As part of the AHS’s Non-Prophet Week activities I sponsored some of the current leadership team to do some wacky stuff. Jess, the Head of Membership sang me a song and Jenny, the President, drew me a picture. These are below:
"Just Say No" by Jenny Bartle
Last Tuesday, I delivered a lecture to the Leeds Atheist Society on how getting involved with your local student society is more than just a social opportunity with a few interesting talks thrown in. In order to really get the most out of the experience, I suggested that members should look to involve themselves early and then progress through to the wider community – i.e, AHS, BHA etc.
The theme of my lecture was on what the AHS and the BHA have to offer to students and how the local atheist, humanist or secularist student society offers a real platform from which to really explore those opportunities.
The AHS offers a fantastic range of ways of building experience and developing the CV. From the Regional Development Officers who gain invaluabvle experience of networking, communication and team working through to the Executive with their exposure to leadership, risk management, strategic planning and public relations there are saleable skills there for the taking.
Being a part of any organisations, particularly on a voluntary basis, is not easy and requires a time and resource commitment. However, it is my experience that this is well worth the effort. Unluike traditional internships and work experience, there is real flexibility in how the time and resources are delivered and as the leadership stems from the internship style positions, rather than managed from a permanent employee, then individuals can mould their experience to fit their needs.
Having gone from being a member of a society, through to leading that society and then going on to found and lead the AHS as president, I have had the chance to see what those opportunities look like. I met Richard Dawkins, negotiated affiliations with national charities, led a local campaign to ban Halal and Kosher meat, debated professional speakers and made some long lasting friendships with people from across the UK and Republic of Ireland.
It is my opinion that organisations like the AHS offer far more value than they are given credit for and if any students are reading this, then they should strongly consider looking to get involved.
Having taken a few days off work to relax and catch up on some work that has been on my to do list for months, I found myself sat on a train at 9am on Saturday morning heading to Guildford to see my friend Jess.
Jess is currently head of membership at the AHS and a former president of Southampton Atheists. She is also a singer and lawyer-to-be (check out her YouTube page if you want some personal serenading for charity!)
I have been to Guildford a couple of times before, a few times back in the day when my friend Dom worked down South and more recently when I went to a Guildford Skeptics in the Pub meeting when I was down in the area for work.
I rocked up to Guildford station after a fairly event free trip down and Jess and I went for a wander. I was counting this weekend as a holiday, so first port of call was the tourist information centre for postcards and stamps! I also discovered that there isn’t an awful lot to do in Guildford that is touristy.
We hit the pub so I could write my postcard and accidentally found ourselves quaffing the local cider before lunch. Although the lunch issue was rectified with a trip to Sainsburys and then the bus ride out to the Manor house that Jess lives in. That’s right, the trainee lawyer that lives in manor house! I am definitely in the wrong career.
A few songs later (and half a bottle of single barrel Jack Daniels) we had some tea and then hit town for a night on the town Guildford style. We managed to avoid the students and cheesy music by heading to a piano bar with an over 21 policy at the weekends.
I haven’t really been to a piano bar before, so I was rather impressed with the live music (even if it was a little predictable in places) and the fact that I felt rather young in the presence of all the other professional partaking of a cocktail or two. What I wasn’t impressed with was the speed of bar service. I had to queue in excess of 10 mins at the bar every time, this meant pre-queuing was essential (i.e. we started queuing for the next drink before we had finished our first drink). Jess got happily drunk and started strutting her stuff on the dancefloor (with her trademark “arm up, dip the knee” move getting some admiring glances from our fellow partygoers).
The Sunday was rather more sedate, with a late breakfast followed by several hours of us putting the world to rights, I caught the train back to Leeds at around 4pm and after a long delay in Peterborough I got back in time to catch some TV before bed.
All in all a rather pleasant way to spend a weekend.
Following on from my recent post about taking up live poker again, Chris and I headed to Alea last Sunday to play in a £15 freezeout tournament. The session started off with a little excitement as a colleague of mine from the AHS had just called in a panic to tell me she had missed her stop at Reading to change for Guildford and was almost in London. Now, to be fair, she hails from a land with no trains and where everyone has personal drivers so the whole public transport thing is a bit new to her, but it did mean that I started the night coming up with rail related jokes (and a little concern that she may end up travelling around the home counties for all eternity) rather than focusing on my game.
