4/17/2023 Minutes
In attendance: Arya, Jackson, Marc, Rae, Ty (secretary)
Start Time: 7:10 PM

Event Review: Earth Day went well! Quite a few organizers and volunteers thanked us for going for the greenwashing angle. We passed out the entirety of the handbills we brought, all but a couple of the zines, and a good quantity of stickers. “Compost the Rich” was the most popular by far!

Rae did note that passing out the calendar handbills and noting that people could go to our website to keep an eye on upcoming summer events was awkward. This reinforced our need for a formal listserv, so for future events we can just have a sign-up sheet for emails.

Upcoming Event: We’re showing Snowpiercer this Friday! We just need to clean up.

Black Musicians and Liberation: This year’s edition of Black Musicians and Liberation fell through. We’re going to aim to start organizing for next year’s much earlier, in order to accomplish the “emerging scholars” theme we tried to do. Marc came up with a handy reminder for ourselves: “On Black Friday, we start Black Musicians”

Black Cat House photos: A friend of The Black Cat House reached out offering use of their drone for aerial photos! We’re super excited, and Marc reached back out on our behalf.

Library Donations: Ty donated a couple of books he got from the Earth Day event to the library.

Website Reimbursement: Jackson paid $34.99 to pay for our secondary domain name. Everyone says it’s fine to reimburse him for that.

Summer Events: We’re still working on it!

Thursday, June 1st, 7pm: Sorry to Bother You… but We’ve Been Here 10 Years!
Saturday, June 24, 1-3p: TRANSport article reading discussion

Date/Time TBD: Conflict transformation workshop
Date/Time TBD: Gaming the System – ideas include, Atiwa, Trains, Anti-Monopoly, Bloc by Bloc

Further event ideas: Ancient labor organizing? Anti-Amazon? Antifa history? Right-wing cults, possibly tying in the assassination of Shinzo Abe?

Movie night ideas: How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Clerks, Triangle of Sadness, Hail Satan? (maybe not this one – need to do further looking into The Satanic Temple)

Meeting Adjourned: 8:52 PM

In Attendance: Jackson, Rae, Ty, Marc (secretary), Arya, Binah
Meeting Start: 7:15 PM

Upcoming Events

• Movie Night: Snowpiercer – Jackson will purchase the DVD for this.
• Black Musicians & Liberation – The event will not be a panel this year, since potential panelists weren’t able to participate. That said, we are thinking of changing the format to a 1-on-1 conversation about “new school vs. old school.” The event would be hosted a week from Thursday from 7:00 PM to 8 PM. Jackson will be in contact with the potential scholars to see if this still works. Marc will be able to make the flyer fairly quickly.

Earth Day Booth

• The activity board for identifying greenwashing is just about complete. The stickers are done, along with wildflower-themed buttons.
• Ty worked on printing zines to hand out at the event tonight. We got several put together.
• The event will be at Innovation Campus on Saturday, April 15. Setup starts at 9 AM, the event goes from 10 AM to 2 PM.
• We also printed out the labels for the backs of buttons to hand out at the event.

Website Updates

• We’re still making progress with site content.
• Marc will make the new layout live on Wednesday night, with some links either hidden or set to go to a “work in progress” type page. Given our timeline, we’re on track; the site content should be complete before Pride.
• Marc also thinks it’d be cool to see about borrowing a drone camera to take some sky photos of the Black Cat House. Binah offered to speak to someone about potentially using a drone to accomplish this.

