In attendance: Jackson (moderator), Marc, Ty (secretary), Will
Start time: 7:12 PM

1. Event Review – Marc and Will went to the assembly, which went well! There was a good turnout of folks, and a good discussion of new imaginings of community. There’s also a lot of talk of alternative ways of communication. Related to that, we talked about a revival of the radio station we used to do, but that’s going to be tabled.

2. Upcoming Event – Jackson is working on getting ingredients for Ty’s curry, Will’s got mac and cheese covered, Marc’s bringing brownies. Ty’s going to arrive two hours early to start cooking. Weather might dissuade people from coming, but we’re expecting 15-20 people.

3. Donations – Thank you, Corncob Commie Collective, for the beautiful art donation! We also got new Slingshots in the mail! These are our last issues unless we email them so Ty’s going to send them an email to make sure we continue to get issues.

4. Calendars (Reimbursement/Distro) – The fliers and calendars are $12.87, Ty’s been approved for reimbursement. Will’s going to take some to distribute, Jackson will take some as well, and Brandon mentioned that they would be able to assist, too.

5. Free School – Free School will not have a calendar this December.

6. Email – Ty got an email regarding our big pile of logs outside, wondering if it’s up for grabs. Because of how fresh it is, it’s really not suitable for firewood now.

7. December Events –Marc’s going to draft his Self-Advocacy with your Doctor event, Ty will draft a description for The Living End, Jackson will come up with a description for Love Your Library, and Will said that he could potentially work something out for the Solstice Fire Pit. We need these up soon!!!

8. Zines – We’re going to work on zines! Jackson and Marc have a zine concept, a leftist primer. Jackson was also inspired to work on a zine that’s a summary of Fossil Capital, a book he’s become very enamored with that he encourages everyone else to read.

Meeting adjourned: 8:15 PM

Tabled Items: Radio Revival, Library Labels, Wellred Books, Event Outreach, Library Readership Development, Reviving the Email List, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, new SSD hard drive for public laptop), procedure for posting things on Facebook (when do we allow it)

Black Cat House – 10/21/19

In attendance: Jackson, Brandon, Will, Ty (remote), Marc (secretary; remote)

Start Time – 7:15 PM

1. Event Review

• Smoke Signals: Not a huge turnout, but it was a good movie. A few folks expressed that they wished they could come after the event. Good discussion as well.

2. Upcoming Events

• Power Tools free school class: Jackson will be around if Wyatt needs help setting the event up.
• Marc wrote up the description for the Halloween party. It will be posted tonight along with a link to doesthedogdie.com.

3. Library Donations

• We got a couple book donations! We also got a great donation of garden supplies from a kind Anonymous.

4. Winter Calendar

• December
  • The Living End movie – a gay Thelma and Louise movie about a couple of guys living their best lives J
    • Marc is gonna buy & screen this to see if it’s worth putting on the calendar
  • Solstice event? Such as a firepit or something
• January
  • Counter-protest for Walk for Life!!!! It’s a tradition!!!!!!!!!
    • No date yet as of their website.
  • February
    • An event centered around restorative justice
  • We’d like to finish up the calendar by like early early November

5. Candlelight Vigil

• A vigil for the Rojava is happening at the capitol steps tomorrow evening at 7:30.

Meeting adjourned 8:33 PM

In attendance: Bailey, Brandon, Jackson, Marc (moderator), Ty (secretary), Will
Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Event Review – Pan’s Labyrinth had a pretty good turnout and a good discussion!

2. Upcoming Event – We have Red State coming up this Saturday! We’re getting breakfast locked down.

3. Parade – We have a meeting at August 31 for prepping any parade props, and we decided a time to meet up. We’re going to discuss it further next meeting, and talk about what props we’re going to make (a black cat puppet is probably involved).

4. Free School – Bailey gave us a low-down on how free school is looking. There’s going to be a table at Red State, passing out info for free school classes. We talked about passing out a separate calendar of free school events along our usual flyering route.

5. Email and Messages – We got an email from a couple comrades in Chicago, looking for a place to crash while they travel. We’re going to look around for somewhere they can stay. We also got a message from a friend on Facebook a while ago! Asking if we wanted a movie, and it unfortunately slid under the radar so we have to respond to her really quickly.

6. Fall Calendar – We tweaked the calendar design a bit. We’re printing 75 pages worth of handbills, and 30 full-color calendars. Ty’s going to send the order to the print shop, and Brandon will pick them up.

