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

1. Events Review – We had Garden Day on Saturday and hosted a community discussion on Ancestral Culture and Modern Identity on Sunday. Garden Day had a modest turnout, which was ok since Jackson and Wyatt were double-booked with obligations with our guest speaker Dr. Fredrik. We did meet a new friend who expressed interest in doing some painting for us; we’ll be following up with her. Our discussion with Dr. Fredrik on Sunday drew our biggest crowd of the year to date. Everyone seemed to have a pretty good time. Jackson paid out the $150 to Fredrik that we committed to previously.
2. Upcoming Events – We’re showing Israelism on Friday night. Matt thinks it would be preferable to get our new blackout curtains installed for then. Jackson doesn’t know if that’s realistic; he’ll have to check with Wyatt, but Wyatt is behind on work after spending most of last week with Dr. Fredrik. We’re also tabling at Lincoln Earth Day on Saturday. Matt will be here at 9:15 AM to get folks over to Innovation Campus. Salem is ill, but will hopefully bounce back by Saturday.
3. Yard Sale – Ty has prepared a draft for our online advertising. We will be posting it in the next few days to Facebook and our website. Jackson would also like a post for our Instagram; Ty will check to see if we have any old photos of previous yard sales to build that around.
4. Summer Calendar

Friday, June 14th, 7-10 PM: Movie Night: Strange Victory OR Queer Movie (To Wong Foo?)
Saturday, June 29th, 1-3 PM: [Discussion?]

Friday, July 12th, 7-10 PM: Movie Night: Strange Victory OR Queer Movie (To Wong Foo?)
Saturday, July 27th, 1-3 PM: [Discussion?]

Friday, August 9th, 7-10 PM: Movie Night: Godzilla (1954)
TBD: [Discussion/Winslow’s Wardrobe?]
We really want to avoid double-booking with Lincoln Indian Center’s Powwow

Blackout Dates: Star City Pride June 7th and 8th; Heartland Pride July 13th; also check Discord for Matt’s collection of powwow dates
July 25-28, 2024 – Winnebago, NE – Winnebago 158th Annual Homecoming Celebration
Jul 19 – Jul 21, 2024 – North Platte NE – North Platte Pow Wow Honoring Our Veterans
August 8-11, 2024 – Niobrara(?) – 30th Annual Ponca Tribe of NE Powwow
Santee Powwow (cannot find, typically 3rd weekend in June)
Lincoln Indian Center Powwow (cannot find, typically August)
June 15th/22nd (possible Juneteenth celebration)
Matt is gone first week of July

Movie Nights: Strange Victory [June/July?]
To Wong Foo? [June/July?; still waiting on Salem’s opinion]

Discussions: LGBTQ Damage Report?
Anti-Amazon

Does Winslow’s Wardrobe want to do a distro here? Maybe in August (Back to School)

Save for further consideration on Fall Calendar:
The Breadwinner movie for September? (Salem)
Come and See anti-war movie (Marc)
Discussion about upcoming election for October? (Matt)

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

Meeting Started: 7:05 PM
In attendance: Jackson, Marc (sec), Ty, Salem

Upcoming Event: Hail Satan?

• We will be showing Hail Satan? this upcoming Friday night, from 7-10 PM. We have the DVD and a working projector.
• However, one person living at the Black Cat House is currently ill with COVID but at the stage where they can be around people while masked; Salem suggested being transparent so potential attendees can make informed decisions about whether to attend.
• Jackson brought up having someone on mask-duty on the porch so that, before people even enter the house, they should be wearing a mask.
• Marc also brought up that there’s now no transparency about COVID rates in Nebraska, but wastewater trends were up before the dashboard was removed from public access.
• Ty suggested drafting a post on our Facebook/site event pages so that people can stay informed about COVID safety. Jackson volunteered to write this up, and it has been posted. Marc cross-posted the update to the event page on the website.

Pride Vendor Survey

• Star City Pride sent out the surveys for vendors to respond to. We will be sending in feedback and responses soon. Ty shared the survey questions in the Discord channel for others to respond to as they are able to.
• Ty will synthesize responses and send the survey in.

September Advertising & Newsletter

• Our first event in September will be on the 9th – a reading discussion about fast fashion’s effect on climate change.
• We will combine two articles about the topic for reading; both are relatively short.
• We still need to write up the event description for the Facebook page and website.
• Right now, Salem will take point on writing up the event description draft, and anyone can also help out with that.
• Ty suggested writing up the event description for our movie on the 22nd, so we have more time to advertise. Jackson volunteered to write up the description for Gather.
• Marc brought up needing photos for the September newsletter, and having the descriptions for the events before the beginning of September would be most useful. The newsletter would go out about a week before the discussion on the 9th.