Summer Calendar Brainstorming

• Movie: Triangle of Sadness; recent fictional film. Rae suggested this but wanted to see if it would be a good movie for a discussion after viewing it.
• Hail Satan Documentary, discusses the temple of Satan and religious freedom in the US.
• Board Game ideas: Atiwa, about bats and pollinators and ecological concerns; Trains, a deck-building game where as you create skyscrapers or trains, your deck gets filled with waste that must eventually be dealt with
• Ancient Labor Organizing: Thinking of doing this as either a presentation or community reading discussion. Basically showcasing examples of labor organizing before the industrial revolution, across multiple cultures around the world.
• 10th Anniversary Celebration: Party with a game-like activity, e.g. bingo (with lefty-oriented questions) or scavenger hunt. Could also be a re-watch of “Sorry to Bother You,” with the ad saying something like “Sorry to Bother You, but we’ve been here for 10 years” or something lol
• Anti-Amazon discussion – why Amazon is SO bad, and alternatives to use/why to use those alternatives
• Conflict transformation – using conflict as a way to change the way we behave/think about things/our relationships, etc. Could be a good workshop
• Boothing at Pride
• A discussion with an update to the state of trans rights in Nebraska, depending on how things go at the legislature. Perhaps focusing on how to tangibly support the trans community, rather than strictly legislative action.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:36 PM

In Attendance: Jackson, Jim, Marc (secretary)
Meeting Start: like 7:15

Event Review: Poster-Making Party for Trans Day of Visibility + Reimbursement

• Marc got supplies (big ol’ markers) for the poster-making party, totaling $25.13, and submits that total for reimbursement.
• A couple of folks showed up for the sign-making event and made signs, that were then used at the TDoV rally itself on Friday! All things considered, we had good turn-out despite the last minute announcement of the event.

Upcoming Events

• Wyatt typed up descriptions for the Snowpiercer movie night (April 21) and the garden workshop (April 29). Ty will edit the descriptions and get them posted soon.

Earth Day Boothing

• The stickers arrived and look beautiful! We’ve got plenty to give out to people.
• Ty has been pressing buttons with wildflowers on them. We need to print mini-labels with BCH information on them, and they’ll be ready to go.
• Ty and Marc have been working away at the activity board design.
• We will also need to browse the zine collection for relevant ones; potential topics would be Indigenous justice/land back, anti-lawn culture, info on ways to tangibly make a difference, etc.
• We will also need to make sure to bring the canvas table covering/BCH banner

Site Updates

• Site updates and content are still ongoing. Marc basically plans on pushing the new site layout soon (before April 15), even if it means some planned pages are hidden or lead to a “coming soon” type message.

Meeting adjourned: about 8:10ish

In attendance: Jackson (secretary), Jake (late), Jim, Marc, Margaret, Wyatt
Start time: 7:10 PM

1. Event Review – Our trans issues discussion drew a full house! Our great turnout is probably a testament to the timeliness of the issue and our co-sponsors at OutNebraska helping us to advertise. Marc sent a follow-up email out with some of the information that we were discussing. Wyatt thinks the conversation could have been a little smoother if we had a designated moderator.
2. Sign-making Party for Trans Day of Visibility? – There will be a potentially large protest at the Capitol on Friday evening, as it is also Trans Day of Visibility. Ty recommended via the Discord chat that we should open up the House for a sign-making party for folks. Marc will take the lead, and Jackson will be here as well. Jim volunteers to bring us more posterboards. We will go from 6-8 PM officially. Marc will spearhead the internet advertising for this.
3. Library Donation – Margaret backed the crowdfunding for a new PM Press book about sex workers. We are happy to add it to our lending library.
4. April Events – We don’t need a full Facebook event for our tabling at Earth Day, but Marc has a couple of ideas for posts as we get closer to Lincoln Earth Day. Wyatt will prepare a rough draft for the Snowpiercer movie night. He may also have a few ideas for the garden day, but he may need help with fleshing that out with Ty and Marc.
5. Sticker Order – Marc has quotes back from the sticker maker. We will be moving forward with 100 apiece of the two most popular designs and 50 apiece of the other designs. We will be spending $283.59, and Marc is going to be fronted the money to make that order this week.
6. Earth Day Tabling – Ty and Marc have a mockup for their “interactive activity” board for the Earth Day table. Marc says that they feel confident that they will be able to build this board.
7. Website – Marc met with Ty and Rae on Saturday before the event and made good progress on some of the pages that we need to get filled on the new version of the website. Wyatt has also been doing some writing for the new website. Jackson will start work on the group’s history page this week.
8. Summer Calendar Brainstorming – reusing the TRANSport article, another Gaming the System, a BCH birthday celebration (Thursday, June 1st?), Hail Satan? documentary showing, discussion about cultural hegemony? TABLED

Meeting adjourned: 8:45 PM

Tabled Items: Summer Calendar

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

Event Review

• We had to last-minute cancel the movie showing last week. In the future, we’ll do better to not cancel things in the final hour and are sorry for the inconvenience for those looking forward to it.