The first few hands were fairly tense affairs as a few players were in fold or shove mode despite us having relatively large starting stacks (10k with 25/50 blinds). I made some inroads early on and had trebled my starting stack by the first break by being quite aggressive and trying to force folds preflop or before the turn. I had to calm down after the break following a table move as the tournaments most aggressive player was sat to my left who was happy to shove all in with rags. Luckily for me, I managed to call his bluff when I hit my flush to his middle pair. This set me up nicely for my first live poker final table.
I started to play very defensively on the final table waiting for other players to knock each other out. Within an hour we were down to the final three, but with us all having even stacks we got bogged down in small pots and defensive plays. In the end I reraised a value bet with KQ suited and was not toally upset when they turned over A6. I flopped a straight and flush draw but they turned their Ace and it held. I was done in 3rd place for a £55 payout. Not bad for my first final table. Means my overall live career is in profit.
Questival is an annual festival that is put on by the AHS to celebrate the ideas of skepticism and rational thinking. Featuring speakers such as Julian Baggini and Michael Marshall and performers like Matt Parker and Jonny Berliner the weekend long event attracted young people from across the UK.
Having missed its predecessors in the Yorkshire Dales, it was with some excitement that I made my way to Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire to join forty other free thinkers. At this point I must add my sincerest thanks to David and Peter from the Bradford University Atheist and Humanist Society for sorting me out with a lift down from Leeds! I arrived a little after eleven in the evening on Friday to be greeted with some bean chili and a glass of Glenfiddich and rest of the Questivillains (the collective noun according to the organisers) partying like it was 1999. I had booked my spot at Questival quite late so I had turned up without a camping spot but quickly found an old friend from university who had some room in his tent and after I had dumped my stuff I quickly joined in the party.
The theme of the main shenanigans seemed to be worms (the sleepover classic of wriggling around in your sleeping bags pretending to be worms) and the quote of weekend was soon to follow:
Andrew is the egg, everyone sperm him!
- Mark Wonnacott
The drinking and conversing continued late into the night (and the next morning by all accounts) with topics ranging from whether Socrates was a figment of Plato’s imagination to whether Oli had comfortable thighs and ankles. I gave up to hit the sack just after midnight due to the fact I had been at work and travelling all day.
The mob was awoken early Saturday morning for a breakfast of sausages and bacon (and their vegetarian equivalents) that was incredibly welcome by those that had taken the partying too seriously the night before. The rest of us wanted to fuel up ready for a full day of events. We started off with a gentle stroll into Tewkesbury that involved a water crossing! The nearest bridge to cross the Avon was several miles away, so the Questival team had organised canoes to ferry the forty-odd people from one side to the other. Despite the inherent risks of putting many people in small, unstable canoes everyone made it without getting too wet and those of us that thought the crossing was hard work were in for a surprise when we were presented the most fiendishly difficult treasure hunt I have ever been faced with!
Questivillains in Tewkesbury during the treasure hunt.
Due to a scheduling incident, the weekend’s first speaker, Julian Baggini, failed to show up but the BHA’s faith school coordinator, and former AHS President, Richy Thompson, and skeptic and 10:23 founder, Michael Marshall, stepped into the breach to talk about campaigning from both a national and grass roots level. This was followed by a presentation by the founders of the fantastic Pod Delusion about skeptical landscape and how social and internet media are used to provide balance to the “crackpots”. The talk also laid the foundation for a special live recording of a Pod Delusion podcast which featured some great segments on epigenetics, cyber security, the STEM project and a wonderful summary of the energy industry’s portrayal in the media by an insider codenamed “Steve”. The evening was rounded off by the self-styled standup mathematician Matt Parker who did a meta-gig (a gig about his other gigs) that covered everything from his uncanny ability to predict barcodes, how many times we would need to shuffle a deck of cards to see every possible combination and other fun maths stuff. He had the room in stitches and if anyone gets the opportunity to go and see him then you should jump at it! Many of the attendees then hit the bar at the campsite and spent the night drinking and dancing and wondering if Gordon Swayze was just a figment of their imagination.
