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

1. Upcoming Event – Garden Day is this Saturday. Wyatt says that we don’t have yard gloves that he’s comfortable giving to new people. We’re good with him buying some this week, and getting reimbursed for them at next week’s meeting.
2. Library Donation – Naomi brought several books for our lending library. We like them. Thanks, Naomi!
3. BML Video – Ty has been unable to download the video because his computer is junk. Marc will try it next, on his less-junky computer.
4. Gardening Email – Ty got a couple of emails from a neighbor interested in getting some help gardening. Ty will invite her to this Saturday’s garden day or we can possibly accommodate her at a future Monday meeting.
5. Library Open House – Marc and Ty’s draft in the group chat looks good, and it will be posted online very soon.
6. Yard Sale – Ty had to fix a glitch or mistake in our yard sale event, but it may have deleted some invitations. Thanks, Facebook. We’ll have to redo that.
7. Dropbox reimbursement – Ty’s premium Dropbox account is coming up for renewal for another month. We think we’ll need it for another, and we’ll reimburse him for that.
8. “Wilderness Crossing” Bullshit – Wyatt reports that there is a proposed 500-unit housing development being considered adjacent to Wildnerness Park. There is community resistance to the project, because it endangers both wildlife in the Wilderness Park area as well as two Native sweat lodges. Complaints to the zoning department are strongly encouraged before the deadline tomorrow morning and the official government hearing on the development on Wednesday.
9. Fairness Ordinance Discussion – We have an offer from our friend Aryn to give us an inforational presentation about the issues surrounding the controversies around the return of the “Fairness Ordinance.” We are interested in hosting such an event as soon as Aryn is ready to do it, since it may possibly come up to a vote as early as this spring. We are interested in doing this as an online event, and would prefer to record it if Aryn is comfortable with that. It would mean getting onto YouTube after the live event, and giving more people a chance to get that information.
10. Library Organization – Naomi has done a lot of work, but is moving out of state, and we will miss her terribly! She has a bit of a backlog of individual books to be manually inserted, but may still be able to work through those remotely for us. We have the login info for LibraryThing, so we will carry on with that. We also spent a bit of time when we had the whole group together to decide on a little bit of physical reorganization.

Meeting adjourned: 8:50 PM

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Marc, Ty

1. Event Review – We hosted “Intersectional Feminism for Beginners” on Saturday. We had a small turnout, but did meet two new people and they seemed to have a good time. We may have been able to draw more people if we had advertised the event sooner.
2. Library Donation – Jackson has a few more books for our lending library. Marc and Ty like ’em, too.
3. Black Musicians and Liberation Video – Jackson has reached out to Monte, and Monte has agreed to edit the video for us again this year. He has also declined compensation. Thanks, Monte!
4. Upcoming CRT Talk – Jackson has been in communication with Professor Lynn, and we should have some final details to start advertising soon.
5. Advertising Upcoming Events – We need to get the April 2nd Garden Day workshop posted online ASAP; Wyatt is working on it. Marc and Ty will begin drafting our Library Open House Event, and Ty will also start work on drafting our advertising for the yard sale fundraiser. Jackson will be working on the May reading discussion.

Meeting adjourned: 8:08 PM

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Marc, Ty, Wyatt
Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Event Review – We had our second-annual Black Musicians and Liberation on Thursday night with Professor Kwame Dawes. It was really well attended, and there are already people asking when we’re going to get the video up. Marc is working on getting thank you notes for Kwame and Dance. Jackson will reach out to the friend who edited our video last year to see if he can help us edit the video again this year.
2. Upcoming Event – We’re hosting an in-person discussion this Saturday! We’re excited for Intersectional Feminism for Beginners. We have to clean up the event space a little bit, but it’ll be fine.
3. Reimbursement – Ty needed to upgrade his Dropbox storage account to save our video of Kwame’s talk, which is going to cost him $12 a month. He will be reimbursed, and we are tentatively pre-approving keeping his account upgraded at our expense until we’re done getting Kwame’s talk edited and uploaded to YouTube and we get Marvin Lynn’s upcoming Critical Race Theory talk recorded and edited.
4. Calendar distro – Wyatt hasn’t been able to get out to the Unitarian Church. Marc still needs to do his spots, but he’s planning to do it this week.

Meeting adjourned: 8:10 PM

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

1. Upcoming Event – Our annual counter-protest of the Walk For Life is this Saturday. We are ready.
2. Library Donation – Jackson has two more books for the library this week. They’ll fit in nicely.
3. Spring Calendar –
   March – Open or Reading Discussion (preference to feminist topic?) OR Feminist Panel?
   Saturday, April 2nd, 1-3 PM – Garden Day workshop
   Late April – Digital Panel on Climate Change or Environmental Justice
   Early May – Open or Reading Discussion
   Friday, May 20th (8-6) and Saturday, May 21st (8-2) – Yard Sale Fundraiser

Possible discussion subject: current state of right-wing/proto-fascism; Jackson is investigating leads on a good article to build a discussion around.

Meeting adjourned: 8:45 PM

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

1. Event Review – Our Matrix movie night was a bust!
2. Next Week’s Meeting – We decided not to meet next week. Our next meeting will be on January 3rd.
3. Janurary 8th Panel – The event is now up on Facebook and the calendar on our website. Marc has designed and printed fliers, and we need to get them up around town this week, including at some of the more progressive churches. Our efforts to find a third panelist have seemingly fallen through, and we need to explore other leads if we’re going to add anyone else to the event.
4. Library Organization – Naomi was here with Jackson and Wyatt last Friday and we have our “Marginalized Identities” books on our new shelves. We need to decide what we want to put on our former Identity bookcase. There was discussion of wanting to put something of high priority and interest there, as that case is in the middle of the room and convenient to browse. There was some thought of putting up the communist/anarchist theory stuff, or possibly the environmentalist stuff. Jackson also has the thought of having a shelf of “Greatest Hits” or specific favorites or recommendations from the Black Cats. Ty added that we should possibly put more collaborative work into our library cart displays a la the staff recommendations shelf at local bookstores.