Virtual Meeting Procedure

• Tonight due to COVID we decided to have our meeting virtually. Ty suggested that we should make a post to our Facebook page when we’re doing this, with a link to the Jitsi meeting.
• Marc also brought up some security concerns, e.g. it being easier for bad actors to join and disrupt a meeting. He suggested using the Jitsi moderated meeting. We would then share a public link and a private link for moderators, just for particular people who are able to serve as mods.
• Ty suggested posting the public meeting link just to our website, and not Facebook, due to the current cesspit of social media. However, FB is unfortunately one of our main avenues for reaching the community. We are tabling this discussion ’til later to determine the procedure more specifically.

Finalizing the Calendar and Distribution

• Marc will finish up the Fall calendar, and others will review it for errors before sending it to print. We need to get it done and ideally distributed before the end of the week. He’ll try and get the designs done ASAP.
• We’ll send the calendars to the print shop on campus, so they’ll be ready for pickup on Wednesday.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:34 PM
Tabled: Virtual meeting procedure details

In Attendance: Marc (sec), Ty, Salem, Jackson, Rae, Jacob
Meeting Start: 7:00 PM (!)

Event Review

• Our booth at Star City Pride was pretty darn successful! We ran out of the vast majority of things we had (buttons, stickers, and zines). Thank you to everyone who helped prepare and staff the event!
• We got tons of emails for our newsletter, which we hope to debut soon.
• Rae pointed out that the “BASH BACK” stickers seemed to inspire some folks into action (i.e. use them to cover up hateful messaging), which was cool to see.
• The Pride planning committee will likely send out surveys asking for feedback; Marc will forward any links to the BCH Discord.
• Marc said that having a more substantial break would have been helpful.
• Rae said that it would be helpful to have more staff willing to be at the booth to swap out, and fewer people at the booth at once (since sometimes all BCH volunteers were there at the same time). It would have also been helpful to known exactly what time people would be available to staff, rather than providing vague times.
• We also didn’t have the clearest understanding of how vendor staffing worked at the event; Marc was worried about not being able to get back into the festival if he left and needed to come back.
• The Compost the Rich stickers were a HUGE hit; Marc suggested reordering more of these for future events.
• If we do buttons again, Marc suggested not making quite as many, since there’s just one button press between us, and they’re tedious and time-consuming to make.

Upcoming Events

• Ty will write up the description for the Creating Trans Safety event ASAP. Jackson will post it after it’s reviewed.
• For the upcoming workshop on transforming conflict, we’ll need to meet at least 2 Mondays before the day itself, as it will be on a Tuesday, to discuss any needs for the event.
• Rae has the event description for the workshop written up; she will share the description and others will provide feedback for what’s written.

Reimbursement and Supplies

• We need more supplies for the button maker, since we’re out of the clear plastic covers and running low on other pieces. Jackson will research and confirm the cost.
• Ty bought the table for Pride; it’s a nice 6′ folding table and was $75.05 total.
• Rae bought bottled water for volunteers at Pride – $6.99
• Ty paid $10.00 for volunteer passes at Pride, and Salem paid $5.00 for their pass as well.
• These costs and others in previous meeting minutes need to be reimbursed still.

Newsletter Updates

• Our RiseUp account and listserv is good to go and as mentioned, we have plenty of contacts to add to it. Marc will take point on this. Emails will be sent out using our contact @ email address.
• Rae suggested having a featured book section of the monthly event newsletter as a way to highlight the contents of our library and encourage people to use it. It could also have a blurb that more explicitly advertises the library. Folks were very fond of this idea.
• Rae also likes the idea of changing up “featured” content in the newsletter so that we can express ourselves more, such as by having a photo related to BCH in some way. (Like something cool in the garden, things like that.)