Sunday was a little less frantic as we started off with a leisurely breakfast followed by the rescheduled Julian Baggini talking about logical fallacies with reference to news and media stories. The talk struck the right balance between philosophical technicality and layman application. Despite being at a number of events where he has spoken, I have never actually heard Julian talk live. He is an engaging speaker with a real knack of selling logical argument and critical thinking. The early afternoon was then taken up with a variety of activities ranging from archery to sailing to making graven images of gods. The final act of the weekend was a musical performance from the simply brilliant Jonny Berliner whose quirky science and maths based songs had people gasping fro breath whilst tapping their feet. I bought his single and EP on the spot and he is definitely a name to look out for!
The AHS National Convention 2011 took place this past weekend in London. Split over two days, the first a speaker based event at the iconic Conway Hall and a second, workshop focussed day, housed at University College, London’s ironically shaped Cruciform Building, the event was remarkably well attended and a resounding success.
Over 250 people from all across the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland gathered to listen to the likes of BHA Chief Exec Andrew Copson, Lord Warner of Brockley, Robin Ince, Johann Hari and Professor AC Grayling speak on a variety of subjects themed around the importance of student involvement in atheist, humanist and secularist societes on their campus.
There were over fifty students in attendence at the workshops the follwoing day too. Covering areas such as media and publicity, running awareness weeks and finance and sustainability, I am sure that the current geenration of student society leaders will be better armed to deal with the many battles they face running their groups.
All in all the Convention was a fantastic success, both from an attendence and engagement point of view. You can see some of the photos from the event on the AHS’s Facebook page (account required) and read more about what went on via their official web site.
It hardly seems any time at all since the AHS launched itself into the public eye at it’s press launch and convention in 2009. Next weekend, March 12th -13th, sees the AHS hold its third annual convention at Conway Hall in London.
For those that don’t know, the AHS (or to give it its full name, the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies) is a national umbrella organisation catering for non-religious societies within higher education in the UK.
The AHS has enjoyed high profile support during it’s relatively short history with patrons including author and academic Professor Richard Dawkins and journalist and writer Polly Toynbee. Dawkins said this of the AHS:
Public statements of non-belief are treated as threatening, an affront to the religious, while the reverse is not true. More concerning is the enduring assumption that religious belief does not have to earn respect like any other view, an approach that has caused politicians and public figures across the UK to withdraw from asking the vital question: why is religion given such special status in government, culture and the media? Why is belief in a higher power an indication of greater moral fortitude, character and acumen? The AHS says publicly that it isn’t; on the contrary, beliefs that are unsupported, bigoted or demand special privileges should always be challenged. No opinion should be protected from criticism simply by virtue of being religiously held.
With over thirty members covering the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland, the AHS is one of the fastest growing organisations of its ilk and the 2011 convention will be its biggest event to date.
Speaking about the convention, the British Humanist Association’s Chief Executive, Andrew Copson, who is speaking at the event said:
It is impressive to see how the AHS has grown over the last six months, more than doubling in size. It’ll be very exciting to see this reflected in the numbers that come to the AHS Convention, and I am very excited to be taking part in it.
The line up for the convention is a veritable who’s who with speakers including the philosopher, author and long-term supporter of the AHS Professor AC Grayling. Grayling spoke at the AHS’s first convention in 2009, saying:
As well as making the case for reason and science, it is great to know that the AHS will be standing up against religious privilege and discrimination. All people are entitled to their beliefs but we secularists (whether religious or humanist) are right in arguing that the state must be entirely neutral in these matters. A situation where the religious beliefs of a few may dictate the personal choices of everyone in abortion, for example, or assisted suicide is quite wrong. Yet some religious groups defend and even aim to expand their considerable privileges – public money for their “faith-based” schools, seats in the House of Lords, exemption from laws inconvenient to their prejudices. The AHS shows that increasing numbers of young people are unwilling to put up with it.
Other headliners include journalist and activist Johann Hari, comedian Robin Ince and politician Lord Warner. National Secular Society executive director Kieth Porteous Wood and the BHA Choir round off the set list.
All of the speakers are set to take to stage between 12pm and 6pm on the Saturday of the convention. Fringe events will be taking palce throughout the day, including exhibitions by a variety of local and national organisations. The day is also being broadcast live via the popular science and religion podcast The Pod Delusion.
