In attendance: Ty, Marc (secretary), Jackson

Meeting Began: 7:05 PM

Emails:

We got an email from the Feral Crust Collective from the Philippines; they’re working on getting a mini-cab (like a small truck) and requested donations to get this so they can carry stuff around and transport people. We’ll examine our treasury and consider a potential figure.

Second email was from a comrade offering to help out with the library cataloging project, and wanted links to the meeting. Ty responded and said he could send the link next week/whenever she’s available. He also explained that we want to organize the physical library better, but also catalog things to make the collection searchable online.

December Panel:

Wyatt got into contact with one panelist, who has confirmed the time/date. Jackson has not heard back from the other two panelists; one panelist has agreed to the time/date, but the other has not responded.

We still need to have a discussion about what the panelists would like to say/talk about before we can advertise the event; it’s coming up quickly.

Marc brought up making the event description fairly vague until we lock down more information about who’s participating and what they’d like us to include in the description.

Jackson is taking point on writing up the first version of the event description.

Ty and Marc tested recording the event (with the panelists’ permission) on Jitsi. We have not tested with livestreaming yet.

We also tested some additional recording capabilities of Jitsi—such as whether it captures the chat, and how sharing YouTube videos works on the platform.

Winter Calendar:

Panel discussion on the 12^th of December – Jackson is working on the description.

Counter-protest for Walk for Life – Marc drafted the description and Jackson worked on revising it a bit to provide more context. After revision, Marc and Ty approved the finalized description. Jackson posted the event on Facebook.

We likely cannot commit to doing childcare this year due to COVID. People may not need childcare for this reason, as well.

We also won’t be able to host a sign-making party as well, sadly.

Tabled: Winter Calendar, Library Cataloguing Project (for next week’s discussion)

Meeting Adjourned: 8:28 PM

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

Meeting start: 7:10 PM

November Event: We have three very interested panelists, we just need to get a date agreed on. We decided to propose postponing it to December, to give the panelists more time to prep and us more time to promote it. The date we’re going to propose is December 12, 1-3 PM central time. If that doesn’t work for our panelists, we’ll reevaluate.

We’ll also want to get some bios for our panelists in order to give attendees an idea of why we asked these folks to be speakers on police repression. We’re also going to have some questions prepared ahead of time for the Q&A portion of the discussion in order to break the ice. We also discussed recording the discussion though doing so would be entirely dependent on the panelists’ comfort level with doing so. We’ll pitch the idea and see what they think.

Winter Events: The police repression panel is now a winter event!

We’re pretty dedicated to counter-protesting the Walk for Life (January 16, 10 AM). We don’t really have the means with COVID to have the pre-protest organizing meeting like we wanted, but we will plug away with this regardless. Marc and Ty will work on creating the web event description for it.

A SCOTUS discussion might be a good one to have. The issue is forefront on people’s minds right now, plus there’s a lot of historical and political ground to cover there. We’re thinking to do that in January.

Wyatt would be down to host a street medic training anytime, and the rest of us are all for it! Though it may not be very productive to host it in The Black Cat House itself given its size, so we’d considered other venues for it. He’s thinking January or February for that, at least for our first event of this nature.

Tabled: November Event, Winter Events

Meeting Adjourned: 8:10 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:01 PM

Event Review: We had our digital installment of Can We Vote Our Way Out of This Mess on Saturday. Small turnout, good discussion. Probably should’ve thrown the event up sooner, but we also decided on it last minute, so we can’t beat ourselves up too much about it.

November Event: We have two panelists confirmed, but it’s been hard to get in touch with them this week to confirm date/time. If we can do that though, we might already have a third panelist ready to go, as they were also pretty interested.

Winter Events: We discussed the possibilities of making sure the digital link to the Black Cat House Monday meetings are readily accessible, and an online social gathering event to keep people connected during winter. We also might do a digital follow-up to the election, regardless of results.

Other discussion ideas brewing: different communities’ responses to COVID-19, World AIDS Day (December 1) event regarding the queer community’s aftermath in the wake of the 80s/90s and how they’re dealing with HIV (and how their response to COVID is influenced by it), discussion about courts/SCOTUS specifically?

February is Black History Month and we would want to do something for that but we’re not sure a more specific topic yet.

Ty wants to do something involving music but he’s not sure yet whether he wants to discuss political music or whether he wants to get leftist musicians in a video chat together to have an online concert.

January 16 is the Walk for Life – what do we want to do to counter this year?

Tabled: November Event, Winter Events

Meeting Adjourned: 7:39 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:10 PM

1. Library Donation: Jackson made a very hefty PM Press purchase for real cheap, and donated much of his haul to the Black Cat library, in addition to some other books he’s found.
2. Upcoming Event: It’s this Saturday! There’s not an event description or a Facebook event up! Ty proposed pushing back the event for more time to advertise but since we had some regulars referencing the event as scheduled, that isn’t going to work. Joe brought a canopy over – he’s downsizing and will let us hold onto it for use in our events! Thanks, Joe! We discussed social distancing and mask wearing while outdoors – Jackson had some concerns over people being able to hear each other with masks on and making sure it’s accessible, but safety is still paramount. Marc suggests relocating it to Standing Bear Grounds (more secluded from traffic sounds) but the bare minimum of ads we have had says it’s at Black Cat. After a pretty in-depth discussion about it, we opted to do an in-person event as scheduled this Saturday, and an online discussion with the same topic next Saturday, 1-3 PM. That way people who do not want to risk face-to-face interaction can still participate in the discussion. Jackson will get the event for the in-person one up tonight, while Marc will prep the online one later this week.
3. November Discussion: We had some potential panelists not work out, so we’re not sure what to do about the November discussion right now.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:35 PM

Tabled: November Discussion, Library Cataloguing Project, Website Remodel

Meeting didn’t happen, because Jackson was sick and nobody else showed up.