Meeting adjourned: 8:25 PM

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

1. Event Review – We had our “Labor vs. Capital For Beginners” discussion on Saturday. It was well attended, and the discussion seemed inspired.
2. Library Donation – Marc donated three books for our lending library. Thanks, Marc!
3. Calendar Distro Update – Jackson and Wyatt got all of downtown. There’s still a handful of far-off places that are not yet done, and Marc and Ty will take the rest of our available calendars and try to finish up this week.
4. Library Update – We had to postpone our library committee meeting because Naomi was sick and we are going to wait for her to re-shelve books. She has still been very busy with investigating software solutions. Login information has been forwarded to the Discord chat. We’re hoping to get the re-shelving done later this month, if and when Naomi gets healthy and maybe has some free time.
5. January Panel – We spent some time wordsmithing an appeal asking for our third panelist. We need to get our online advertisement up for this event in the next week; Marc and Ty will start drafting that. It’s also about time to start collecting 2-3 sentence bios about our moderator and panelists. And we also need to prepare some questions for the panel; we hope to continue this brainstorming in the Discord chat this week. Marc will start designing something visual for an online banner and/or special flier.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Marc, Ty, Wyatt
Start time: 7:20 PM

1. Upcoming Event – We have a movie this Saturday. We’ve got some tidying to do in the living room, but we’re going to be alright. Ty and Marc will be bringing the DVD and an air filter. If the Facebook event’s guest list is accurate, we’ll probably have a small group.
2. Library Donation – Ty brought a book about housing inequality for our lending library. It’s a good fit for our growing section on urban issues and gentrification.
3. Research Interview – We are tentatively scheduling our interview with the researcher next Monday at 4:30 PM. Ty will pass along any further updates on the Discord chat if and when he gets them.
4. Winter Calendar –

We really should try to get this finalized in the next couple of weeks, but are behind schedule!

We discussed the possibilities of doing a Jitsi panel discussion on liberation theology for the holidays. We have a couple of friends who might be good panelists, and there’s some talk of perhaps approaching the Unitarian Church for a third panelist. We have a few other ideas of folks who aren’t necessarily within the Christian tradition, but we’re preferring left-wing Christians at this time as liberation theology is a specifically Christian.

There’s also a lot of interest in doing something labor-related with the current strike wave going on. Do we want to do a discussion event? Show a film? Wyatt and Jackson talked a bit about what we heard from the Kellogg’s workers on strike in Omaha. Could we do some videos with them for our YouTube channel?

Counter-Protest the Anti-Choice Walk For Life – January 29th, 2022

Black Musicians and Liberation event in February?

5. November Event – We need to get our Women and Christianity event up this week! We’re less than three weeks away already.

Meeting adjourned: 8:35 PM

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

1. Event Review – We had our anti-Columbus Day protest last Monday. We had a good turnout and handed out a lot of educational literature. Jackson even wound up being interviewed for a national AP wire article, thanks to our Facebook event. The sign-making party was a bust, probably due to poor advertising.
2. Interview – A grad student in the UK reached out to us to see if we’d give an interview about running our activist space. The collective nominates Jackson and Ty to represent the group, as they have seniority. Ty will figure out when is good in his schedule and reach out to see if our schedules can by synchronized with the researcher’s.
3. Strike Solidarity – We will be donating $200 from our treasury toward the strike fund for the Kellogg’s workers on strike in Omaha. We’re also planning to drive up there someday soon to see if we can be of any further help to them.
4. Migrating from Facebook? – Ty and Marc have continued to do more research on the potential for us replacing our internal discussions on Facebook with Discord. Ty would like a timetable for our migration from Facebook. Wyatt suggests spending the winter familiarizing ourselves with Discord and possibly moving away from Facebook in the spring.
5. Winter Calendar – tabled to next week

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

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

1. Event Review – We had our discussion on the Right’s censorship of education on Saturday, but the three of us were the only ones who came! We had a lot of social media buzz, so it seemed to be a relevant subject to many of our friends. But it obviously didn’t translate into turnout. We have questions about whether the continuing pandemic is keeping our kind of people at home. Wyatt thinks we should be more directly contacting friends who we think are specifically interested in the subject of a given event and relying less on Facebook.
2. October Events – We need to get to advertising our Anti-Columbus Day Protest as well as our Nightbreed movie night. Jackson volunteers to do the protest description. Ty and Marc will be screening Nightbreed this weekend, and will get that event description drafted soon afterwards. We’re thinking we should have an intermission about halfway through the two-hour movie, for a snack break outside. Otherwise, masks will be required on inside the house for the entirety of the event.
3. Library Update – Jackson reports that Naomi stopped by today to inventory more books for our fledgling library database. Thanks, Naomi!

Meeting adjourned: 7:55 PM

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

1. Calendar Distro Update – Ty has had a rough week and not been able to do what he meant to last week. Jackson is willing to help with distro. Ty still needs to get a few more printed. Jackson may be fliering in the Haymarket this week.
2. Hyping September Events – Ty will try his hand at drafting descriptions for our September events (another Garden Day and our Far Right vs Education discussion), as well as the upcoming Columbus Day protest in October.
3. Next Monday – With Marc and Ty unavailable next Monday, and Wyatt likely to still be out of state, we decided to cancel next Monday’s meeting. We will meet next on Monday, September 13th.

Meeting adjourned: 8:00 PM