5/27/19 Minutes

In attendance: Jackson (moderator), Marc (secretary), Ty, Wyatt
Start time: 7:10

1. Event review:

Aragorn! came here Thursday and Jackson purchased $155 worth of books. We also received $60 for hosting the event. We have a whole bunch of books to sort through and add to the library; most of it is more contemporary.

Wyatt said that we liked having folks come by and speak if it’s convenient, and the BCH could be used as a gig space more often because of its position on I-80 between major cities. We also want to figure out ways to reach out to younger folks interested in politics.

The conversation attendees and Aragorn! had were fruitful and intriguing, and it was a great event.

Young Karl Marx movie night was on Friday; a few people showed up and spoke afterwards. The movie served as an introduction to the politics of the 19th century for some folks in attendance.

2. Upcoming events:

Our open house is on June 1st. We’ve gotta hype it up. Wyatt has offered to bake cupcakes for the event. Jackson is going to handle the punch. Ty is gonna also schedule tweets for the event.

Ty and Marc are going to table at the Feed the People grill-out event at Peter Pan Park. We’ll show up with material to pass out at the event, such as zines, publications, etc. We’ll also take the table banner with us.

3. June events

Wyatt got a description of the movie 1984 for the upcoming Popcorn Politics event with DSA. We edited the description to pertain to the event itself and include more information and will send it to the DSA for approval. Jackson will take care of this part.

What is Revolution is already up; How to Survive a Plague is not yet up. Ty has offered to write up the description for HtSaP.

4. Library donations

We had 17 leftover books from yard sale donations to add to the lending library, plus the books from Aragorn!. The zines from Aragorn! will be going into the zine archive.

5. Calendar distribution

Wyatt has already done part of his route; Ty and Marc will distribute calendars tomorrow, and Jackson will distribute calendars later.

6. New flyers

Marc made drafts of a new flyer and bookmark design. Wyatt proposed updating the mission statement and “about” information for materials in the future.

Marc will complete the design for the bookmark to be printed by June 1. He will also contact the print shop to get a price estimate for printing them.

We also discussed creating more Black Cat House swag in the future, and getting an interest check on buttons and T-shirts.

We’ll talk more about the wording update in the future.

Meeting adjourned: 8:20 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 (secretary), Marc, Ty, Wyatt (moderator)
Start time: 7:15 PM

1. Event Review – We had our reading discussion for Lucy Parsons’ “I Am an Anarchist.” We had a lively discussion, but maybe we should have moderated a bit more. We discussed whether we should have appointed a moderator amongst ourselves before the event.

2. Upcoming Events – Aragorn! is speaking here on Thursday and we’re running Popcorn Politics on Friday. We sent out some questions to Adam, our contact with Aragorn! The movie will be standard stuff.

3. Reimbursement – Ty spent $14.93 on getting our readings and summer calendars printed, and we will reimburse him for these necessary group expenses.

4. Calendar Distro – Wyatt will do South Street, the Bay, and the Unitarian Church. Marc and Ty will do the Haymarket, the Hub, and the Hub Cafe. Ty will also do relevant spots on campus. Jackson will do the main downtown area.

5. June Events – We need to get our BCH Birthday Party advertised online. We spent meeting time working on it. Also, Feed the People-Lincoln is having a fundraising cookout on the same day at an overlapping time, and Marc and Ty may table for us there.

6. Calendar/Flier Re-design – Marc has some ideas for new fliers and updating our calendars. We talked a bit about this, but are mostly excitied to see what he comes up with. There was discussion of possibly starting with a bookmark design.

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)

5/6/19 Minutes: Yard Sale Review, Calendar Printing!

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

Event Review
Yard Sale Recap 2019
$599.14 Total Revenue. This is a low number but we are still happy. We still have some things to sell online.
We didnt have quite as much stuff this year, didnt sell our our big ticket items, and we were not totally prepared at 7am friday.
Maybe in the future we will set meeting time before yard sale to price and sort. Maybe next year ask for volunteers to help sort and price.
We will shampoo the carpet this week to clean the yard sard grime.

Upcoming Events
Lucy Parsons Reading on saturday
We will print 15 items on tue or wed. Ty will take point on that.

