6/16/14
In attendance: Ashley (secretary), Jackson (moderator), Tati (moderator)
Time started: 7:00

Event review: The event on Saturday went fairly well. The turnout was a little low, but that might have been because we couldn’t plug into the students. We might do this again during a time when more people would be interested. Ashley suggests that it might be a good idea to work with the student humanist group at UNL if we want to do it again.

Upcoming events: the picnic is this weekend. We’re probably going to buy meat to grill, and maybe drinks as well. We’ll probably bring blankets as well. More promotion needs to be done for the event, we’ll all work on that this week.

Buttons: Ashley finished the button designs, ze will do a test print and then send them off to Jackson. Ashley suggests we just print one of each this round, so that way we can test them in the buttons and make sure everything looks good before investing a lot of money into it. Jackson has yet to buy the button parts, but he has a few ideas as far as the punch goes. Jackson will make the purchases this week.

Books: Ashley received a few books to donate to the library, and Tati has some as well. We go through and approve most of them.

CD Library: Last week, Chris recommended that we start keeping CD’s in the library. He has some CD’s he’d be willing to donate. We all approve of the idea.

Occupy Play: A guest brought us a 1-scene play draft about the occupy movement. He’s looking for someone who was involved with the occupy movement to take the themes of the scene and reinterpret it (rewrite it, write a poem, make artwork), so they can publish it in a book. We know a few people who might be interested, and if none of them want to we can put it up on the occupy Lincoln page.

Tyranny of Tyranny: We didn’t identify with this article nearly as much; it seemed really reactionary, and was poorly edited so it was difficult to understand at points. The parts we found valuable was the discussion about the inefficiency of larger organization, and the issues of burnout. The other parts we agreed with, like that education and consciousness raising will never end, but those were parts we already discussed with the last article.

Disruptive Guests: Ashley found an article entitled “Activists and ‘difficult people'”, we agree to read it for the next few weeks. For next week, we’ll read the intro an “The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense” http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/01san.html

Adjourned: 7:53

Tabled: Button parts, networking, sexyfest, speakers, “activists and ‘difficult people’

6/9/14

In attendance: Ashley (moderator), Chris, Ella, Jackson (moderator), Sammi, Tati (secretary)
Start time: 7:00 PM

1. Event review – Behind the Badge was a great show! Unfortunately it was a Wednesday, and that might have contributed to a lower turnout, but everyone who was there had a good time and learned a lot. Sammi suggested that we try asking critical questions via Facebook or similar sources, to get people thinking about the topic before hand and inciting them to come to the events.

2. Upcoming events – LSH meeting is coming up, as well as What is… Secular Humanism. Ashley needs to make more cupcakes! Jackson and Ashley will also make sure their presentation gets set up nicely on our new projector.

3. Reimbursement – Jackson bought a copy of I Am Troy Davis for $15 to help out the International Socialist Club, and a $4 stack of zines from Ben Turk, and we approved reimbursement for both.

4. SexyFest – We picked Saturday, October 4th as the date, as the other dates that were suggested fell on Husker game days, and we just didn’t want to compete with that traffic.

5. Buttons – Jackson thinks we have enough funds to buy button-making parts, so he’ll go ahead and get them. He also brought up the price of a button cutter, and we thought that it might be a little pricey to go for right away. Jackson will also look for the cheapest cutter while he’s researching for

6. Speakers – scott crow mentioned when he was here that if we offered stipends for speakers, people will contact us to hold talks here, as opposed to us asking people. However, to guarantee that we have enough money to provide to speakers, we’d have to do fundraisers outside our yearly one, and we’d like to still spend most of our energy on projects and events. Sammi suggests collaboration with other organizations on certain speakers in order to split costs between us. Ella brings up cutting costs in the House, finding ways to reduce printing costs, etc., or offering zines and buttons for suggested donations. Jackson thinks that just having a fund for speakers can be a selling point, that saying donations will be guaranteed to go to bringing speakers into the House might encourage people to donate for it.

7. Tyranny of Tyranny – We read an article a few meetings back called “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” and the discussion was really good! We talked for about an hour about what we learned from it and how this info can help the collective. We decided we also wanted to read “The Tyranny of Tyranny,” which is a critical response to the first essay, since we liked the first so much.

8. Handbill – Ella brought the summer calender handbill to edit, we checked it over for errors and called it good!

Meeting adjourned: 7:50 PM

Tabled: Button designs, networking, event moderation training

May 6, 2013
In attendance: Ashley (moderator), Jackson (secretary), Tati (moderator)

Start time: 7:00 PM

1) May Day

Our event failed! Why didn’t anyone show up?

