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

1. Upcoming Event: We have the Marxist morality article reading this Saturday. We’re reasonably confident about content – just a matter of attendance at this point.
2. Library Donation: Jackson has brought the library a few donations, including multiple books by Arundhati Roy. Technically a few overlapping essays between them, but after a quick discussion on accessibility and shelf space, Jackson and Ty determined that it would not be a waste of shelf space to accept the overlapping material.
3. Collaboration email: We were reached out to by a collective based in Jerusalem. They do similar online/in-person education events to us on various topics, and provided some fliers of recent discussion series they have done. They’re interested in global solidarity and collaboration, and want to see whether we’d be interested in similar. We’ll reach out to them about this, and chat more about the prospect when we have more of our own collective members at an upcoming meeting.
4. Email: Ty is still having trouble with our official email channels. But we got into the main hosting again! So it should be okay.
5. Website/Facebook: This will be tabled for further discussion, but basically Facebook is losing traction as a platform and we need to prioritize our own website.

Tabled: Website, Spring Calendar [NEED TO GET DONE NEXT WEEK]

Meeting Adjourned: 8:15 PM

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

1. Upcoming Event: We have our online panel on Social Justice in Christianity this Saturday! Dance has looked over the questions and they’ve been sent to our now three panelists, as Wyatt had successfully made contact with a Call to Action representative during our break.

We have not been able to flier as well as we hoped, but we had help compiling a list of some good churches in the area to reach out to. Jackson contacted six on social media, and had some back-and-forth conversation with a representative from one of them. At the very least, we can share the Youtube link with them once it’s posted.

We’re going to continue reaching out to who we can, and Jackson will flier around the usual First Friday routes so that those walking by will access.

2. Library Donations: We had a great many donations! Our friend Eric has donated a copy of his recently edited horror story anthology, Antifa Splatterpunk.
3. Counter-Protest: Jackson will work on the event description so we can get that event posted ASAP. We have decided not to offer child care this year due to COVID risk still being high and cases rising recently. For the same reason we won’t have a sign-making party, but we still have many signs from years prior.

Tabling discussion of seeing who may want to be involved in planning the counter-protest, and a contact person for people day-of.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:30 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary), Wyatt
Meeting start: 7:05 PM

1. Upcoming Event: We’re playing The Matrix on Friday! Jackson will get the room set up on Thursday.
2. Social Justice in Christianity Panel: Marc drafted the description for the event, which the rest of us reviewed and edited. We got the bios for our panelists and moderator to include with the description. Our outreach to a potential third panelist didn’t get any response; we are going to reach out on a broader level to see if someone besides the local chapter may be interested in speaking on this panel. If not, we think the two panelists we already have are a strong enough backing to the event.

We’re going to give the questions we would like to ask the panelist to Dance first, as she is the one who’d be asking them and so she should be able to tweak the wording. Then we will send her pass of the questions to our panelists so they can start thinking on how they might answer.

Marc is working on the banner image for this event. We discussed also making handbills specifically for this event, with the link now that we have it. We’ll ask Marc whether he can put this together, then we’ll print a run of 50 and distribute, particularly to local progressive churches.

Meeting adjourned: 8:42 PM

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

Meeting start: 7:11 PM

1. Upcoming Event: Labor vs. Capitalism is coming up this Saturday! We did seem to have a few people interested in the discussion for its intended purpose of learning new things, so we want to establish at the beginning of the discussion that people can and should interrupt to ask for definition as they need. Perhaps using the jargon giraffe? A way to lighten the mood and making things accessible. We should also ask as part of the usual icebreakers, what people want to learn as a part of the discussion in order to steer the conversation in the direction they wish to go.

1.5. Library Meeting: We are meeting with Naomi at 11 ahead of the discussion on Saturday in order to do some library organizing.

2. December Movie: Jackson put together a description for The Matrix showing. We reviewed it, we liked it, and other than some tiny tweaks to the closing paragraph, it’s good to post!
3. Calendar Distro: The calendars and handbills are printed, and looks great! Now we just need to post them around.

Jackson: Haymarket
Marc: East campus, Mo Java
Ty: City campus
Wyatt: UU church, South/17th locations, Downtown

4. Logo Designs: We looked over the logo designs that Arden sent. We love the cats! The font might not work well for the sometimes subpar printing we have to resort to when we’re pressed for time, so Marc will reach out about it.
5. January Panel: We have not yet reached out to Call to Action about whether they would have someone interested in participating.

Meeting adjourned: 8:33 PM

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

Upcoming Event: Women and Christianity discussion is this Saturday. We didn’t post it on the website – oops! Ty took care of it during the meeting. We are going to have it as an in-person, masked-up discussion indoors, as it will be way too cold for an outdoor event. We will be hiding the snack table to remove a temptation for anyone to unmask.