Accessibility of the House

• The ramp and porch are currently cluttered, and paths are not wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs/might be difficult for people using other mobility aids to navigate.
• The interior of the house is also quite cluttered (with lots of yard sale leftovers).
• For the porch, we currently have a couch on it that needs to be discarded, as it’s taking up too much space. We discussed using folding furniture for greater accessibility – so we can still enjoy outdoor meetings/events, but can remove the chairs easily so people can access the front door.
• We discussed keeping an eye out for yard sales and used furniture for this express purpose.
• Rae suggested making a list of what needs to happen to improve the house’s accessibility, and when we’d like to accomplish that. Others supported this idea.
• Rae also suggested changing the most pertinent accessibility needs (namely the ramp/living room) before the upcoming workshop in July.
• We plan to talk about accessibility on an ongoing basis, and have it as a running meeting topic.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:30 PM (!)

In attendance: Jackson, Salem, Ty, Marc (secretary)
Meeting Start: 7:05 PM

Event Review: 10th Anniversary Celebration

• Our 10th anniversary celebration was 6/1. We had a good turnout, Sorry to Bother You generated some good discussions, and the food was well-received. We went with getting pizza from Mellow Mushroom and cupcakes from Butterfly Bakery, since they both have good vegan and gluten-free options.
• Pizza was $72, and cupcakes were $75; Ty paid for these. He would like reimbursement for these, but we will decide on that.

Upcoming Event: Transport Reading Discussion

• This reading discussion will be on June 24th. We have the articles printed out and ready to go already.
• Marc and Ty will write up the description together, and Jackson will post it soon.

Pride Boothing

• We discussed staffing plans for Pride and have good coverage for staffing the booth and switching out for breaks. Salem also indicated being available to help set up on Friday.
• Check-in on Friday is at noon, and Saturday check-in is at 10 AM. There is also overnight security at the venue.
• Ty picked up the prints of button designs and zines. The total cost was $83.87, which Ty would like to be reimbursed for. Same as above, we’ll wait for a future meeting when more members are present.
• Ty and Marc have been busy folding and stapling those zines and making buttons. They’re turning out nicely.
• We’ll need to get a six-foot table in time for Pride. Ty has researched ones, and found potential folding tables that would work well. They are either $60 or $70, depending on the color (“almond” or black, respectively). Marc suggested getting the black one, since it wouldn’t show stains as easily as the off-white one. Ty has offered to pick it up this week.
• There will be a mandatory meeting for vendors on Wednesday at 5 PM. Marc will attend this and convey information.
• The items we still need for boothing are: zine stands, summer calendar handbills, and prints of the button sticker labels
• We will also need to order more button-pressing supplies in the future, since we’ve been pressing a lot of buttons lately.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:15 PM

In attendance: Marc (secretary), Ty, Jackson, Rae, Arya, Salem
Meeting Start: 7:05 PM

Event Review

• We showed Snowpiercer on Friday and had excellent turnout and a good discussion. The audience had lots to talk about!

Upcoming Events

• This upcoming Saturday (4/29) is the Garden Workshop day about planting native plant species. This will be a pretty hands-on workshop! Wyatt is ready to go for this.
• We will be showing Salt of the Earth on Friday, May 5. Jackson will be writing up the description and posting the event.
• Our yard sale fundraiser will be coming up soon! Marc suggested posting the event 3 weeks ahead of time instead of the usual 2 to give people time to go through their stuff for donations. As usual, this is the only time where we do any active fundraising or donation soliciting. We accept most anything except clothing.

Pride Boothing

• We’ll be taking part in Star City Pride and boothing at the festival!
• We plan on making buttons, stickers, and zines to give out. The buttons will be inspired by queer organizations/activists from the past.
• Arya pointed out the inherent value in having a presence at Pride to connect with the community and encourage others to get involved.
• Marc will also work on getting our Riseup email list started again in time for Pride.

Summer Calendar

• We brainstormed plenty of summer events, and decided on a few mostly-certain dates. The most-well-received event ideas are bolded.
• June 1: 10th Anniversary Party and Sorry to Bother You screening
• June 9 and 10: Boothing at Pride
• June 11: LTRUE Garden Tour (haven’t applied yet but basically planning to)
• June 18 or 19: Conflict Transformation Workshop
• June 24: “Transport” Reading Discussion and trans rights update
• Brainstorming ideas:
• Movies: Hail Satan (documentary), Coco (family friendly look at immigration and classism), Clerks (work alienation), Triangle of Sadness (classism), The Menu (alienation and class warfare, very graphic), God Bless America
• Events:
• Neighborhood Cleanup – Salem offered to spearhead this
• Ancient Labor Organizing – we might want to do more research for this and table it for later
• News and the state of journalism generally
• Right-wing cults
• Gaming the System: We talked about playing Bang! or Secret Hitler, as well as Bloc by Bloc