The Sunday of the convention will be aimed primarily at the AHS’s member societies, with workshops running on sustainability, finances, debating and an awards ceremony.
AHS President, Richy Thompson, summed up the convention:
We’re very excited about this convention, which promises to far and away be the AHS’s biggest gathering yet. The line-up of speakers looks really great, and the events on the committee-centric day should help stimulate a new year of leaders for non-religious societies.
Tickets for the convention are avaialble from the BHA website for the Saturday, or both days. Tickets are priced at £6 (£3 students).
Opera North - Carmen
To try and counter that, I am going to post up the things I have planned right now so that I will hopefully see them through. It will also remind me to blog about the events and give me a lot more to say in my review of 2011, rather than the the relatively dismal look back at 2010.
The first major highlight of 2011 I have already organised is a trip to opening night at Opera North’s production of Carmen with my friend Aislin. I really love the opera and have only really started up going to see them again since I met Aislin. It is really cool to have a friend that likes some of the more obscure hobbies that interest me like opera and ballet etc.
Carmen was a natural choice for me to go and see as it is one of my favourites. I have seen a couple of productions of it, although both times were amateur ones, so will be great to see a professional performance.
I am hoping to squeeze in a few more operas this year too following the success of Turn of the Screw last year and what I am sure is going to be an epic experience at Carmen. It will also be my very first opening night!
Dungeon Ghyll
February also sees Andrew’s stag night, which will be an interesting experience as it will be my first ever stag do. Andrew is getting married in Jamaica in March which i can’t afford to attend, so it is my intention to make sure he gets a fantastic send off! Whilst I am talking about Andy, I should probably plug his great football blog that is probably his one true love (sorry Laura).
Josh Ritter
I plan to head over to Dublin on a Thursday and stay until Sunday, hopefully getting in a tour of the Guinness brewery as well as maybe seeing some of the sights and sounds of one of Europe’s capital cities.
The second trip in April is a little more ambitious. I hope to go and visit a friend of mine who is currently working for the British government in New York City. I am hoping to get out there for a week or so around Easter time to take advantage of the bank holidays (meaning I have to take less annual leave from work). I have never been to the Big Apple before, other than layovers at the airports there. I am not usually a city fan and prefer countryside and remoteness over the hustle and bustle of one of the world’s most populous conurbations. However, it is one of those cities that is everyone’s must visit list and that includes me. I want to be able to say I have see Time square, visited central park and been up the Empire State building.
Yankee Stadium, New York
Following that is not going to be easy, but I have plans to go on holiday to Malta at the start of summer with my mum. Normally I would never consider Malta as a holiday destination, but on seeing the photos and stories my mum and auntie told when they visited the island a couple of years ago I was instantly sold on the idea. Malta has a rich history, perhaps best known for its role in the second world war where the nation and its people were awarded the George Cross for resisting the axis powers.
Lincoln Cathedral
The final plans for 2011 are less entrenched than those above. I want to try and get back to Venice in the Autumn as I had such a fantastic time there last year and would love to spend a few more days there, perhaps an extended weekend. I aim to also spend more time in my role on the management board of the AHS as I feel that the next 18-24 months for the organisation could be key to its continued success.
2010 started quietly for me on the blogging front, apart from my Twitter updates my first real blog post was about the 10:23 Homeopathy Overdose Project (which I was unfortunately unable to attend due to work commitments) and my strongly worded letter to David Cameron.
February was another quiet month on the blog front although I did spend a week in the Lakes and come hoem to find my house was flooded which left me without a PC for nearly a month.
March saw me foolishly making some long term plans about future living arrangements as well as celebrating Normanralph.com’s 3rd birthday. I also gave up my car to cut down on costs and get ready for city centre living.
A good friend of mine was deported in April and threatened with death on his return to his native Pakistan. Leeds Atheist Society ran Reason Week 2010 and I started following Major League Soccer.
In May I spent a lot of time preparing for my speaking engagement at CWF’s Enquiry conference in Birmingham. I also split up with my partner and moved in with Chris and George.
June was world cup month, so the less said about it the better, but I was hardly in a celebrating mood following the events of the previous month.
I spent most of July running around the country with work, really throwing myself in to my job.