Library donation: Wyatt has brought a couple books to donate, and we have approved both for addition to our library.

Reimbursement: Wyatt paid our artist friend $50 to create our new logo, and we approve his reimbursal for this.

Winter Calendar: Last meeting we talked about having more 101 events since we’ve noticed an uptick in people reaching out wondering how to get involved. Jackson proposed a 101 on labor vs. capital which we can use to also relate it to the strikes that have happened/are happening over the course of this year. This we’ll do on Saturday, December 4th, usual 1-3. We will postpone making a decision on whether this will be online or in-person until after this Saturday’s event.

We’ve got two panelists and a moderator for the liberation theology panel. We’ll try to get a third panelist, but now we are going to focus on scheduling. We will send some date/time options to those in the panel to see what works best for them. We’ll propose Thursday evening and Saturday during our usual discussion time. As far as the third panelist, we realized that our guest speakers have no Catholic representation and that given the Lincoln diocese is the one of the most reactionary conservative dioceses in the world, it seems like a notable oversight not to include. Once more details are finalized, we’re going to reach out to Call to Action to see if any of their representatives would like to participate.

As for the Black Musicians and Liberation, planning is still in the works. We would love to get an international perspective, and our prospective moderator may have some contacts.

Saturday, December 4, 1-3 PM – Labor vs. Capital for Beginners
January, date and time TBD – Liberation theology panel (event name TBD)
Saturday, January 29, 10 AM, north side of the Capitol – Counter-Protest the Anti-Choice Walk for Life
February, date and time TBD – Black Musicians and Liberation

Meeting adjourned: 8:32 PM

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

Upcoming Event: Friday night discussion! We’ve shared it around Facebook – Seeing Red Nebraska also shared the event! We’ve talked to other folks who are very excited about this event, and we’re optimistic for local action coming out of it. We need to brush up on local stuff (unicameral, etc.) and perhaps prep some similar literature. We also need to do some major cleaning of the space.

Yard Update: Wyatt was able to get the city inspector to drop the fine, on the condition that we move the wood pile to the side yard and we move the white soil bags from the yard.

Web Hosting: Blue Host has billed us for three year hosting and our web domains – $431.64.

YouTube: We have a YouTube channel! It now has the video for Black Musicians and Liberation (though the accurate subtitles are still in the works). We also recorded a showcase for the garden that Ty will get uploaded, Wyatt will add a description and we’ll get that published soon! We also recorded the trailer video that plays upon first viewing of the channel.

Website Updates: We will still need to table this for editing the content, but Marc has a list of updates to make. Tabled.

Fall Calendar: here’s the current status of our fall calendar…

Saturday, September 18, 1-3 PM: Garden Day
Sunday, October 10, 1-3 PM: Anti-Columbus Day Protest Sign Making Party
Monday, October 11, 5-6:30 PM: Anti-Columbus Day Protest (outside of the Federal Building on 16th and O)
Saturday, October 30, 7-9 PM: Halloween Horror Show: Nightbreed
Saturday, November 13, 1-3 PM: Women and Christianity (an open discussion)

Meeting adjourned: 8:38 PM

Tabled: Website updates

Meeting Minutes – June 7, 2021
In Attendance: Marc (secretary, moderator), Jackson, Ty
Started: 7:10 PM
Adjourned: 8:40 PM

Upcoming Event: Queer History and Fascism Discussion
– Marc created the event on Facebook, along with a graphic for it. Marc, Ty, and Jackson helped draft the description, and it was posted last week.
– Ty suggested reaching out to OutNebraska and the LGBTQA+ Resource Center to help promote the event. Basically, they could help drum up interest in the discussion.

July Event
– Jackson still needs to write up a description for this. The event is a month away yet, but Ty emphasized that we shouldn’t let it fall behind too far.
– We discussed potential talking points for the event, e.g. specifically conservative/reactionary decisions made by current Lincoln mayor Gaylor Baird, such as lowering funding for libraries and public recycling, and increasing the cop budget. We also discussed how a Democrat has been mayor of this city for 20+ years and Lincoln is still very behind in terms of public infrastructure and programs.

August Event
– Gardening day. These generally get good attendance.

Really Free Library
– Marc suggested calling it the “Black Cat Press & Pantry” though Jackson and Ty pointed out that it might not really need a name at all. Marc suggested giving it a name anyway because it’d be more useful to call it something for the purposes of the website and future updates to it.

