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

1. Prep for Earth Day Booth – We spent time brainstorming ideas for buttons, zines, and information for our display critical of greenwashing.
2. Library Donation – Jackson has a new book for the library. Hooray!

Meeting adjourned: 8:05 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

In Attendance: Jackson, Marc (secretary), Rae
Meeting Started: 7:10 PM
Minutes were posted late because Marc got super busy. He’s very sorry.

Event Review: The Killing Floor Movie Showing

• We had a decent turnout with a great discussion afterwards. Folks seemed to enjoy the movie really well.
• One attendee specifically expressed interest in the movie because of its connection to union history specifically.
• We discussed how The Killing Floor is a fairly unknown movie, and how that might have appealed to people. We talked about other potential films to show with this aspect in mind, including some ones that might have a (relatively) hefty screening fee because of their association with academic orgs, etc.

Upcoming Event: Gaming the System

• We’ll be playing The Great Dalmuti this upcoming Saturday. Marc and Ty will be there to explain the rules and get feedback/other game recommendations from attendees.
• Otherwise, it’s an event that doesn’t require a lot of set-up, since it’s a card game.

Spring Calendar

• Jackson is in touch with a potential panelist for the Black Musicians and Liberation digital event. However at this point, we likely need to push the event date back so we have adequate time to promote it.
• Earth Day booth – Ty will submit the form/payment for this boothing opportunity. $35.00 was taken from the treasury to cover the cost.
• Lincoln Pride booth – Though this will happen in summer, we’re going to submit our booth request soon. $90.00 was taken from the treasury to cover the cost.
• State of Trans Rights – Marc is in contact with OutNebraska to co-sponsor this event.
• Event Ideas: We discussed playing Pandemic, which is a cooperative board game instead of a competitive one, which might be an interesting comparison in and of itself. We also discussed playing Settlers of Cataan, which Jackson described as a zero-sum competitive game. In the past we’ve also talked about how Settlers represents a sort of colonialist fantasy that whitewashes the actual effects/process of colonization.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:50 PM

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Marc
Start time: 7:20 PM

1. Upcoming Event – We’re running The Killing Floor on Friday night. We have some tidying of the space to do before then, but otherwise we’re good.
2. Library Update – Jackson has four more books for our library. Marc reports that he has found a way to attach our LibraryThing database to his draft to the new website!
3. New Website Updates – Marc has been hard at work designing the next version of our website. He has also made some tweaks to hopefully reduce the amount of spam we get to our “contact” email, and created a list on our Discord with a list of the content that we will need to write to fill out the core pages of the new website.
4. Tabling Opportunities – Marc has created task lists for what we need to get done to table at Lincoln Earth Day and Star City Pride and posted them on our Discord. Marc has also been working on our application for Lincoln Earth Day. Marc has been very busy! The application is probably ready to be submitted, but Ty and Marc will need treasury money in advance. Pride is actually less work to apply for, but more expensive.

Meeting adjourned: 8:40 PM

Tabled: Tabling Opportunities, Website, Spring Calendar

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Marc, Ty
Start time: 7:20 PM

1. Event Review – We counter-protested the Walk For Life on Saturday. Our crowd was smaller than usual, probably because of the bitterly cold weather. Jackson noted that most of our regulars from years past were conspicuosly absent, and that almost all of our people were first-timers.
2. Library Donation – Jackson has more books for the library. Ty and Marc like them.
3. Tabling Opportunities – We are committing to tabling at Earth Day and Star City Pride. We are allocating $125 out of our treasury to cover the cost of tabling at both events. We need to figure out some specifics, but our time was short, so the issue is TABLED.
4. Spring Calendar –

Black Musicians and Liberation – Early March?

Tabling @ Lincoln Earth Day – April 15th

Yard Sale Fundraiser – Friday, May 26th and Saturday, May 27th (tentatively)

Trans Issues Reading Discussion – TBA

Movie(s)?

Something for May Day?

TABLED: Future Tabling, Website Timeline

Meeting adjourned: 8:40 PM

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

1. Upcoming Event – It is time for us to counter-protest the Walk For Life this Saturday! Jackson will be opening up the house on Friday night for anyone who needs to make a sign. Marc and Ty will be handling any need for childcare on Saturday. Jackson will be downtown with the signs for the protest.
2. Library – Jackson has a few more books for the library. Ty and Marc like them. Ty and Marc are tentatively planning to do some library work on Saturday if there’s no child-minding to do.
3. February Events – We need to get our February events up online ASAP! Ty and Marc volunteer bravely to get those events drafted.
4. Tabling Opportunities – Ty has been contacted with opportunities for us to table at Lincoln Earth Day (Saturday, April 15th) and Star City Pride (Friday, June 9th and Saturday, June 10th). We probably have funds in the treasury to reserve tables and invest in some new Black Cat swag for said table. We have details to work out, and not enough time tonight to figure it out. TABLED.
5. Website Timeline – We have no time to discuss this tonight, unfortunately. TABLED.
6. Spring Calendar –

We want to do a reading discussion around Ty’s article about trans issues. We will approach OutNebraska to see if they want to co-sponsor.

TABLED ITEMS: Tabling Opportunities, Website Timeline

Meeting adjourned: 8:50 PM

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Rae, Ty

Start time: 7:20 PM

1. Event Review – We had our documentary/discussion on company towns on Saturday, but no one outside of the collective attended! We still had a good discussion, but we think we should do more basic/accessible programming for the spring. This subject may have been too niche to draw a crowd, considering our current struggles with in-person programming.
2. Spring Calendar brainstorming – In no particular order:

• Yard sale fundraiser
• Ty may have an article for a reading discussion about the current state of trans issues in this country.
• alternatives to police and prisons?
• Something with an Indigenous rights focus
• something related to local politics?

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Marc, Rae, Ty
Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Library Donations – We had many books donated from several sources. We spent the first part of the meeting going through those and deciding which ones we’ll add to our library.
2. Upcoming Event – We have our video and discussion on “Corporate Control Over Public Space” here on Saturday afternoon. We are ready for this.
3. Counter-Protest – Jackson will get the event up tonight. We just hashed out the last few details. Jackson will open the house for sign-making the night before, and Marc and Ty will be here Saturday morning to offer childcare if needed.
4. Reimbursement for Thank-You cards – Marc needs to be reimbursed for picking up the Thank-You cards. He spent $46.93, and we will be paying him for his service.

Meeting adjourned: 8:15 PM

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

Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Talking about spaces – We spent the first hour meeting with Isaac, who was involved with a defunct venue space called “HQ.” We had an open-ended talk about the history of HQ, Black Cat, and other similar community projects the Black Cats were familiar with. We hope the leadership behind HQ can rebuild that project someday soon.
2. Walk For Life Counter-protest – We need to get online advertising up for this ASAP, but Jackson needs help. Marc agrees to get the ball rolling with a rough draft.
3. Library Donations – Marc, Ty, and Jackson had several new books for our lending library, and everyone liked them.
4. Defining Documents – Marc and Ty have been considering revising and augmenting some of our defining documents to better describe ourselves (especially on our website). Ideas included: an extended, more detailed version of our mission statement; a code of conduct; and a history of the Black Cat House project. There was also some discussion about if/how we should better stay on task during meetings when new people show up to them and if/whether we should try to revive our Open Hours as a preferable format to introduce new people.

Meeting adjourned: 9:05 PM

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

It was another library workday tonight. Just a reminder that we will NOT be meeting next Monday, December 26th. We will resume meeting on January 2nd.