Meeting adjourned: 8:20 PM

Tabled Items: Library Labels, Wellred Books, Event Outreach, What to do about $80 ISO bucks, Library Readership Development, Reviving the Email List, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)

In attendance: Brandon (late), Jackson (moderator), Marc, Ty (secretary), Will (late), Wyatt
Start time: 7:13 PM

1. Event Review – We showed White Light/Black Rain on Friday. We had a very good attendance, and it was a great memorial of the atomic bombings. The discussion was lively, but moderation was probably needed. We also need to put a warning on this documentary in the future for graphic imagery of death. We had a broader discussion on future warnings for triggering content (Does the Dog Die? is a great website to do a precursory check on potential triggers).

2. Upcoming Event – Pan’s Labyrinth is on Friday. Set-up will be easy, there are already warnings on the website. We’re good!

3. Parade – Brandon and Will gave us an update on a parade meeting. We’re interested in participating – maybe making a big black cat prop, among other more explicit politic themes. We’ll meet up here on Aug. 31 to make some arts and crafts!

4. Fall Garden – Wyatt and Jackson needs some help with managing the garden, and asks us to schedule some days to do some garden work. We scheduled Oct. 5 as a day to meet up for garden projects. Will suggested reaching out to some friends who also do community gardening, and we also talked about putting it up online as an event and inviting people and giving folks food, too. Maybe turning a few tasks into a gardening skillshare/free school? We probably can’t put it on the calendar, but a separate free school calendar is probably in the works.

5. Fall Calendar – Ty has a calendar template whipped up for both the main calendar and handbills. Marc will help him figure out the remaining design details, and Wyatt will figure out a place to donate money to for the anti-Thanksgiving fundraiser feast. Then Ty will get the calendars printed.

September
What are borders? A Community Discussion – Sep 7, 1-3 PM
Movie: Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America (2017) – Sep 13, 7-10 PM
Love your Library: AK Press Spotlight – Sep 21, 1-3 PM

October
Legacy of Standing Rock – Community Discussion- Oct 12, 1 – 3pm
Anti-Columbus Day Protest @ Federal Building – October 14th, 5-6 PM
Movie “Smoke Signals” (1998) – October 18, 7-10 pm
October 31st Black Cat Halloween Party. We’re showing Candyman! 7-10 PM

November
Reading Discussion: “Inhabit: Instructions for Autonomy” – Nov 9, 1-3 PM
Movie Night “Skins” (2002) (Drama filmed at Pine Ridge) – Nov 15, 7-10 PM
Anti-Thanksgiving Fundraiser Feast– November 29th (7-10 PM)

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

Tabled Items: Fall Calendar Printing, Library Labels, Wellred Books, Event Outreach, What to do about $80 ISO bucks, Library Readership Development, Reviving the Email List, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)

In attendance: Brandon (moderator), Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)
Start time: 7:09 PM

1. Event Review – Manufacturing Consent was Friday. It was a good turnout! And it was good pizza, Wyatt did a great job with his garden-fresh veggie toppings.

2. Upcoming Event – American Empire and Islam is posted! Jackson knows his history on the subject well, and the friend who suggested the subject in the first place is planning on bringing her knowledge as well.

3. Moderator/Secretary Rotation – Brandon was voted to be an official part of the moderator/secretary rotation!

4. Will’s Stuff – Will sent a message to address at the meeting in his absence. He asks to use the copier, and says he opted against the infoshop Commune description, and will just get a personal one to share with us.

5. Block Party – Chelsea is in full support of us having a lit table at the block party, that is tentatively August 3, 5-9 PM. We’re the only org that Chelsea asked to be there, but Jackson is going to suggest to Chelsea to invite Feed the People, and Brandon will bring it to an FTP meeting to see whether the group is interested in doing so.

6. Fall Calendar –

Husker Home Gamedays: September 14th, September 28th, October 5th, October 26th, November 16th

Discussion idea: Remembering the genocide of indigenous peoples. And/or about missing and murdered indigenous women. Either in October (Columbus Day) or November (Thanksgiving). Maybe a discussion in one month, a film in the other?

Anti-Thanksgiving dinner on Black Friday?

Indigenous Peoples’ Day Celebration/Anti-Columbus Day Protest?

Discussion idea: Historical Disconnect between our bodies and medicine. / Commodification of medicine. Do we even recognize if we are sick? What do licensing and doctors orders really mean? How can we learn to listen to our bodies?

Pairing the above with a citizen doctors skill share? Perhaps a little too ambitious at this time.

Library Focus: AK Press (Saturday afternoon 1-3 format)

Reading Discussion: Inhabit booklet (excerpt? two parts?)