Upcoming Event

• We’ll print copies of the article to be read for the State of Trans Rights discussion this upcoming Saturday.

Black Musicians and Liberation

• We heard back from a panelist, but the confirmed date is coming up too soon. We will need at least two weeks to properly plan and promote the event, so we will continue working with the panelists to secure a date in the future.

Calendars & Reimbursement

• We noticed an unfortunate error in the spring calendars (they ready 2022 instead of 2023) and they needed to be reprinted.
• Jackson picked up the prints today, and we will distribute them to the usual spots.
• The cost of printing was $17.91; we voted unanimously to reimburse Jackson.

Earth Day Boothing

• We decided to get the following sticker designs in the following amounts:
• Compost the Rich x100
  Land Defender/Water Protector x50 of each (total 100)
  Sow the Seeds of Revolution x100
  No Planet B x50
  Green not Greed x 50
• Marc will contact the sticker shop for a precise estimate, and we’ll determine if we can get more or less depending on how close it is to our proposed budget.
• Some of these designs can also be used at other events, which is why we decided to get more of them. “Compost the rich” is on a mural on the Black Cat House itself, and “Sow the Seeds” is pretty applicable to any lefty-bent event.

Website Update

• We plan on working on expanding/revising the mission statement at a later time, and dedicating a meeting to just discussing that. Expanding the mission statement in particular might take some time.
• We also planned on having a working meeting for content creation/editing.
• We still aim to have the site’s new layout done by mid-April, before Earth Day.
• We determined a time/location for a working meeting to discuss site content.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:50 PM

These minutes are being posted late because Marc misplaced his handwritten notes.

In Attendance: Jackson, Rae, Marc (secretary), Ty
Meeting Start: 7:15 PM

Upcoming Event: Movie Night

• Marc and Ty burned a DVD for easy-viewing at the upcoming event, but it didn’t work in the DVD player. They will try again with a different format.
• Jackson also refilled the candy dish in preparation for the event.

Flyer-ing Update

• Ty, Marc, and Rae put up lots of flyers around town. There are just a couple places that need them still.

Earth Day Boothing

• Marc will make some edits to sticker designs based on feedback.
• Favorites were: Compost the rich, water protector/land defender.
• Jackson suggested a budget of about $200.00 for the stickers.
• Ty also discussed some ideas for the interactive board at the event, and named some specific businesses/companies that claim to be green, but were found to do very environmentally-destructive practices.
• We plan on requiring people to participate in the greenwashing identification activity to receive a sticker, but we’ll also have other educational/promo materials that we’ll just hand out.
• Rae pointed out the importance of having a takeaway message that inspires people to action, rather than makes them feel bad. “We can’t buy a green future” resonated with folks, and we also discussed ways to encourage people to fight for climate action.

Meeting adjourned: 8:50 PM

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

1. Calendar Distro/Reimbursement – Jackson has done most of downtown and Wyatt has done South Street. We divided up the rest of the spots on our distro list. Jackson requests reimbursement for picking up the calendars; it was $20.70. Reimbursement was approved.
2. Earth Day Booth – We had an extended discussion about the themes of the materials that we want to make and distribute at our Earth Day booth. Marc has created a few designs and shared them via the Discord. We bounced a lot of other slogans and sticker/button concepts around, but we have not found consensus on whether we want to prioritize agitational/edgy stuff vs more inspirational stuff.

Meeting adjourned: 8:35 PM

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