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

1. Really, Really Free Library – We further discussed the idea of adding a “Little-Free-Library-esque” library with books, zines, grocery items, and our calendars. It was suggested that we could possibly make the donations box look like a miniature version of the Black Cat House. (Complete with a miniature water barrel?) Ty is playing with design ideas, and we’ll see what Wyatt can build.

2. Summer Events – Thursday, June 17th, 7-9 PM, outdoor discussion, Working Title: “Pride on the Porch”; Marc to lead discussion, will hopefully spearhead online advertisement

Friday, July 16th, 7-9 PM, outdoor discussion, “With Jackasses Like These… Who Needs the Elephants?”; hopefully to focus on local Lincoln Democratic politics; Jackson volunteers to write up the advertising

Saturday, August 14th, 10 AM – Noon, garden workshop, Harvest Day in the garden

3. Fall Calendar Brainstorming – Possible reading discussion for September; Garden Day… clean-up and planting of winter cover crops?; Columbus Day protest in October; open discussions?; bring back movie nights?

Events could be outdoors in September or possibly October, but should definitely be indoors for November. We haven’t done an event themed around feminism or religious skepticism in awhile. Ty wonders if we should do something around Halloween on paganism and/or the Christianization of Europe.

Meeting adjourned: 8:45 PM

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Wyatt
Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Yard Sale Review – We had our biggest haul ever at this yard sale. We raised a total of $1286.35! It’s possible that the lack of yard sales last year and economic uncertainties around the pandemic gave us a boost. Wyatt built some tables, and that was very helpful in giving us more space to display our wares. We also had a lot of help from several new volunteers and that probably contributed to our success as well.

2. Little Free Library/Pantry – Wyatt is interested in building a donation-holding little box a la the Little Free Libraries/Pantries around town. We do often give away food and literature as it is, but this could also be another piece of our public outreach by having our latest event calendar taped up inside the door. Wyatt really wants us to call it something other than a Little Free Library, but Jackson also points out that it could be beneficial for us to piggyback off the existing networking/advertising for Lincoln’s Little Free Libraries.

3. Refugee Fundraiser – Since we made so much money off of our yard sale, we are going to contribute another $250 towards our Swedish friend trying to save refugee families there.

Meeting adjourned: 8:05 PM

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Marc, Ty
Start time: 7:05

1. Yard Sale – Is supposed to be this Friday and Saturday, but it might rain! We’re going to watch the weather very closely this week and set our final plans accordingly. We also discussed our advertisement strategy: Facebook event, FB marketplace, Craigslist.

2. Library Donation – Jackson has a bunch of books for the library, and several of Richard’s yard sale donations would be a good fit for our library as well. We’re adding a big haul today!

3. Donation – We’ll contribute $200 to the refugee fundraiser that we’ve been discussing over the last couple of weeks.

4. Yard Sale Worktime – We spent the rest of the evening sorting and prepping the donations for the yard sale.

Meeting adjourned for Worktime: 7:30 PM

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 (secretary), Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Upcoming Event – We are doing a workshop this Saturday at the Hawley Hamlet. This was only confirmed via chat late last week, and worktime was spent at the top of the meeting getting an event created for that.

2. Library Donation – Aleisha brought us a book last week, and Jackson has another stack of books as well. They look good to us and are going into the library.

3. Library Update – Jackson reports that Naomi was here last Friday cataloging one of our bookcases for the new database.

4. Yard Sale – Our Facebook event is up and we have started collecting donations and promises of further donations.

5. Fundraiser? – We have been asked by a close and trusted friend of our good friend (and Jackson’s surrogate mama) Dance to help raise money for a refugee family in danger of deportation in Sweden. This family will likely be put to death if they are forced to return home. We can’t make any commitments on this with so few of our group represented in the meeting tonight, but we’d like to come back to this very soon with the full group together. We need to decide if we want to make a direct donation from our treasury, if we want to donate a chunk of our yard sale proceeds, and/or if we want to do a public push for donations. (Ty mentions that our bank account should be ready to go if we need it.)

Meeting adjourned: 8:05 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

In attendance: Jackson, Marc
Meeting Start: 7:15 PM

1. Upcoming Event: Wyatt is spearheading another medical training workshop. We’ll keep sharing it and spreading it around. Otherwise, we’re moving ahead with it. We may be able to run it outdoors with the promised nicer weather. We’ll be on standby if Wyatt needs anything prepared.

2. Library Donation: Jackson got a stack of books, including a couple duplicates by Naomi Klein – “Shock Doctrine.” It’s a good haul covering wide topics.

3. Yard Sale: Ty was working on drafting a yard sale Facebook description. But things got complicated this past week, and so Marc will take point on drafting it instead with Ty’s assistance.

Adjourned: 7:38 PM

Post-Meeting Item – Black Musicians and Liberation Recording: Ty’s working on uploading the final edit of the panel video on YouTube, but it’s a large file and so it’s taking a bit of time to do so.

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

Start time: 7:10 PM

1) Naomi’s Library Update: Naomi emailed saying she’s still available to help library organization stuff. She tried experimenting with WordPress library catalog widgets to no avail with her personal account, but said she’s down to jump right into it. Barcode scanning would be done on-site, but further cataloging can be done anywhere with a Black Cat website account.

2) Black Cat Web Account: Marc needs a Black Cat website account, but we need access to the admin account to do that.

3) Pro-Choice Activism: We received a Facebook message regarding local pro-choice activism. We’ve invited the messenger to chat with us sometime about their ideas.

4) Event Review: The medical training went well – though only one new person was in attendance out of four (Wyatt included), it still went really well. We thought of other people and group we can reach out to in regards to advertising these events, particularly the one about treating chemical burns on April 22.

5) Fundraiser Yard Sale: The yard sale will be May 21^st and 22^nd. Ty will work on getting a Facebook event up so we can solicit for item donations. The only items that we will not accept is clothes. He’s also going to be reaching out to family for supplies like folding tables, signs, etc.. Jackson got a box of disposable masks for the medical training but they’re not likely to be used up before the sale so that can be put at a sanitation station with hand sanitizer pumps. Marc and Ty will also design new buttons and press a bunch to sell as well for the sale.

Meeting adjourned: 8:14 PM

No one was available to meet with Jackson tonight, so there was no meeting. We’ll try again next week!

In attendance: Grant, Jackson (secretary), Ty (moderator)
Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Hawley Hamlet – Grant from the Hawley Hamlet met with us. We had a broad discussion on the history of our respective projects, and we brainstormed the possibilities of doing a workshop at their space. We are tentatively looking at late April or early May, as Grant thinks there will be greater opportunities for hands-on activities at that time.

2. Event Review – We had our reading discussion on Saturday. The turnout was a little low, but it was a really good discussion for what was a late addition to our calendar.

3. Black Musicians and Liberation Video – Monte has sent us an edited version of our panel discussion for YouTube, and it looks incredible. Jackson noticed one typo on one of the cards, so he will review the video once more for possible minor errors and see if Monte can fix those and send an updated version. Ty will get a YouTube channel started, and look into getting accurate closed-captions added to the video. Ty will also look into how to edit YouTube videos to add links, so that we can link to the music videos that we deleted from the panel. We are very eager and excited to finally get this video on YouTube.

Meeting adjourned: 8:35 PM