Meeting Adjourned: 9:00 PM

In Attendance: Jackson, Rae, Ty, Marc (secretary), Arya, Binah
Meeting Start: 7:15 PM

Upcoming Events

• Movie Night: Snowpiercer – Jackson will purchase the DVD for this.
• Black Musicians & Liberation – The event will not be a panel this year, since potential panelists weren’t able to participate. That said, we are thinking of changing the format to a 1-on-1 conversation about “new school vs. old school.” The event would be hosted a week from Thursday from 7:00 PM to 8 PM. Jackson will be in contact with the potential scholars to see if this still works. Marc will be able to make the flyer fairly quickly.

Earth Day Booth

• The activity board for identifying greenwashing is just about complete. The stickers are done, along with wildflower-themed buttons.
• Ty worked on printing zines to hand out at the event tonight. We got several put together.
• The event will be at Innovation Campus on Saturday, April 15. Setup starts at 9 AM, the event goes from 10 AM to 2 PM.
• We also printed out the labels for the backs of buttons to hand out at the event.

Website Updates

• We’re still making progress with site content.
• Marc will make the new layout live on Wednesday night, with some links either hidden or set to go to a “work in progress” type page. Given our timeline, we’re on track; the site content should be complete before Pride.
• Marc also thinks it’d be cool to see about borrowing a drone camera to take some sky photos of the Black Cat House. Binah offered to speak to someone about potentially using a drone to accomplish this.

Summer Calendar Brainstorming

• Movie: Triangle of Sadness; recent fictional film. Rae suggested this but wanted to see if it would be a good movie for a discussion after viewing it.
• Hail Satan Documentary, discusses the temple of Satan and religious freedom in the US.
• Board Game ideas: Atiwa, about bats and pollinators and ecological concerns; Trains, a deck-building game where as you create skyscrapers or trains, your deck gets filled with waste that must eventually be dealt with
• Ancient Labor Organizing: Thinking of doing this as either a presentation or community reading discussion. Basically showcasing examples of labor organizing before the industrial revolution, across multiple cultures around the world.
• 10th Anniversary Celebration: Party with a game-like activity, e.g. bingo (with lefty-oriented questions) or scavenger hunt. Could also be a re-watch of “Sorry to Bother You,” with the ad saying something like “Sorry to Bother You, but we’ve been here for 10 years” or something lol
• Anti-Amazon discussion – why Amazon is SO bad, and alternatives to use/why to use those alternatives
• Conflict transformation – using conflict as a way to change the way we behave/think about things/our relationships, etc. Could be a good workshop
• Boothing at Pride
• A discussion with an update to the state of trans rights in Nebraska, depending on how things go at the legislature. Perhaps focusing on how to tangibly support the trans community, rather than strictly legislative action.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:36 PM

In Attendance: Jackson, Jim, Marc (secretary)
Meeting Start: like 7:15

Event Review: Poster-Making Party for Trans Day of Visibility + Reimbursement

• Marc got supplies (big ol’ markers) for the poster-making party, totaling $25.13, and submits that total for reimbursement.
• A couple of folks showed up for the sign-making event and made signs, that were then used at the TDoV rally itself on Friday! All things considered, we had good turn-out despite the last minute announcement of the event.

Upcoming Events

• Wyatt typed up descriptions for the Snowpiercer movie night (April 21) and the garden workshop (April 29). Ty will edit the descriptions and get them posted soon.

Earth Day Boothing

• The stickers arrived and look beautiful! We’ve got plenty to give out to people.
• Ty has been pressing buttons with wildflowers on them. We need to print mini-labels with BCH information on them, and they’ll be ready to go.
• Ty and Marc have been working away at the activity board design.
• We will also need to browse the zine collection for relevant ones; potential topics would be Indigenous justice/land back, anti-lawn culture, info on ways to tangibly make a difference, etc.
• We will also need to make sure to bring the canvas table covering/BCH banner

Site Updates

• Site updates and content are still ongoing. Marc basically plans on pushing the new site layout soon (before April 15), even if it means some planned pages are hidden or lead to a “coming soon” type message.

Meeting adjourned: about 8:10ish

In attendance: Jackson, Rae, Ty, Marc (secretary)
Meeting Start: 7:15 PM

Event Review

• We had to last-minute cancel the movie showing last week. In the future, we’ll do better to not cancel things in the final hour and are sorry for the inconvenience for those looking forward to it.

