In attendance: Jackson, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:05 PM

1. Event Review: Low turnout for the film but the discussion went well! Weather may have messed up the turnout more than our late posting of the event, as it got more interest on Facebook than our past few events.
2. Winter Calendar: We worked on the event description for our December movie night, which Jackson posted online tonight. The other events have been finalized, which are listed below.
   Marc had gotten a template for the calendar made, so all we need is to plug the events in and send to the printer. Maybe there will be room to include event blurbs? We’ll ask Marc about this.
   We also discussed whether the January discussion should be in-person or online given potential for heavy snow – we decided it would be better to have it be in-person but to include a note to check the online event pages in case of inclement weather.
   Our 2023 installment of Black Musicians and Liberation is still being worked on, so we will make a separate poster for it if we schedule it over winter.
3. Library Donations: Jackson came back from an event celebrating Malcolm X’s long-overdue induction to the Nebraska State Hall of Fame, and with books and a zine in hand. They were all obviously great additions to the lending library.

Winter Calendar
December:
Friday, December 9, 7 PM – Movie Night: Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL
January:
Saturday, January 14, 1-3 PM – Corporate Control Over Public Space (A video and community discussion)
Saturday, January 28, 10 AM – Counter-Protesting the Anti-Choice “Walk For Life” (On the north side of the Nebraska State Capitol)
February:
Friday, February 10, 7 PM – Movie Night: The Killing Floor (1984)
Saturday, February 18, 1-3 PM – Gaming the System: Class Privilege in “The Great Dalmuti”

Meeting adjourned: 8:31 PM

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

1. Event Review – Our digital discussion was a bust! No one showed up, and we were plagued with so many technical difficulties that it wasn’t even practical to record the presentation for our YouTube. We probably needed to get it advertised sooner to get people to attend. We’re not sure why there were so many technical problems; it may just have been a bad night for Jitsi’s servers.
2. Upcoming Event – We’re showing Judas and the Black Messiah this Friday night. We’ll be ready for it.
3. Winter Calendar

December –
Friday, December 9th, 7 PM: Movie Night: Behind the Shield: The Power & Politics of the NFL

January –
Saturday, January 14th, 1-3 PM: A community discussion (?)
Possibly about Company Towns (“Your Town’s CEO”), but is that too niche? What’s our audience?
Saturday, January 28th, 10 AM: Counter-Protesting the Anti-Choice “Walk For Life” (@ Nebraska State Capitol)

February –
Ideally, a movie night in the early part of the month. And preferably, a fictional one…
Saturday, February 18th, 1-3 PM: Gaming the System: Class Privilege in “The Great Dalmuti”
(Black Musicians and Liberation? TBD?)

Meeting adjourned: 8:55 PM

In attendance: Jackson, Marc (sorta), Nate, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:20 PM

Upcoming Event: Intersectona-LEE-ty is going to be this Thursday, 7pm! The event was posted very last minute so we’re sharing in several channels. We have some YouTube videos that Dance will use as part of the presentation, so just something we need to keep in mind.

Ty will pay for expanding our Dropbox again so that we have the space to record it as well.

Movie Night: Showing Judas and the Black Messiah on the 18th at 7pm! Jackson’s going to draft the event description and we’re hoping to get that up tomorrow.

Winter Calendar:

Any month: Potential guest speaker? E.P.C.O.T. documentary/company town discussion? Sci-fi film?

December –
Friday, December 9, 7 PM: Movie Night: Behind the Shield: The Power & Politics of the NFL

January – ?
February –
Black Musicians and Liberation?
Political Game Night?

Meeting Adjourned: 8:45 PM

Tabled: Winter Calendar

In Attendance: Jackson, Marc, Ty (secretary)

Meeting Start: 7:00 PM

1. Event Review – Candyman was a total bust. Facebook interaction was practically non-existent, but we did get the event up on pretty short notice.
   
2. November Events – Intersectiona-LEE-ty is in less than two weeks! We worked on that event description to get that up pronto. Jackson volunteered to draft a description for Judas and the Black Messiah by the end of this week.
   
3. Modes of Communication – We discussed alternate channels for communicating with people, including trying an email listserv again.
   
4. Library Donation – We went through a box of donations to see what to include into the collection.
   
5. Winter Calendar –

Any month: Potential guest speaker? E.P.C.O.T. documentary/company town discussion? Sci-fi film?

December –
Movie Night: Behind the Shield: The Power & Politics of the NFL
January – ?
February –
Black Musicians and Liberation?
Political Game Night?

Meeting Adjourned: 8:53 PM

Tabled Items: Winter Calendar

There was no official meeting tonight. Jackson was the only Black Cat regular here. Three young leftists stopped by and checked out the library, and also donated three books for our library. But we just chatted until the visitors checked out what they wanted to check out and left. We will try again next week.

