At the BESSIG planning meeting on Wednesday we scheduled meetings for Thursday, June 23 and Tuesday, July 19, 4:00 PM. (See our Calendar ). These meetings will be BLASTs: BESSIG Lively Activists Speaking Topically. That means people are on deck to present their work, area of interest, or whatever. The goal is to for us to get to know each other and our areas of expertise better, and to allow for discussion. Thus, speakers will present for as short or as long as they wish as long as it’s “not too long” (TBD). Some speakers may get bumped until later, and that’s okay. We’ll also work in some time for socializing.

We have six speakers that will be ready on June 23, see the Calendar item to see who they are. We’re looking for people to sign up for July 19. If you’re interested in sharing with us, go to the that calendar event and put your name on the list under the “Description” section.

We also updated the table of Meeting Topics with some ideas to incubate. We found it particularly liberating to nominate topic organizers that weren’t actually present at the meeting. Feel free to update the table with your ideas about meeting topics and organizers.

Also, the group paid it forward by contributing $40 to a kitty (including pledges) for snacks for our next meeting. Thanks, guys!!

An important meeting topic was: beer. There is interest in having beer at our meetings, but institutions have severe limitations on alcohol. Here at CU a recent update of the alcohol policy muddied the waters sufficiently that what is and is not allowed is unclear and is under investigation by our staff. More on this to follow. Suggestions?