– Ty

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

Meeting start: 7:10 PM

1) Upcoming Event – We posted the neighborhood cleanup event on Facebook, as well as the website. Jackson’s going to double-check to see if we have enough trash bags; he’ll get some if not. There may be another Everett clean-up happening this Saturday? Ty saw a yard sign about it but we’re not sure about the details. We may also need grabbing sticks, sharp sticks, and gloves.

2) Library Donations – Marc donated a couple books.

3) October Event – Jackson will draft and post the event for Can We Vote Our Way Out Of This Mess on Facebook.

4) November Event – We haven’t heard back from one potential panelist. Jackson is in contact with other potential panelists. We’re going to set a firm date and time soon to make scheduling easier for the panelists.

5) Domain Renewal – Jackson donated the cost of domain renewal and security for the year for the Black Cat website. (Treasury should probably be updated soon)

Meeting adjourned: 7:35 PM

Meeting Start: 7:04 PM

In Attendance: Jackson (moderator), Marc, Ty (secretary), Will

Bail Fund + Further Jail Support: Ty has got the bail fund account website ready to go; it just needs a description. He’s going to also send in a donation of his own just to make sure the account was properly set up to the bank account. We’re making it Lincoln-specific because that’s the most reasonable place for us to give jail support outreach to. Will has invited us to a jail support workshop on Saturday given by some activists in Atlanta in order to further foster a jail support network in Lincoln that we can sustain. We’re going to ask around in the meantime for pro bono lawyers and other people who could offer support. Marc has volunteered to help format any information we want to share into readily accessible and easy-to-distribute formats. Tabled for next week after we learn more at the workshop.

Fall Calendar: We are still looking into potential speakers for our online discussion on police repression. Because of that, we’re leaving the dates potentially open further – not only Saturdays in November, but also possibly considering Friday evenings (we need to remind potential speakers that any scheduling will be done using central time).

For the neighborhood clean-up, Ty proposes September 26. We considered the possibility of having it be in the late afternoon followed by an outdoor gathering/cookout at The Black Cat House but we’ll have to discuss this further.

We may need to get a new canopy for the Can We Vote Our Way Out Of This Mess outdoor discussion.

Scheduled events so far below:

• Everett-Near South Neighborhood Clean-Up (and Cookout?) – September 26 (10/11 AM? Late afternoon?)
• Can We Vote Our Way Out Of This Mess? An outdoor community discussion – October 17, 1-3 PM, Black Cat House (outside)
• Untitled online discussion on police repression of protests – November (Friday evening or Saturday)

Tabled Items: Lincoln jail support, fall calendar

Meeting Adjourned: 8 PM

There was no meeting today. We need to focus this coming week on generating event ideas for the fall calendar.

In attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:00 PM

July Event: What is Ecofascism? is on July 11th. Marc had the preliminary idea for the event, so he will write a draft for the event description and send it to the rest of the group to workshop. It will be online via Jitsi Meet again. Marc will get that to the group in the next couple days.

Bail Fund: We got the account, we dropped the ball on the burner phone so we’re going to grab it soon. Lincoln protests are dying down in intensity but there will eventually be the need of bail funds on a broader local level again, so we’re still going to proceed in setting up an Action Network for it.

Fall Calendar: We started talking about fall a little bit – an idea for an October outdoor conversation circle came up. Possibly coinciding with Halloween? It’s still up in the air because how Lincoln will deal with COVID once the UNL fall semester starts has yet to be seen. We’ll table this further.

Tabled: Fall Calendar

Meeting Adjourned: 7:30 PM

Meeting Start: 7:08 PM

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

Tonight we had an abbreviated meeting, since there truthfully wasn’t a lot to discuss about upcoming events and the summer calendar due to COVID-19.

Upcoming Event:

• The Image of the Anarchist reading: Ty and Marc will post the PDF of the article and a text transcript onto Facebook so people interested in attending the event can read it well ahead of time, and so it’s accessible for those who use screen readers.

Summer Calendar:

• We are sticking to one event per month for summer.
• Gardening Day: Saturday June 13^th, from 10 AM – 1 PM. This meeting will be outdoors and in-person and be all about working in the gardening and learning certain skills.
• What is Ecofascism? a community discussion: Saturday July 11^th, from 1 PM – 3PM. This discussion will be held online.
• Harvesting Day: Saturday, August 22, from 9 AM -12 PM. Like it says in the title, we’ll be harvesting the fruits of our labor from the garden on this day.
• Ty will create a digital calendar for our summer events and post it by next week, so it can be shared and spread.

Meeting adjourned: 7:34 PM