Will proposes a Thursday screening of Trouble, available on subMedia. They’re ~30 min., and with a donation the website sends out question packets and various swag.

Will would like a September discussion on What is Autonomy.

He would also like an October discussion on Communization Theory? We’d need to unpack that and figure out how we’d advertise such a discussion.

Are we continuing with popcorn politics?

Working class anime? This is an idea Marc is still working on and might be best tabled to the winter calendar.

Tabled Items: Fall Calendar, Library Labels, Wellred Books, Event Outreach, What to do about $80 ISO bucks, Library Readership Development, Reviving the Email List, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)

Meeting adjourned: 8:33 PM

In attendance: Brandon (moderator), Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary), Will, Wyatt

Start time: 7:08 PM

1. Event Review: We showed 1984 on Friday, and it had a nice turnout and conversation. Defeatist tone to the chat, but so was Orwell about the issue, so it makes sense!

2. Upcoming Event: What is Revolution is on Saturday! Marc suggests making open-ended social media posts, prompting thought ahead of time. Will proposes a reading list for people to browse to get gears turning as well. Wyatt thinks that a follow-up event in a calendar or two if we have a good turnout, which maybe the reading list would be better for. We brainstormed some ice-breakers and thought-provoking questions to ask before and during the discussion.

3. Library Donation: Will has 8 zines to donate to the library, which we graciously accept. Ty donated Comrades, which is a radical tabletop RPG ruleset. We also accept this.

4. Bookmark Reimbursement: Marc printed bookmarks for us, and asks for $19.26 for it. We agree to reimburse him.

5. Calendar Distro: Jackson still hasn’t gotten calendars at the Hub Café or the Unitarian Church. Jackson will probably be able to do Hub Café, and Wyatt will take care of the Unitarian Church.

6. Online July Events: Jackson will draft descriptions for Manufacturing Consent and American Empire and Islam. Ty will draft Chicken Run. We’ll figure them out next meeting. Wyatt already has the names of the events on the website.

7. Treasury: We had $80 that we were going to pledge to the local ISO twig, but since ISO dissolved, it’s floating in limbo.

We are going to pledge $200 to Red State, but we are not sure at this time whether to use it to pay for the breakfast (which we’re also responsible for), or to donate it in addition to the breakfast.

We decided to table both parts of this item.

8. Red State: Brandon reminds us that we have access to a scheduling sheet for interviewing applicants for panelists/workshops. We all signed up for interview times.

Meeting adjourned: 8:33 PM

Tabled Items: Treasury Updates, Wellred Books, Library Readership Development, Reviving the Email List, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)

In attendance: Jackson, Marc (moderator), Ty (secretary), Wyatt
Start time: 7:29 PM

1. Upcoming Events – We have a lot of donations from Ty’s grandpa for the fundraiser yard sale. There are a few things that aren’t priced yet, and we also have some donations yet to come. Wyatt has some tables that he’s going to bring over, and we have some tables from last year for set up.

2. Arragorn! – It looks like we’re a-go for an event on May 23rd at 7 PM. Adam’s going to draft us a description for the event.

3. Contacts – We got a message on the Facebook page about Dear UNL, but we probably missed the boat on the actual campaign they were going for. Whoops! We sent a message acknowledging we got it, however.

We also got an email from someone representing Wellred Books and whether we’d be interested in Marxist literature (which we are, of course). We will table this item to next week, after we get more funds from the yard sale, before we browse their catalogue for possible titles.

4. Chairs – Jackson found a lot of cushioned folding chairs – much nicer than what we already have. 17 chairs in total, altogether $272.68. Jackson would like reimbursement, which we approve, but we’ll have to differ the reimbursement until we have more funds in the treasury.

Now we have a surplus of folding chairs. We’re opting to keep the lime plastic chairs from our old stock, but are selling the rest of them at the yard sale in favor of the new chairs.

