Meeting Start: 7:04 PM
In attendance: Arya, Jackson, Rae, Salem, Ty (secretary)

Event Review: The film was good, the turnout was good, the discussion was good!

Sustainable Supplies: Some discussion was had regarding single-use plastics at the House, specifically in reference to the plastic cups we use for water during events, though the discussion could be relevant for other House supplies. Jackson mentioned that most of what we have is hand-me-downs from other people, and that it’s been since 2019 or even earlier that we’ve had to buy these supplies ourselves. Rae brought up that for visitors that might not know this, they might think we’re like too many other community orgs that verbally support sustainability but aren’t sustainable in their actions. There was agreement that modeling sustainability is worthwhile, but we need to address what we should do with our plastic cups, since we don’t want them to go unused at all. Ty asked that we table this until we had some more opportunities to chat about options.

Yard Sale: The yard sale is coming up quick, the 26th and 27th! Jackson will draft a description and a call for donations to post online. Then it’s a matter of pricing donated items and setting up days-of.

Pride Tabling: We have a table! Ty was already given some funds to cover what we thought the table may cost, but he will need to be “preimbursed” for $110 to cover the remaining price of the table. We will need to have this booth staffed from 4-9 PM Friday June 9th, and 12-8 PM Saturday June 10th. We’ll also need to make sure we bring our own table – Wyatt has one that folds in half that we can ask him about using for that weekend. We’re not concerned about material costs, and Marc is working on button designs.

Website: We want to continue working on this so that it’s in a more complete state for the Pride booth. Tabled.

Summer Calendar: Marc sent a draft of the summer calendar to look over in his absence, and those at the meeting looked over it and sent him suggestions to edit. Rae will draft a short description of the workshop in July. Once these edits are made, we can send them for printing and start getting them distro’d.

Meeting adjourned: 8:15 PM

Tabled: Sustainable house supplies, website edits

4/17/2023 Minutes
In attendance: Arya, Jackson, Marc, Rae, Ty (secretary)
Start Time: 7:10 PM

Event Review: Earth Day went well! Quite a few organizers and volunteers thanked us for going for the greenwashing angle. We passed out the entirety of the handbills we brought, all but a couple of the zines, and a good quantity of stickers. “Compost the Rich” was the most popular by far!

Rae did note that passing out the calendar handbills and noting that people could go to our website to keep an eye on upcoming summer events was awkward. This reinforced our need for a formal listserv, so for future events we can just have a sign-up sheet for emails.

Upcoming Event: We’re showing Snowpiercer this Friday! We just need to clean up.

Black Musicians and Liberation: This year’s edition of Black Musicians and Liberation fell through. We’re going to aim to start organizing for next year’s much earlier, in order to accomplish the “emerging scholars” theme we tried to do. Marc came up with a handy reminder for ourselves: “On Black Friday, we start Black Musicians”

Black Cat House photos: A friend of The Black Cat House reached out offering use of their drone for aerial photos! We’re super excited, and Marc reached back out on our behalf.

Library Donations: Ty donated a couple of books he got from the Earth Day event to the library.

Website Reimbursement: Jackson paid $34.99 to pay for our secondary domain name. Everyone says it’s fine to reimburse him for that.

Summer Events: We’re still working on it!

Thursday, June 1st, 7pm: Sorry to Bother You… but We’ve Been Here 10 Years!
Saturday, June 24, 1-3p: TRANSport article reading discussion

Date/Time TBD: Conflict transformation workshop
Date/Time TBD: Gaming the System – ideas include, Atiwa, Trains, Anti-Monopoly, Bloc by Bloc

Further event ideas: Ancient labor organizing? Anti-Amazon? Antifa history? Right-wing cults, possibly tying in the assassination of Shinzo Abe?

Movie night ideas: How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Clerks, Triangle of Sadness, Hail Satan? (maybe not this one – need to do further looking into The Satanic Temple)

Meeting Adjourned: 8:52 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Marc (late), Ty (secretary)

Meeting start: 7:04 PM

1. Upcoming Event – We’re showing Behind the Shield this Friday! We have the means to show it, except we still can’t get the HDMI port on the projector to work. Ty and Marc will swing by tomorrow to see if they can work it, but the folks we initially brought it for repairs said there was a working port on it. We’ll have to fiddle with it more and see!
2. Calendar Distro Updates – Jackson got calendars across the downtown area, Marc and Ty got a good chunk of their spots done but got some calendars to do tomorrow. We also considered adding a few other churches and a temple to our calendar rotation. We’d have to reach out to see which of these have community boards AND would be good with us posting there.

