. We discussed the logistics of picking up some of the larger batches of donations from our families. Jackson can still use some backup getting things set up on Friday morning, as neither Marc nor Ty will be able to help then. We’ll do our best!
  2. Tabling Opportunity – Our neighbor Chelsea emailed Jackson this afternoon to let us know that she’s hosting a block party on Sunday, June 26th and invites us to come and table (as we have done in at least one previous year). We are interested, and Jackson will email her back to accept the invitation.
  3. Summer Calendar – We still need to pick dates for the Pride movie night and the abortion rights discussion, but our night got late on us with all of the yard sale prep. We’ll continue this discussion on the Discord. TABLED.

Meeting adjourned: 9:30 PM