Aaragorn NonUpdate
We have no updates about this potential event. We are still willing to do it if it happens. If we don’t know by next week we wont be able to pull it off.

Calendar Issue
We changed one event name.
Ty will print calendar in Angry Lavender celebrating 50 years since Stonewall and cause we like to be queer.

New Slingshots Arrived!

Jackson is reimbursed for chair purchase.

Meeting Adjourned 7:45

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: American Empire and Islam (a community discussion)
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 (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 (moderator), Wyatt, Marc (secretary), Martin, Austin, Mikeyla

Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Event Review
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster – only 1 other person showed up. It was all organizers. Popcorn Politics has lost a lot of steam; Jackson reached out to DSA to publicize events more in the future. The low attendance might have also been because it was the Friday before finals week.

Next popcorn politics: Young Karl Marx!

Jackson brought up using the Death of Stalin as a future Popcorn Politics flick. It’s not explicitly leftist, nor is it that historical, but it’s entertaining.

2. Upcoming Events
Marc wrote the call for donations for the yard sale, and we’re not 100% certain if the post has been posted or scheduled. Marc checked past BCH chat logs, and Ty said it’d be posted on April 10. Wyatt suggested reaching out more to solicit donations.

Martin suggested collecting clothes anyway, and then donating it rather than selling it at the yard sale. Jackson and Wyatt confirmed that the house probably physically doesn’t have the space, but it’s a good suggestion that’s worked in the past. Next week, we’ll sit down and price items for the sale, organize stuff, etc. On Wednesday or Thursday we can start moving the collection from storage.

The Lucy Parsons event needs to be posted on Facebook. Jackson also needs to write up stuff for Young Karl Marx.

Turtle Island
Adam messaged the BCH Facebook page to ask us if we’d be interested in hosting a book tour for an author. The author is Aragorn! who has written a book about anarchist Native Americans. Martin suggested platforming Native writers on the issues that the book brings up; Jackson also suggested reaching out to Aragorn! to learn more about them as an author. Wyatt also expressed interest in reading the book first. We’ll have time to discuss this again next week. Mikeyla also researched more about the book while trying to figure out more about Aragorn!, but didn’t find much new info.

Jackson is going to reach out directly to Aragorn!; if people have questions for Aragorn!, let Jackson know. Martin also suggested asking local Native groups whether the name of the author/book is familiar.

Lucy Parsons reading
Marc read aloud Ty’s description of the event. Wyatt suggested adding the elements of how Lucy Parsons also spoke about her own personal and political development and editing the writeup a bit. Wyatt will publish the post with some additions to our Facebook page.

Jackson will write up the description for the Young Karl Marx screening.

3. Summer Calendar
We need dates for upcoming summer events!

(Copied from last weeks’ meeting with edits.)
Blackout dates:
June 7 and 8 Star City Pride
June 15 Juneteenth
July 4 – 7 Socialism Conference
August 24 Red State Conference

Definite Events

Saturday, June 1st Black Cat House 6th Birthday Open House (times TBA)
Movie Night: How to Survive a Plague (need description/queer/AIDS/etc) – Friday June 28 (anniversary of riots!)
Popcorn Politics (June) [1984? for the 70th anniversary of the book being published] – Friday June 14? First Friday is also this day. Book was released June 8. Jackson will have to run this by the DSA Popcorn Politics folks.

Movie Night: Manufacturing Consent (do before mid-month; 6 PM start; description?) – 2nd Friday; July 12
Popcorn Politics (July) – Chicken Run on July 26

Movie Night: White Light, Black Rain (atomic bombings commemoration) – Friday August 9 (anniversary of Nagasaki bombing)
Popcorn Politics (August) – Pan’s Labyrinth – Friday August 16

What is Revolution? (a community discussion) – Saturday June 22

Open discussion of U.S. imperialism’s relation to Iran/Middle-East fundamentalism – Saturday July 20

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 (secretary), Marc, Ty (moderator), Wyatt
Start time: 7:18 PM

1. Event Reviews – Our events didn’t quite go according to plan!

Jackson reports that only one person showed up for the advertised Stars Over Latin America reading on Friday night, and he hadn’t seen the Motorcycle Diaries film so they did that instead. The book actually only showed up today, but we’re still happy to have it for our library. We agree that Jackson will be reimbursed $13.37 for buying that for us.

