Secular Portal Blogs

One Life is drawing in the crowds

Monday, October 20th, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Last Friday was the second session of One Life. Not having our guest speaker in to do the human needs session we re-arranged things a little and Norm delivered an excellent session on society and community. Sarann’s cooking and Sophie’s recipe were excellent as usual.

The real success of the evening though was the turn-out. We had no less than 17 people turn up in the end, we could hardly fit people in and this is after having moved from the Parkinson building to the union after campus security declared we couldn’t have the room the union had booked us after all because they wanted to close the building and go home.

As it happens this caused perhaps the best part of the evening though. I was chatting to Joel, male president of the Christian Union as he greeted people outside the union turning up to Ignite (previously known as Friday Night Live) and not really doing much greeting myself until over a dozen people turned up en masse .

There was also a great deal of discussion for hours in The Terrace afterwards too. All in all another fantastic success.

We Have a Guest Speaker!

Friday, October 17th, 2008 | Warwick Atheists | No Comments

At last, we’ve got a guest speaker coming to talk to us! This will be our first external speaker, so this is huge news. I’ll keep you posted.

This is His church

Thursday, October 16th, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Tuesday saw the long awaited Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster at A-Soc. We got another fairly decent attendance, about 30 people or so turned up in the end I think. We got quite a few new members down again so hopefully they weren’t too freaked out that having been their first meeting .

The event itself went fairly well, it all seemed to happen so fast at the time though according to the time stamp on the camera it actually went on for about 40 minutes. The video will be up on YouTube as soon as a I get some free time to sort it.

We haven’t really had a post mortem discussion about it yet but it is definitely something that we want to repeat in the future.

One Life

Sunday, October 12th, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Friday night saw the long awaited return of One Life.

We managed 13 people to the session which was a fairly respectable number and it was rather amusing to be just down the hallway from the Christian Union’s Friday Night Live (now re-named to Ignite I believe). The food that Norm cooked based on Sophie’s excellently prepared menu was excellent and we got some good discussions going. Another event to chalk down as a success I recon.

Introduction to Godlessness

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | Warwick Atheists | No Comments

This event will take place at 6pm in L5 (in the Science building, near the Student Cinema’s room).

Our speakers so far:

Introduction to Warwick Atheists
(Stuart Pilbrow, Sam Corcoran)

The God Hypothesis
(Sam Corcoran)

Secularity is late for dinner
(Ben Smith)

Meaning and Atheism
(Alexander Bishop)

“Through her we all die”: Religion versus Woman
(Fran Bull)

Introducing Humanism
(Will Wybrow)

Welcome!

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | Warwick Atheists | No Comments

Greetings to Warwick Atheists members, new and returning, and welcome to another year of thought-provoking events, entertaining and interesting film showings, fun socials and delicious meals! We have got an excellent year lined up for our members. We want to reach out to as many people as possible and get them involved in the society’s activities. Last year, our Best New Society award showed everyone exactly how capable we were of creating a successful and enjoyable environment for anyone interested, and we hope to do even better this year.

Take a look at the announcements for our upcoming events, or visit and join our Facebook group for regular updates.

If you need to contact someone from the society, for any reason, you can e-mail me personally at w.wybrow[at]warwick.ac.uk, or another exec member.

Lastly, if you haven’t joined the society officially, please do so. By joining, you’ll have access to regular e-mail updates. The funds will also go towards bringing you bigger events (including a provisionally planned speaker from the BHA) and better merchandise. We’re only asking £2 to join (lower than lots of other societies), it’s less than the cost of a pint to you, but to us it’s one step closer to being able to fully fund our plans for the year.

Term One Event List

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | Warwick Atheists | No Comments

Upcoming events for the term are currently:

• Week 3 - Thursday, 6pm - Room L5 - “Introduction to Godlessness”
  A series of talks, hosted and presented by the Warwick Atheists, on a few broad topics to do with atheism or some of our members’ values.
• Week 4 - Wednesday, 3pm - Room L5 - “The Root of All Evil?”
  A Channel 4 documentary by Richard Dawkins exploring the religion, focusing on the negative impact it has currently and has had over the years. Running time: 90 minutes (approx)

Alpha

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Having been invited down to Fonze’s church to do Alpha, myself, Norm, Paul and John went down this evening to check out a session. We arrived at the second week which was all about why Jesus died.

Having met Simon, the head guy, who was a nice guy as you would expect, we enjoyed a meal of rather higher standards than we are used to expect - I love it when the CU provide free food but they simply don’t have the resources to add the fancy touches such as a place mat full array of cutlery.

The session then took the form of a video lasting around 40 minutes which was reasonably interesting then we had a group discussion afterwards. It was good although it was no replacement for the speakers offered at Christianity Explored, it’s just not the same as an interactive speaker you can question on their talk afterwards.

We ended up heading back to The Terrace and got to know John a bit more who seems to be a really sound guy. He is doing joint honours artificial intelligence so we have some common ground and he also has excellent slogans on his t-shirts so it’s win win.

The awesome factor

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

It’s not easy being popular. A-Soc had moved of meeting room 4 because we weren’t sure we could fit everyone in as it only holds around ten people. We were right. Especially when 45 people turned up to A-Soc last night :D.

We had a lot on, a committee meeting, Norm’s talk “Intolerance in religion”, Pro Life Through Pro Choice, preparation for the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire’s debate against Bradford University’s Islamic Society and a social and it really pulled in the crowds.

When we arrived in The Terrace for our social not only did we fill an entire row of benches outside on the terrace itself but we had to move a few benches onto the end of the row to fit everyone on!

It really has been a fantastic start to the year for the society and I would like to congratuate everyone involved on really getting stuck in and making it work. People are already focused on maintaining this strength as well, it has really got me excited about what the society at the moment.

London bookings now open

Sunday, October 5th, 2008 | Leeds Atheist Society | No Comments

Bookings are now open for London 2008, so if you want to join us for an amazing weekend then head over to the weekend away page and begin reserving your place! It really is a fantastic weekend and we're offering at half the price it would normally cost you so it's a bargain.