5. Summer Calendar –

June
Saturday, June 1, 12-5 PM: The Black Cat House 6th Birthday Open House
Friday, June 14, 7-10 PM: Popcorn Politics: 1984
Saturday, June 22, 1-3 PM: What is Revolution? (a community discussion)
Friday, June 28, 7-10 PM: Movie Night: How to Survive a Plague

July
Friday, July 12, 6-10 PM: Movie Night: Manufacturing Consent
Saturday, July 20, 1-3 PM: Open discussion on the relationship between U.S. imperialism and Middle Eastern religious fundamentalism (Proposed Title: Why They Hate U.S.: American Empire in the Middle East)
Friday, July 26, 7-10 PM: Popcorn Politics: Chicken Run

August
Friday, August 9, 7-10 PM: Movie Night: White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Friday, August 16, 7-10 PM: Popcorn Politics: Pan’s Labyrinth

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

Tabled Items: Library Readership Development, Reviving the Email List, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)

In attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary), Wyatt (moderator)
Start time: 7:09 PM

1. Event Review – The documentary, “Boom! The Sound of Eviction” was a good film, and the turnout was pretty decent. There was a lot of connections drawn between Lincoln and San Francisco’s gentrification in the discussion, and solutions generated for combatting gentrification locally.

2. Upcoming Event – Not this week, but next week is Strength of the Storm. We’ve got the DVD so we’ll be ready.

3. April Events – We have not heard from M. Earl Smith in regards to the event, so we’re going to order the book and have a reading discussion no matter what. If he is still able to show, fantastic! But given his last email, Ty will write the event up tonight as if he will not be able to make it.
The rest of the April events need up on the website. Jackson will add them.

Note: the WordPress calendar is a little wonky, and Marc volunteered to take a look at it to see if he could fix it.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

Tabled Items: Library Readership Development, Discussion on U.S. imperialism’s relationship to fundamentalism in the Middle East, Reviving the Email List, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)

In Attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary), Wyatt (moderator)
Start time: 7:02 PM

1. Event Review – We had a reading discussion on Venezuela on Saturday. It had a good turnout and discussion. We hit on a great deal of the points in the readings.

2. Upcoming Event – Who Owns Politics is coming up on Saturday! We should be ready besides cleaning the room up.

3. AK Press – Two more books came in from our Friends subscription: Pleasure Activism, and the Sons of Night. The subscription for Friends of AK Press is coming up, and we’re opting to not renew it. Seems more reasonable to take advantage of their 50% off sales.

4. Calendar Distro – Haymarket calendars are up, and everywhere has one except for Bodhi Imports and Unitarian Church. Ty still has his and will bring them back to the House, and posted one up on the Facebook page.

5. Twitter – Ty says the Twitter is now active, and had some questions on what sort of use we should be trying to get out of it.

6. Santee Sioux Flood Relief – There is a supply drive for the Santee Sioux Nation for flood relief efforts, coordinated by the Dandelion Network. We shared the Facebook event to our page, and we will donate $50 to the Santee Sioux Nation’s GoFundMe page.

7. Library – We have freed three bookshelves from use in the kitchen, that we can potentially use for the library instead. We decided to reorganize the kitten corner into a more book-friendly, kid-friendly space and place one of the bookcases there. Another bookcase is going into the foyer. There’s more to do with library organization and readership, but that will be tabled again.

The rest of the time is working on library organization.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

Tabled Items: Library Readership Development, Discussion on U.S. imperialism’s relationship to fundamentalism in the Middle East, Reviving the Email List, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)

In attendance: Jackson (moderator), Ty (secretary), Wyatt
Start time: 7:08 PM

1. Event Review – We had the KXL discussion on Saturday. Usual suspects, not a huge turnout, but a good discussion nonetheless. It might be a weather issue, it might be an interest issue, but Wyatt says that the turnout would be improved by more in-person advertisement. He advises against relying on Facebook to bring in people.

2. Upcoming Event – The showing of The Garden is coming up! Movie set-up is very easy, and we already have the DVD.

3. Spring Calendars – Ty has made them, and will get them printed tomorrow. 70 pages of handbills, 30 full-page calendars. We’ll discuss distribution next week, but Jackson might distribute what he can this weekend, weather permitting (but it doesn’t look like it’ll permit).

4. Book – We got The Anarchist Encyclopedia (Abridged Edition) from AK Press. It’s a bunch of topics as analyzed through an anarchist lens, and we’re pretty excited about it. It’s a good primer on anarchist thought!

5. March Events – We had some work time getting event descriptions for March drafted.

6. Library Readership Development – We talked about making some targeted Facebook posts advertising the library. We also discussed reinstating open hours while rebranding it library hours. Wyatt proposes a scholarship or research project competition based on the materials in the library. Also, we need to be better about following up with checkouts! That, and we need to rearrange the books to accommodate all our new books, and label the sections clearly. It’s tabled again, for more serious discussion next week.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

Tabled Items: Library Readership Development, Discussion on U.S. imperialism’s relationship to fundamentalism in the Middle East, Stuff to Buy (canopy, stuff to secure bike rack, new SSD hard drive for public laptop)