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

1. Event Review – Our discussion “Prison Abolition for Beginners” flopped! We’re going to have to continue better advertising our events.
2. Upcoming Event – Our next event is going to be our Candyman (2021) movie night. We’re going to get online advertisements up soon, as Marc has a draft for us to consider tonight.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 PM

In Attendance: Marc (sec), Jackson
Meeting Start: 7:10 pm

Anti-Columbus Day Protest

• About 10 people showed up to the protest.
• One person contacted local news stations; Jackson and a few others spoke to Channel 8 and 10/11 News.
• We made zines to distribute at the protest; we have a few left over for next year’s protest.
• One attendee noted deciding to join after seeing our Facebook post, another mentioned seeing a paper calendar. We will continue using these modes to share event info.
• Local Native American activists were part of the group as well, along with some young people, so we had a good crowd and turnout!

Upcoming Event

• The Prison Abolition for Beginners discussion will be this Saturday.
• One of our friends has connections with an academic who specializes in PIC research, and she offered to get into contact with this person. However, we figured that it’s probably too little time to both ask the academic to join us, and either switch to an online mode/account for travel.
• However, we thought it would be excellent to ask this person if they would be willing to lead/present a PIC-related event, probably a future Jitsi discussion.

Outreach

• We also talked about the challenges we’ve faced with getting people to attend in-person events again.
• We discussed getting the indoor tour video created and posted so that people new to the BCH would be able to familiarize themselves with the space/location before coming to an event, which might make them feel more comfortable.
• We also discussed other elements that might make the space more welcoming, e.g. getting a greeter cat again, pushing our events more/advertising specific events, general organization and comfort, etc.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30 pm

No one was available to meet with Jackson tonight. We’ll try again next week!

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

1. Event Review – Aryn from OutNebraska was here on Thursday night to give a workshop. Our turnout was smallish, but the folks who came were definitely engaged. Our library was also very popular with our new folks. Jackson noticed that the event wasn’t showing up properly on our Black Cat House Facebook page, possibly because OutNebraska created the event and tagged us in as co-hosts. Ty is pleased with the precedent of this and wants to see us having more co-hosted events in the future.
2. Upcoming Event – We have a movie this Friday night. Our projector is still being repaired, so it may not be ready for Friday. We may have to check one out from Love Library, and hope that we have a laptop and soundbar that will talk to it. The technical details are a bit more convoluted than usual, but we think we have a plan.
3. Book Donations – We spent the remainder of our meeting time sorting through a backlog of books that have been donated to us over the past several weeks. There were many good titles that we will be adding to our library.

Meeting adjourned: 8:35 PM

In Attendance: Jackson, Marc (secretary), Ty, Connor, Wyatt
Meeting Start: 7:40 PM

Event Review: Urban Foraging

• A couple of new faces showed up for the urban foraging event on Saturday, and it seemed like folks were interested in the topic and learning! Wyatt enjoyed giving the workshop.

Upcoming Events: Workshop with OutNebraska, the Color of Care movie night

• This Thursday (9/15) will be our workshop with OutNebraska on talking to family, friends, and neighbors about LGBTQ+ issues.
• We checked with our contact to make sure we had all the equipment necessary for the event; we’ll wait to hear back. Otherwise, we’re ready to go for a conversation.
• For the Color of Care movie night, we need to get the projector in working order.

Ongoing Projector Issues

• Marc and Ty will take the projector to the Game Room to ask about repairing it. We have sufficient funds in the treasury and agreed to try this route to see if the HDMI port can be repaired.
• Marc and Ty left with the projector tonight.

Site Updates

• The calendar plugin is fixed; full event pages now load properly.
• Marc is also still working on the updated site design. He will show other members the changes soon and ask for feedback then.

Calendar Distro

• There are still a few places left to place calendars. Jackson took care of the lion’s share of calendar distribution over the past week or so.

The Box!

• Wyatt installed a box on the corner of the Black Cat House lot (next to the sidewalk), which we will likely use as a community bulletin board and possibly zine/food distribution. There are still a few aspects of the box that need to be adjusted, namely making sure it’s watertight and installing a corkboard (or something similar) on the back so calendars can be more easily posted.
• We discussed also allowing/encouraging other like-minded groups to post their events in the new bulletin board.
• Right now, it might not be an appropriate spot to distribute books. However, we still have a little free library box that we could install next to it later, which is more watertight.

Donations

• We have a house megaphone now, which is owned by one of our friends but being stored at BCH. We also have a number of new books for the library.

DIO Fest

• Marc submitted running the zine-making workshop at DIO Fest this year. Wyatt also submitted two workshops: how to build a rainwater-collecting barrel array, and how to change a tire. We’re looking forward to the event!

Meeting Adjourned: 8:30 PM