The weather was terrible. Was it just too cold for people to show up? Do we need to include an indoor backup if we have poor weather again in the future? Tati suggests that we would normally have an afterparty, and maybe we should just include an option to move the party up to the time of the rally/march if the weather sucks again.

Ashley says that maybe the date was a problem. Maybe we’re not going to get students on the day after school lets out? Even if young people aren’t students at UNL, they may have friends who are and get booked up with parties that weekend.

Was it a problem to hold the event after the actual May Day? We’re still committed to trying to get it done on a weekend to make it easier for all the working folks who are busy during the workweek.

Was our event just stale? Ashley notes that we’ve had trouble getting people to come back after previous May Day events. (Brian also said something at the Capitol on Saturday to the effect that maybe a march/protest wasn’t the best way to commemorate May Day.)

2) Library meeting

We’re having one tomorrow at 4 PM to discuss library rules.

3) Open House

Ashley has advertised on the networking sites. We’ll start putting up fliers tomorrow. Ashley will go south; Jackson and Tati will do downtown.

We’re close to having the snacks settled. We have regular and vegan crackers, and cheese. We’ll get hummus. Ashley is planning for more food. Tati wants s’more cookies; they’re not vegan, so we’ll need something else sweet.

Ashley is thinking about activities for kids, since we may have a few attending. Ashley is thinking of organizing a game; possibly outside.

We still have to figure out where to put a few things. We’ll probably need to set up a table to hold our fliers, etc.

4) Reimbursements

May Day expenses: Jackson is reimbursed $6.69 for printing more fliers last week. (This was pre-approved.) Ashley is reimbursed for $13.78 worth of march supplies (whistles and armband fabric).

Other expenses: Ashley is reimbursed $5 for getting us a donations box. Ashley is pre-approved to spend up to $20 on materials for the sign we’re going to make for our front porch.

5) Collective Editing

Ashley presented a draft of the “What is Gender Identity” handout for our upcoming event. We spent the last hour of our meeting editing it.

Meeting adjourned: 8:29 PM

Meeting started: 7:03
In Attendance: Ashley (secretary), Ella (moderator), Jackson, Tati (moderator)

May Day: Ashley looked at 3 different stores and couldn’t find the supplies we needed to marshal the march. Ashley is going to look at a different store tonight hopefully, and if they can’t fins them there, they’ll buy them online. We messaged Brian and see about the microphone and speakers. All other matters have been taken care of.

Flyers: We need handbills for the open house by this weekend. Ella is going to print off handbills and larger poster-sized flyers. Jackson is going to print off more handbills for the march, and the collective agrees to reimburse him for it.

Opening: We discuss what we want to do at the open house. We decide to serve appetizers and a couple of deserts, and play some music.

We had a brainstorming session after the formal minutes to talk about future projects.

Meeting ended: 7:50

Start Time: 5:32 PM
In Attendance: Ashley (moderator), Jackson (moderator), Tati (secretary)

1. Chair reimbursement: Jackson bought a chair for the house, asked for $5.33 to cover that. The House agreed to do so.

2. Calendar: Calendar will be as follows:

June 1st, from 3 to 7 PM – Black Cat Open House
June 15th, at 1 PM – What is… Anarchism?
June 22nd, at 7 PM – Movie Night: Dr. Strangelove
June 30th, at 2 PM – Feminist Discussion Group: Feminism in the U.S.

July 13th, at 1 PM – What is… Nationalism?
July 21st, at 4 PM – Movie Night: The Corporation
July 28th, at 2 PM – Feminist Discussion Group: Geek Culture

August 8h, at 7 PM – Movie Night: Bowling for Columbine
August 17th, at 1 PM – What is… Gender Identity?
August 25th, at 2 PM – Feminist Discussion Group: Intersectionality

edit: Ashley found out ze is going to be out of town in early August, so the dates had to be moved around so ze could host the “what is..?” event. the original plan was for the Gender Identity event to be on the 10th and the movie to the be on the 15th.

Open hours are on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, from 3 to 6 PM. Meetings are on Mondays at 7 PM.

3. May Day: Jackson is going to be the MC, and he will get ahold of the speakers at least a week before the event to figure out how they want to be introduced. In addition to the intros he will also explain the parade route and some guidelines before we march. Everyone in the room has agreed to be marshals, and we will ask a few more people for added safety. Ashley will get us whistles and armbands.