We had a moderate turnout for our Kurdish discussion on Saturday, but due to a miscommunication our intended discussion leader was unable to come! We were forced to improvise towards a much more general discussion, since our specific knowledge of Kurdistan wasn’t good enough. We had a pretty good discussion once we transitioned to a broader discussion of U.S. imperialism and how we should be resisting it. Wyatt suggests that we need to have more direct contact with guests leading events here in the future.

2. Upcoming Event – Popcorn Politics returns this Friday with Godzilla vs the Smog Monster. It should be less complicated than our events last weekend, and we are relieved!

3. Moderator/Secretary Rotation – Marc will be joining the moderator/secretary rotation.

4. Library Update – Wyatt and Jackson spent meeting time last week finishing the current round of library sorting. Jackson also suggested that we should consider expanding our DVD selection, which was well received.

5. May Events – Ty will draft a description of the Lucy Parsons discussion in the next week. Jackson volunteers to tackle the Popcorn Politics for The Young Karl Marx.

6. Summer Calendar

Blackout dates:
June 7 and 8 Star City Pride
June 15 Juneteenth
July 4 – 7 Socialism Conference
August 24 Red State Conference

Definite Events

Saturday, June 1st Black Cat House 6th Birthday Open House (times TBA)
Movie Night: How to Survive a Plague (need description/queer/AIDS/etc)
Popcorn Politics (June) [1984? for the 70th anniversary of the book being published]

Movie Night: Manufacturing Consent (do before mid-month; 6 PM start; description?)
Popcorn Politics (July)

Movie Night: White Light, Black Rain (atomic bombings commemoration)
Popcorn Politics (August)

What is Revolution? (a community discussion)

Suggested Event

Open discussion of U.S. imperialism’s relation to Iran/Middle-East fundamentalism

Meeting adjourned: 8:51 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 (secretary), Wyatt

Start time: 7:05 PM

1. We discussed our events upcoming this weekend: the children’s book reading Stars Over Latin America and our community discussion on the Kurdish Freedom Struggle.
2.  We spent the rest of our meeting sorting our library books.

Meeting adjourned: 8:35 PM

Tabled Items: Summer Calendar, 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: Ty, Marc, Wyatt (secretary), Jackson (moderator)
7:03 pm meeting in session

1. Upcoming events
We will be showing Strength of the Storm on Friday. Its a short movie and will provoke lots of discussion.

2. Emails
Serendipity has sent out a feedback form about her workshops. Individual members are encouraged to complete.
Martin Smith has fully canceled his presence at the event we scheduled for him this april. In leiu of the authors presenting his book we will do a reading of the book. Marc volunteers to read the book aloud.

3. May events
Begining May 1, the public is encouraged to bring donations to the Black Cat House for our spring fundraiser yard sale. Working appliances, small furnitures, electronics, toys, hats and shoes, books, art, and any other useful household items or stuff you think we could sell. No clothing or large furniture. We have stickers and tables and signs.

4. Summer calendar.
June 7 and 8 Star City Pride
June 19 Juneteenth
July 4 – 7 Socialism Conference
August 24 Red State Conference
–Proposed BCH events
June 1 BCH turns 6 open house birthday party
August Commemoration of destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima
Open discussion of US Imperialism and Religious Fundementalism
Open discussion What is Revolution?
Late June Early July Manufacturing Consent / The Corporation
Pans Labrinth
Purple Blue

Meeting Ajourned 8:14

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 (secretary), Ty (moderator, via video chat), Wyatt
Start time: 7:05 PM

1. Event Review – We hosted the “Who Owns Politics?” discussion here on Saturday. It was a really good talk. Maybe we should do it again at the next election cycle?

2. Upcoming Event – Our movie night for Boom! is this Friday. We’re good to go for it!

3. April Events – We spent the rest of our meeting working on online descriptions for our upcoming April events.

Meeting adjourned: 8:09 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)