Upcoming Event

• We’ll print copies of the article to be read for the State of Trans Rights discussion this upcoming Saturday.

Black Musicians and Liberation

• We heard back from a panelist, but the confirmed date is coming up too soon. We will need at least two weeks to properly plan and promote the event, so we will continue working with the panelists to secure a date in the future.

Calendars & Reimbursement

• We noticed an unfortunate error in the spring calendars (they ready 2022 instead of 2023) and they needed to be reprinted.
• Jackson picked up the prints today, and we will distribute them to the usual spots.
• The cost of printing was $17.91; we voted unanimously to reimburse Jackson.

Earth Day Boothing

• We decided to get the following sticker designs in the following amounts:
• Compost the Rich x100
  Land Defender/Water Protector x50 of each (total 100)
  Sow the Seeds of Revolution x100
  No Planet B x50
  Green not Greed x 50
• Marc will contact the sticker shop for a precise estimate, and we’ll determine if we can get more or less depending on how close it is to our proposed budget.
• Some of these designs can also be used at other events, which is why we decided to get more of them. “Compost the rich” is on a mural on the Black Cat House itself, and “Sow the Seeds” is pretty applicable to any lefty-bent event.

Website Update

• We plan on working on expanding/revising the mission statement at a later time, and dedicating a meeting to just discussing that. Expanding the mission statement in particular might take some time.
• We also planned on having a working meeting for content creation/editing.
• We still aim to have the site’s new layout done by mid-April, before Earth Day.
• We determined a time/location for a working meeting to discuss site content.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:50 PM

These minutes are being posted late because Marc misplaced his handwritten notes.

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

Upcoming Event: Movie Night

• Marc and Ty burned a DVD for easy-viewing at the upcoming event, but it didn’t work in the DVD player. They will try again with a different format.
• Jackson also refilled the candy dish in preparation for the event.

Flyer-ing Update

• Ty, Marc, and Rae put up lots of flyers around town. There are just a couple places that need them still.

Earth Day Boothing

• Marc will make some edits to sticker designs based on feedback.
• Favorites were: Compost the rich, water protector/land defender.
• Jackson suggested a budget of about $200.00 for the stickers.
• Ty also discussed some ideas for the interactive board at the event, and named some specific businesses/companies that claim to be green, but were found to do very environmentally-destructive practices.
• We plan on requiring people to participate in the greenwashing identification activity to receive a sticker, but we’ll also have other educational/promo materials that we’ll just hand out.
• Rae pointed out the importance of having a takeaway message that inspires people to action, rather than makes them feel bad. “We can’t buy a green future” resonated with folks, and we also discussed ways to encourage people to fight for climate action.

Meeting adjourned: 8:50 PM

In Attendance: Ty, Marc (secretary), Jackson, Wyatt
Meeting Start: 9:00 PM

Before the meeting formally began, we shared a meal with friends, hence the very late start.

Spring Calendar

• We’re on the wire regarding the spring calendar, so we made some quick decisions. Our calendar of events for spring will be:
• March ? – Black Musicians and Liberation – we still need to confirm the day/time for this with the panelists. We will promote this event separately.
• March 17 – Movie Night: Killing Us Softly 4, a classic of feminist documentaries
• March 25 – Community Discussion: The State of Trans Rights, cohosted with OutNebraska
• April 15 – Boothing at Lincoln Earth Day
• April 21 – Movie Night: Snowpiercer, an environmental disaster sci-fi film that also goes into class analysis
• April 29 – Garden Workshop: Planting Native Plants – we will show attendees how to include native species of plants in their gardens and help them thrive
• May 5 – Movie Night: Salt of the Earth, a movie that explores gender/class dynamics with striking workers
• May 26 and 27 – Yard Sale Fundraiser

Website Redesign

• Marc showed the staging website to Wyatt and got feedback; he will make some minor changes, but otherwise the site is basically ready to go. Some content does need to be written up and added.
• We hope to get the site to a presentable place before Earth Day, since we’ll be promoting our site there.

Earth Day and Lincoln Pride Boothing

• We discussed potential button/sticker designs to give out at the event, as well as information to include for the “Behind the Greenwashing” activity at the Earth Day event.
• Ty has submitted the form for Earth Day
• We encountered a hiccup while trying to submit a boothing request to Lincoln Pride; Marc will reach out to the event coordinators for further guidance.

Meeting Adjourned: 10:00 PM