Fall Situation with COVID-19
– We’re planning on potentially going back to something akin to normal for Fall, given the current significant drop in COVID-19 rates in Lancaster county. However, due to the Delta strain becoming more prominent, and the fact that Lincoln is a college town with international students, we will still be cautious and keep an eye on the rates through the season.
– For September and October, events could be outdoors.
– Types of Events: Reading discussion, garden day in September, resume the Columbus Day protest, and try out a movie night?
– We also haven’t had an event centered around feminism or religious skepticism in a hot minute, so we talked about potentially combining the two topics into a general “Women in Christianity” discussion. This topic proved fruitful during the meeting as everyone had lots of insight about it, so we suspect it would work really well as either a reading or open discussion.
– We also mentioned discussing Paganism and the spread of Christianity through Europe as a potential topic near Halloween. However, it might not be varied enough to have two religiously-centered discussions so near to each other. Marc suggested potentially doing this topic around Easter next year.
– Candyman 2021 will also be coming out in August, and the DVD/Blu-ray should be available by Halloween, so we could potentially show that for a movie night.

Box o’ Books
– Ty and Marc went through a box of potential library donations (leftovers from the yard sale fundraiser) and picked out a stack to add to the library.

Website
– The website will be auto-renewed this summer on July 26th for three years. The cost will be $431.64. We unanimously voted to approve this expenditure.
– Jackson still needs to contact either Bluehost customer service or WordPress to give Marc the ability to edit the site, and for Ty to fix some email troubles.
– Ty suggested doing some serious re-branding and development of the site. It needs to be more engaging and show off the BCH and its resources/offerings more.
– Marc offered to update the site when he gets editor access to it, as using WordPress and front-end site design is one of his skills.
– We discussed potential ideas for site pages—a more in-depth “about” section that would show off the space in BCH, what people can use/access in it, potentially photos of events, etc. Ty also suggested adding a form to the site to allow other likeminded organizations to request a collaboration or use of the space, too, which would definitely help us in reaching other groups.

Other
– The YouTube video for Black Musicians & Liberation will be complete before Fall for certain. Ty is finishing up the closed captions for it.

In attendance: Jackson, Marc (secretary), Ty (moderator)
Meeting start: 7:10 PM

Event Review: Community Gardening at the Hawley Hamlet
– Unfortunately, the only people in attendance were those who planned the event.
– However, they had a good conversation and made some good connections for potential future collaborations. We would still like to work with them in the future.
– One of the big problems was likely not having enough time to advertise the event and spread the word. It’s also likely that people are nervous about gathering in public due to COVID.

Treasury Update
– Jackson updated the treasuries today. We have $563.41 in the general treasury, and our subtreasuries have $0. This information has also been updated on the website.

Yard Sale
– We already have quite a few donations and expect to get more; a few folks have promised to bring items over. The living room is looking quite a mess, but it’s beautiful, nonetheless.
– Marc and Ty can come work at the sale on Saturday, but not Friday. Ty will also bring tables for the sale on Thursday before.
– Before the sale, we’ll be working on pricing items. Marc has volunteered to get some more price tag stickers for the event sometime this week.
– To help advertise, we need to take photos of what we have–especially large/nicer/unique items–and post them to Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. We can also make use of the buy/sell/trade groups on FB. Otherwise, we might not get the reach we need.

Fundraiser
– Due to COVID, we have money in the treasury that we did not spend through 2020. That said, we agreed that we could donate $100-$200.
– It’s possible we could collect more money to donate from the yard sale, but we can’t guarantee a dollar amount or percentage because we’re not sure how much we’ll get from the sale.

Summer Events
– Summer tends to be slow due to Lincoln’s nature as a college town.
– We brainstormed a couple potential events:
1. Outdoor gardening event located at BCH
2. Outdoor discussion (evening in June to take advantage of the nice weather)
– June 18 and 19 will be busy due to Pride events, which we don’t want to compete with.
– Potential subjects for pride month:
1. History of Magnus Hirschfeld – how research on queer identities was progressing at a breakneck pace until his work was destroyed by Nazis
2. History of trans people in the US – how trans people frequently lived as their authentic selves and were accepted in their communities, even in a western context. When/where did transphobia come from?
– We also plan to return to putting calendars up in coffee shops and other businesses/organizations.

Tabled: Summer Events, Fall Events

Adjourned: 8:14 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:12 PM

Event Review: Unfortunately, the second medical training event was a bust. Nobody showed up. We need to advertise these better. Wyatt accidentally posted on his personal Facebook page as opposed to our account page. We do have some connection with a local street medic group that we could network with.

Library Donation: Jackson has a children’s book donation, “Our House is On Fire: Greta Thunberg’s Call to Save the Planet.” He has ordered more books, but this was the first to roll in.

Black Musicians and Liberation Video: Ty is putting together the subtitles for the Black Musicians and Liberation event, and will be getting it posted publicly soon.

Yard Sale: Marc got the description written up, and Ty proofed it… and then personal stuff happened so it never got posted online. Ty shared it with the rest of the group and we’ll get it up in the next couple days. Then we need to start soliciting for donations!

Ty let his grandpa know about it, and he’s fine with loaning his yard sale supplies again.

Meeting Adjourned: 7:36 PM