Meeting adjourned: 6:07 PM

Note: Meeting was earlier than normal this week due to a decision to be at an event held by the International Socialist Organization, which was taking place at the same time our meeting would usually be held.

4-15-13
Start time: 7:00 PM

In attendance: Ashley (moderator), Jackson (secretary), Tati (moderator)
Making an appearance: Ella

1. May Day – Facebook event is now public, and our “friends” have been invited. Ashley is still following up with our tentative speaker lineup: Jeffrey, Steve, Ben, Mika? Ella delivered fliers. We need to distribute fliers at the following places:

SOUTH LINCOLN

Meadowlark
Open Harvest
Pepe’s

NEAR SOUTH

Cultiva
F St. Rec Center
Russ’s

DOWNTOWN

Coffee House
Creamery Building
A Novel Idea
Yia Yia’s
Grateful Greens
Parrish Studios/Anti-Oppression Art
Hudson Bay
Grateful Bread
Bodhi Imports
Bourbon
The Mill
Maggie’s

CAMPUS

UNL Union

2. Website – Ashley wants to replace our Tumblr link in the footer, with a link to our new Twitter account (which is much more active). We are ok with this.
3. Bike Kitchen – Ashley thinks we should offer our backyard for a “guerrilla kitchen” day. We like the Bike Kitchen, so we’ll see if our space is adequate for their needs. We’ll probably wait to do host one until after we open in June.
4. Movies – A Good Day to Die (American Indian Movement) — save for February; still need movies for June, July, and August; tabled – we need to do research out of meeting and be prepared for decisions next week.

Meeting adjourned: 8:00 PM

In attendance: Ashley (moderator), Ella (secretary), Jackson (moderator), Tati
Meeting started: 7:00

1) Opening – A contractor has been chosen and given the go ahead to start building the wheelchair ramp. Opening Saturday, June 1st to allow time for any issues or roadblocks that may arise. Aiming to have handbills and promotional materials prepared and printed in time for May Day March.

2) Events – Open House will be Saturday, June 1 from 3:00–7:00pm. The first three What is…? events have been modified to Anarchism, Nationalism, and Gender Identities. FDG events will remain approximately as Western Feminism 101, Geek Culture, and Intersectionality. Movies yet to be determined but suggested topics include the death penalty, American Indian Movement, BP Oil Spill. Tabled for later discussion.

3) May Day – The rally at the Capitol has been approved but have not received approval for the March as of yet. Ashley will call city officials tomorrow to see the status. Four speakers have accepted the request to speak.

4) Promo Materials – Open House handbill and seasonal event poster/handbill needs to be designed next. May Day poster/flyers are waiting for event details to finalize for printing.

5) Social Media – Twitter and Instagram could be useful outreach social media tools. Going to begin utilizing them after prep and social media strategy research.

Meeting adjourned: 7:56pm

There was very little to discuss at the meeting, so we decided to spend it working instead.

In attendance: Ashley (secretary), Ella (moderator), Jackson, Tati (moderator)
Meeting started: 7:00

May Day: The city forms are printed and taken care of, but Ashley can’t find the number for the capitol, so they’re going to ask Brian tonight. Both forms will be filled out and sent before the end of march. We have a list of guidelines for speakers:

We are seeking no more than four speakers for our May Day rally.

Hard Rules:

1) Speech must be no longer than 5 minutes.

2) Speech’s topic must be directly related to the working class struggle and/or unions and their importance.

3) No hate speech or conspiracy theories.

4) No sectarian advocacy for organizations or political parties. (We know you love your group, but don’t spend five minutes telling us that we’ll only make a difference if we join your organization.)

Other suggestions:

5) Keep it light on political theory.

6) The best speeches come from personal experience. For example, we would prefer a speaker of color if we have a speech discussing the intersections of race and class.

Our Current Topic Wishlist:
(Feel free to volunteer for one of the below, or to pitch something of your own.)

– The History of May Day
– Intersectionality of class with other oppressions
– Unionizing
– Something motivational

If interested, please be prepared to give us a general idea of what your topic is and what direction you’ll be taking it in.

Email: the bch email accounts don’t seem to be working, Ashley has been having trouble with them for a few days, and Ella made a few changes and fixed them.

“Need” list: We make a final list of the things we are looking for, which includes things we will always need stocked, to post on the website.
Nice marker board
Big bulletin board
Toilet paper
pads and tampons
sippy cups and healthy treats
book case
relevant DVDs and books

Meeting ended: 8:01