3. Library Donation Sorting – We have a backlog of library donations to approve or not approve, and some possible room to create on our shelves. Those in attendance have decided to have next week’s regular meeting be mostly devoted to library sorting.
4. December 26 – We will be cancelling our weekly meeting on Monday, December 26.

Meeting adjourned: 8:23 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:05 PM

1. Event Review: Low turnout for the film but the discussion went well! Weather may have messed up the turnout more than our late posting of the event, as it got more interest on Facebook than our past few events.
2. Winter Calendar: We worked on the event description for our December movie night, which Jackson posted online tonight. The other events have been finalized, which are listed below.
   Marc had gotten a template for the calendar made, so all we need is to plug the events in and send to the printer. Maybe there will be room to include event blurbs? We’ll ask Marc about this.
   We also discussed whether the January discussion should be in-person or online given potential for heavy snow – we decided it would be better to have it be in-person but to include a note to check the online event pages in case of inclement weather.
   Our 2023 installment of Black Musicians and Liberation is still being worked on, so we will make a separate poster for it if we schedule it over winter.
3. Library Donations: Jackson came back from an event celebrating Malcolm X’s long-overdue induction to the Nebraska State Hall of Fame, and with books and a zine in hand. They were all obviously great additions to the lending library.

Winter Calendar
December:
Friday, December 9, 7 PM – Movie Night: Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL
January:
Saturday, January 14, 1-3 PM – Corporate Control Over Public Space (A video and community discussion)
Saturday, January 28, 10 AM – Counter-Protesting the Anti-Choice “Walk For Life” (On the north side of the Nebraska State Capitol)
February:
Friday, February 10, 7 PM – Movie Night: The Killing Floor (1984)
Saturday, February 18, 1-3 PM – Gaming the System: Class Privilege in “The Great Dalmuti”

Meeting adjourned: 8:31 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Marc (sorta), Nate, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:20 PM

Upcoming Event: Intersectona-LEE-ty is going to be this Thursday, 7pm! The event was posted very last minute so we’re sharing in several channels. We have some YouTube videos that Dance will use as part of the presentation, so just something we need to keep in mind.

Ty will pay for expanding our Dropbox again so that we have the space to record it as well.

Movie Night: Showing Judas and the Black Messiah on the 18th at 7pm! Jackson’s going to draft the event description and we’re hoping to get that up tomorrow.

Winter Calendar:

Any month: Potential guest speaker? E.P.C.O.T. documentary/company town discussion? Sci-fi film?

December –
Friday, December 9, 7 PM: Movie Night: Behind the Shield: The Power & Politics of the NFL

January – ?
February –
Black Musicians and Liberation?
Political Game Night?

Meeting Adjourned: 8:45 PM

Tabled: Winter Calendar

In Attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review – Candyman was a total bust. Facebook interaction was practically non-existent, but we did get the event up on pretty short notice.
   
2. November Events – Intersectiona-LEE-ty is in less than two weeks! We worked on that event description to get that up pronto. Jackson volunteered to draft a description for Judas and the Black Messiah by the end of this week.
   
3. Modes of Communication – We discussed alternate channels for communicating with people, including trying an email listserv again.
   
4. Library Donation – We went through a box of donations to see what to include into the collection.
   
5. Winter Calendar –

Any month: Potential guest speaker? E.P.C.O.T. documentary/company town discussion? Sci-fi film?

December –
Movie Night: Behind the Shield: The Power & Politics of the NFL
January – ?
February –
Black Musicians and Liberation?
Political Game Night?

Meeting Adjourned: 8:53 PM

Tabled Items: Winter Calendar

In attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)
Meeting start: 7:03 PM

1.) August Event: Description has been approved, so we got it posted tonight!

2.) Website Reimbursement: It’s time to renew our domain name, which Jackson is handling. It will be $33.99 to do so, which we’ll reimburse him for.

3.) Library Donation: Jackson had multiple library donations, including graphic novels, quick-read informational books, and several contributions for the Kitten Corner.

