Secular Portal Blogs

Live from London

Sunday, November 30th, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

While I will blog far more extensively when I return to Leeds, having finally got onto the wifi network at my hostel I feel the need to blog. London has been an interesting bag of tricks so far, the Natural History Museum was a bit disappointing but Sin City was amazing and I meet up with Kieran even if our catch up time was brief. Stay tuned for more stories.

Live across the globe

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 | Leeds Atheist Society | No Comments

Yesterday we completed our second live webcast successfully! So never fear if you are unable to make it down to campus one week because you will be able to watch it live online.

This isn't going to be for all our events but hopefully a lot of our talks and debates will be broadcast live. You can see a schedule of what events will be broadcast on the webcasts page though this is by no means complete.

As it stands I would still like to get the audio quality a lot better but so far, so good really. All you need to have to be able to watch the webcast is Flash player which most people already have and it seems a fairly robost solution.

Atheist Society at large

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Liz isn’t drunk!

She wanted to stress this quite a lot last night.

Nicola however was far more open about her level of intoxication.

But let’s rewind for a second. The evening started with the usual commitee meeting to which Kate didn’t turn up to (because apparently she had bailed on London but was too scared to tell me or Norm face to face) nor die Rosie who apparently is putting her degree ahead of A-Soc (but not ahead of the pub, /judge),

The meeting went well given that Norm forgot his talk and indeed all of the A-Soc stuff, it was rather well attended which was good to see which both together was a bit of a shame as the topic really has a lot of potential especially given recent events. Still there was some good discussions, especially at the pub afterwards so all is good.

The talk was on discrimination against atheists which as we found out when we got into discussions is very wide spread in society which is already fairly evidence despite the fact that we actually make up the majority.

Becky bailed on the pub which was disappointing but both Brett and Nicola arrived, killing any rumour that they had eloped to Mexico together but we can’t rule out the plan being put in place for a later date. I left shortly before midnight with a few hard core A-Soc’ers still hanging on. As ever these days, a rather good night.

Merchandise Update

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 | Warwick Atheists | No Comments

T-shirts!

Our t-shirts look like this:

- You can order them by replying to this e-mail and telling me what size you would like.
- They come in mens’ and ladies’ sizes.
- They cost £5.
- You will receive one of the four badges shown below for FREE.
- You only need to pay when you collect your t-shirt.

Hoodies!

Our hoodies are white, with a large screen print of our logo on the back (without the name), embroidered on the front with our name on the left of the chest and yours (if you want, no extra charge) on the right.
- They only come in mens’ sizes, and “small” is the smallest size they have.
- You will get to pick two of the badges shown below for FREE.
- They cost £25.
- To order a hoodie you will need to see me *in person* and pay *before* they are ordered. This is because they are personalised, so cannot be given to other people if someone changes their mind. When you meet with me, I will ask you what size you want and what name you’d like embroidered, if any. To meet up, e-mail me (w.wybrow at warwick dot ac dot uk) and arrange a time and place, or speak to me (Will Wybrow) at any Warwick Atheists social or event.

***The deadline for ordering this merchandise (t-shirts and hoodies) is WEDNESDAY at 11.59pm***

Badges!

Buy a t-shirt and receive a free badge. Buy a hoodie and choose two badges to receive.

Human needs

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Friday saw the long awaited session of One Life on “Human needs” presented by Dr. Gijsbert Stoet.

While we were missing quite a few regulars we never the less had a large turn-out as expected. The food went down a storm as the photo gallery shows with many people going back for second and even third helpings!

Gijsbert’s talk was good and importantly included Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which everyone loves (because it’s awesome, obviously). All in all, a very successful week for One Life.

Secularism - The Big Debate

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

On Thursday we headed over to the University of Bradford for a talk entitled “Secularism - The Big Discussion” which was sort of a debate slash discussion about religion but it was all fairly wishey washey and never really got on topic. Not that, that made it a bad event. It was good.

One of the speakers was the chair of the Humanist Philosophers’ Group Peter Cave who we ended up going for a pint with afterwards! He’s actually a fantastic guy, not only does he know his stuff (which is to be expected) but he is also incredibly quick witted and entertaining.

Well worth the trip. Even if I didn’t get to bed until 1am while still having work the next day. Like every day really I guess.

Interfaith panel

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Yesterday was our long awaited interfaith panel in which we invited representatives from each faith down to an open discussion in which the audience could ask questions and each representative could answer with respect to their faith.

In the end we had quite a good panel with Buddhism, Christianity, Mormonism, Sikh, Bahai and Atheism represented. ISoc and JSoc have continued their long established tradition of refusing to talk to us despite Nicola’s best efforts but I didn’t feel we were missing anything as it worked really well with the good selection of beliefs we already had. John also did a good of chairing the meeting and making sure things didn’t get too out of hand.

As already mentioned we also successfully broadcast the event live for everyone who couldn’t make it in person. It is also available as a saved video clip somewhere, hopefully it will get posted on the A-Soc website in the near future.

All in all it was a very successfully Give It A Go event for us. We managed to get a total of 45 people down which is probably the best turn out we have had this year.

What Else Ya Got?

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 | Will Wybrow | No Comments

What else? What else? Oh, I’ve got else. You haven’t even seen “else” until you’ve seen MY “else”.

One More Gripe

As far as content management systems (CMSs) go, different applications need to match different purposes. While I am a self-confessed WordPress fanboy, I will freely admit that it’s not ideal for use in every situation*. I wouldn’t use WordPress for anything other than blogging, really; it wouldn’t be good for getting a lot of information across when the information doesn’t benefit from the context of being in chronological order.

Where this is going

And, I wouldn’t use a wiki in a situation where one organisation is meant to be an authority on a subject. I think it undermines the credibility of that organisation when their advice and support is actually community advice and support.

The AHS’s use of a wiki comes under this category, I think. I don’t like it very much as a public front. As a private working ground, I love it. But as the end product of our thinking? It’s just a bad idea.

End.

*Does this still make me a fanboy? I feel like one, with the hoody…

Live on the net

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Yesterday Atheist Society completed our first successful webcast.

Not that we have previously had unsuccessful webcasts, this was the first time we tried it and it worked really well. I made use of the services on uStream which performed like a bottomless pit - flawlessly (I know, I know ). I’m really impressed with it to be honest, it has a lot of options and you can do things like overlays but the real jem is just how well it works out of the box as it were.

We had some technical issues in that the feed was password protected during our testing phase and then when I turned it off it kept prompting for a password anyway and wouldn’t except the previous password. Still once we got this issue sorted we were on our way achieving three viewers! On of which was myself monitoring the playback but that still leaves Norm and someone else geniunely watching it.

Events in Week 8

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 | Warwick Atheists | No Comments

Events in week 8 include the showing of the ever-popular The God Who Wasn’t There. It will be shown in L5 on Wednesday at 3pm; our regular spot for film showings.

To complement this, we’ll be having a social in the Grad@Cholo on Thursday evening, officially kicking off from 8pm. Look for us! There will be some of us sporting the Warwick Atheists white.

Merchandise

On that note, Warwick Atheists will be offering t-shirts to those interested. If you would like to purchase one of these delightful pieces of clothing, it will set you back £5. You will need to e-mail me at w.wybrow[at]warwick.ac.uk to let me know you want one, and in which size (S, M, L, XL or ladies’ sizes).