Meeting Start: 7:04 PM
In attendance: Arya, Jackson, Rae, Salem, Ty (secretary)

Event Review: The film was good, the turnout was good, the discussion was good!

Sustainable Supplies: Some discussion was had regarding single-use plastics at the House, specifically in reference to the plastic cups we use for water during events, though the discussion could be relevant for other House supplies. Jackson mentioned that most of what we have is hand-me-downs from other people, and that it’s been since 2019 or even earlier that we’ve had to buy these supplies ourselves. Rae brought up that for visitors that might not know this, they might think we’re like too many other community orgs that verbally support sustainability but aren’t sustainable in their actions. There was agreement that modeling sustainability is worthwhile, but we need to address what we should do with our plastic cups, since we don’t want them to go unused at all. Ty asked that we table this until we had some more opportunities to chat about options.

Yard Sale: The yard sale is coming up quick, the 26th and 27th! Jackson will draft a description and a call for donations to post online. Then it’s a matter of pricing donated items and setting up days-of.

Pride Tabling: We have a table! Ty was already given some funds to cover what we thought the table may cost, but he will need to be “preimbursed” for $110 to cover the remaining price of the table. We will need to have this booth staffed from 4-9 PM Friday June 9th, and 12-8 PM Saturday June 10th. We’ll also need to make sure we bring our own table – Wyatt has one that folds in half that we can ask him about using for that weekend. We’re not concerned about material costs, and Marc is working on button designs.

Website: We want to continue working on this so that it’s in a more complete state for the Pride booth. Tabled.

Summer Calendar: Marc sent a draft of the summer calendar to look over in his absence, and those at the meeting looked over it and sent him suggestions to edit. Rae will draft a short description of the workshop in July. Once these edits are made, we can send them for printing and start getting them distro’d.

Meeting adjourned: 8:15 PM

Tabled: Sustainable house supplies, website edits

In attendance: Arya, Dan, Jackson, Rae (secretary), Salem

Start time: 7:05 PM

1. Event Review – Our latest garden day workshop was on Saturday. We had to improvise, with our planned event leader Wyatt unable to make it. We had a large turnout, possibly due to our Facebook event being seen by many unusual suspects (50+ “interested”, many of whom we aren’t connected to). Rae points out that we need to get back to our habit of passing handbills to event attendees. Hopefully we’ll see some of those new faces again soon.
2. Upcoming Event – Our Salt of the Earth movie night is this Friday night. We want to invest in blackout curtains soon, as glare from the window was a factor in our last movie night. Jackson needs to do some serious room prep, but we should be good to go.
3. Summer Calendar –
   Thursday, June 1st, 7-10 PM — Black Cat House 10th Anniversary Movie Night: Sorry to Bother You
   Saturday, June 24th, 1-3 PM — “Transport” reading discussion (need help from Marc and Ty naming this event)
   Tuesday, July 18th OR Wednesday, July 19th, 7-9? PM — Conflict Transformation Workshop (Rae and Rae’s friend need to finalize exact day and time and event title)
   Saturday, August 12th, 1-3 PM — The Rise of Right-Wing Cults (a community discussion)
   Friday, August 25th, 7-10 PM — Movie Night: Hail Satan
   
   Meeting adjourned: 8:25 PM

In attendance: Marc (secretary), Ty, Jackson, Rae, Arya, Salem
Meeting Start: 7:05 PM

Event Review

• We showed Snowpiercer on Friday and had excellent turnout and a good discussion. The audience had lots to talk about!

Upcoming Events

• This upcoming Saturday (4/29) is the Garden Workshop day about planting native plant species. This will be a pretty hands-on workshop! Wyatt is ready to go for this.
• We will be showing Salt of the Earth on Friday, May 5. Jackson will be writing up the description and posting the event.
• Our yard sale fundraiser will be coming up soon! Marc suggested posting the event 3 weeks ahead of time instead of the usual 2 to give people time to go through their stuff for donations. As usual, this is the only time where we do any active fundraising or donation soliciting. We accept most anything except clothing.

Pride Boothing

• We’ll be taking part in Star City Pride and boothing at the festival!
• We plan on making buttons, stickers, and zines to give out. The buttons will be inspired by queer organizations/activists from the past.
• Arya pointed out the inherent value in having a presence at Pride to connect with the community and encourage others to get involved.
• Marc will also work on getting our Riseup email list started again in time for Pride.

Summer Calendar

• We brainstormed plenty of summer events, and decided on a few mostly-certain dates. The most-well-received event ideas are bolded.
• June 1: 10th Anniversary Party and Sorry to Bother You screening
• June 9 and 10: Boothing at Pride
• June 11: LTRUE Garden Tour (haven’t applied yet but basically planning to)
• June 18 or 19: Conflict Transformation Workshop
• June 24: “Transport” Reading Discussion and trans rights update
• Brainstorming ideas:
• Movies: Hail Satan (documentary), Coco (family friendly look at immigration and classism), Clerks (work alienation), Triangle of Sadness (classism), The Menu (alienation and class warfare, very graphic), God Bless America
• Events:
• Neighborhood Cleanup – Salem offered to spearhead this
• Ancient Labor Organizing – we might want to do more research for this and table it for later
• News and the state of journalism generally
• Right-wing cults
• Gaming the System: We talked about playing Bang! or Secret Hitler, as well as Bloc by Bloc

Meeting Adjourned: 9:00 PM

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