Blackpool started their Premier League campaign during August and I started to really get ready for my trip of a lifetime. The month finished with a really great weekend with Sarann at Solfest.
Eurotrip 2010 took up September. In three weeks Chris, Kieran, George and I took in Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Munich, Salzburg, Venice, Verona, St Gallen, Montreux, Monte Carlo and Jard-Sur-Mer. I also turned 26.
October was a catching up month. I was working a lot to pay off Europe and to make sure that I got my best ever performance review to date.
I was off around the country again in November. Taking in an audience with Greg Epstein and a load of gigs.
December saw me celebrate the success story of Blackpool FC’s season in the Premier League so far as well as the contribution made by their manager. I also found time to go and see Tim Minchin thank god for Sam’s Mum’s Cateracts.
As you can see, it has been a mixed bag of a year. Some real highs in the form of Eurotrip and the number of gigs I’ve managed to catch, but also some real lows.
I think 2011 might be OK, there are some things that I am already really excited about seeing how they pan out as well as some concrete plans to go to Dublin, Malta and maybe even back to Verona over the summer. I also have some great work to do with some of the organisations I support i.e. the AHS and BHA as well as continuing to build up my own career and developing some projects of my own.
Here’s to you 2011.
Ever since I wrote this article about building an atheist brand back in 2009, and especially following Dan Bye’s comments on the piece, there has been a nagging thought at the back of mind that I have been trying desperately to work out. Namely, what is it that atheist can actually offer under some sort of brand? Is there a service or product that exists that can be commercialised and marketed? These two questions have gone unanswered for the last year and this has obviously weakened my position on this subject. A subject that I still fundamentally see as being central to the progression of a non-religious world view into the popular psyche.
In October of this year, I had the pleasure of being able to attend an audience with the Harvard University humanist chaplain, Greg Epstein, hosted by the British Humanist Association at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. Greg delivered a short lecture on his career to date, focusing primarily on how he became the humanist chaplain at Harvard and then what his ambition was for the humanist brand in the coming years. His views were very similar to mine in that we both feel very strongly that there is a product that non-religious people can market and that product is humanism. Greg felt that there was enough contained within a humanist world view to be able to successfully market its ideas and, ultimately its services, to a very wide audience.
Admittedly, Greg’s idea of humanism is a modern one. It centres around the need to develop a firm and widely accepted philosophy of humanism that can be used to build a formal world view, accepted in general (if not every aspect) by the majority of humanists. Whilst many self-confessed humanists may say that this philosophy exists, it is evident from the relatively wide cross section of humanists I have spoken to about this that actually this is not the case. There is a certain aversion, particularly amongst traditional humanists, to the development of a central philosophy, and what that means practically. This can probably be put down to the route to humanism that many of these traditionalists took, i.e. they chose humanism as an antidote to religion for whatever reason. However, in order to market the idea of humanism and grow its market share, this aversion needs to be overcome.
How do we do this? How do we help make sure that over the next ten years we can really build up the brand of humanism and make sure that those that are not religious say so, and even go as far as unifying the non-religious under one brand umbrella? The current campaign to get non-religious to be made into an answer on the next UK census is one way. The work of young, trendy, rock stars of humanism such as Greg Epstein and Brian Cox is another. A third option is the work and campaigning by organisations such as the BHA in building the profile of humanism. Personally, I would like to see a combination of those factors being used to really market humanism and its world view at young people. This may sound controversial, similar to the practices of some religions in targeting children. However, I mean young people, those in their late teens and early twenties that are naturally looking for world views to subscribe to and who have the tools to be able to rationally choose which one best fits their outlook, ambitions and personality. Work is currently being done in the UK to try and achieve this, organisations such as the AHS are trying to unite and encourage student groups to discuss and debate the very issues I am writing about here. The Chris Worfolk Foundation is another organisation that is trying to engage with young people. The CWF has more practical activities as its main focus, mainly involving volunteering and community work.
The final question is what can we do about this? Personally, I think the answer is a relatively simple one. Contribute. Contribute by calling yourself a humanist. Contribute by acting like a humanist. Contribute by supporting your local and national groups – whichever one best fills your needs. The more people do the following, the more obvious the link between humanists as people and humanism the world view will become. I strongly feel that this organic development will lead to the singularity that will allow a humanist brand to be launched more formally.