4.) Email: We received an email from an online used bookseller that Jackson recently purchased from. This seller drew the connection between Jackson and The Black Cat House, and sent a list of other books that they would be willing to send to us for free for the library. We looked over the list and all seemed like good titles, stuff definitely right at home on the library shelves. Ty drafted and sent an email to accept the offer.

5.) Fall Calendar
Sunday, September 11, (1-3 PM?)
Urban Gardening Plant IDing Tour (title pending)

September, date/time pending
OutNE workshop

Monday, October 10th, 4:30-6:30 PM
Anti-Columbus Day Protest (at the Federal Building, 16th & O)

Friday, October 28, 7:00-? PM
Halloween Movie Night
Ideas = Candyman, Us, Nope (Peele), Posessor (B. Cronenberg), Crimes of the Future (D. Cronenberg)

November 10th, 7-8:30 PM
“Intersectiona-LEE-ty”: How Bruce Lee Embodies Intersectionality (a Jitsi talk by Professor Lori Dance)

Date/time pending:
Prison Abolition for Beginners
Movie Night: Judas and the Black Messiah

Possibilities: pro-choice event, documentary

Blackout dates: 9/3, 9/10, 9/17, 10/1, 10/8, 10/29, 11/5, 11/19

Meeting adjourned: 8:28 PM

Meeting start: 7:20 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary)

1. Upcoming Event: We have a movie night, “Pride” on Saturday! Have to continue tidying the room, but otherwise we have everything we need.
2. Library Donations: Jackson got some more donations for the library! Ty sorted through them a bit, and there are some stacks that we’d like some other members’ opinions on, but some of the books got accepted into the library outright. Thanks, Jackson!
3. Projector: Jackson got us a new working projector! He spent $160.88 on it. He got preapproved by other members for reimbursement on this, but this is officially documenting the total for reimbursement. He also highly recommends buying a remote for it to serve our ambition to get this projector mounted instead of on a cart, as well as an extra bulb for it to have on hand. These are also OK’d for reimbursement when he finds them at a good price.
4. OutNE: OutNE reached out to us regarding our interest in volunteering and/or hosting future events of theirs. We’re opting to volunteer as individuals rather than as a group. But as far as hosting, assuming schedules work out we’re down to host future events. If any get scheduled for fall, we can potentially put it on our fall calendar.

Meeting adjourned: 7:45 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty

Meeting Start: 7:10 PM

1. Event Review: The discussion drew a spirited group. The writer of the article in question was present, who seemed pretty enthused that we were holding a discussion on his piece. As were many familiar faces to us, though rarer that we have them all for the same discussion day! A little denser read that most of our usual articles chosen, and the reading was finished in about 40 minutes and Jackson reports that they really only got to scratch the surface of the article’s potential discussion material.

2. Buttons: Marc and Ty borrowed the button maker for the week for making pronoun buttons for their wedding. They will pay back the House for all materials used. But in the meantime, Marc is also pressing designs for Black Cat purposes, and wants to know whether he should make others besides political and pride flag designs, and new pronoun button designs. Jackson brings up the new cat logos, and wonder whether some would make good buttons.

3. Black Musicians and Liberation: We have not had much luck in getting in further panelists, and we don’t have a lot of time yet. Also complicating matters is the personal loss suffered by UNL and specifically its Black faculty with the passing of Anna Shavers. We will be getting back to the panelist we were aiming to get on board, to see if he would be willing to do an interview with Dance and Q&A, but given that’s not what we had initially asked him about, he may say no. We do have a potential backup in the form of Marvin Lynn’s offer to do an online presentation on critical race theory, one of the topics he specializes in. This, we’re really intrigued on taking him up on regardless, it’s just a matter of when.

4. Spring Calendar: We basically have the calendar ready to go. For the stuff we’re still waiting on, Marc will work on the spring calendar design so that we can change it up real fast and we can get it printed.
   Saturday, March 12, 1-3 PM: Intersectional Feminism for Beginners
   Saturday, April 2, 1-3 PM: Garden Day Workshop
   Saturday, April 16, 1-3 PM [tentative]: Library Open House
   Saturday, May 7, 1-3 PM: January 6th Insurrection (a reading discussion)
   Friday, May 20, 8 AM – 6 PM & Saturday, May 21, 8 AM – 2 PM: Yard Sale Fundraiser

Meeting adjourned: 8:40 PM