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Committee Profile: Events Secretary

Thursday, March 26th, 2009 | Leeds Atheist Society | No Comments

Name: Chris Worfolk

Position: Events Secretary

What has been the highlight of your on committee?

Rationalist Week! It hasn't happened yet but this is what my entire year has been gearing up to lol. London and AHS conference were also fantastic events to have been a part of.

What has been the hardest part of the job?

Getting up on Wednesday morning after a long night in the pub!

What skills do you think you have learned/developed?

I've focused on trying to learn everyone's name this year lol.

What are you responsible for?

Rationalist Week! Also any of our big awareness events such as Darwin Day, Galileo Day and other such events.

What advice would you give to your successor?

The more you metaphorically punch I-Soc in the face, the more they respect you as a society.

Committee Profile: Treasurer

Monday, March 23rd, 2009 | Leeds Atheist Society | No Comments

Name: Charlie
Position: Treasurer

What has been the highlight of your time on committee? Getting involved with a flourishing society. I have really enjoyed putting myself to the test with getting to grips with the society's finances. I love the socials too!

What has been the hardest part of the job? Committing enough time to the cause. Keeping track of who owes what to who is pretty tough too :P

What skills do you think you have learned/developed? My accounting and financial skills have definitely improved.

What are you responsible for? I keep track of the society finances. I make sure we don't spend (too) much more than we earn.

What advice would you give to your successor? Make sure you keep a written record of everything!

Perspective: Humanism

Saturday, March 21st, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Norm having asked the BHA to provide a speaker for the Humanism session of Perspective he seen got an email from the BHA asking him if we would be able to speak at an A-Soc event at the university. He stepped up to the plate and agreed, so there was our Humanist speaker sorted.

While it was of course BHA brand Humanism it was never the less an interesting session and we got to test the catering urn so given how bad attendance could have been given it was the last day of term, I was quite impressed with how it went.

Durham Reason Week

Friday, March 20th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

On Monday we headed up to Durham for the Humanist Society’s Reason Week. We were a bit lacking in numbers with only myself and Sophie going up in the end but it was a great chance to have a good chat with Sophie, especially given I don’t currently have a working stereo after last week.

Ellis delivered an excellent talk over lunch and it was reasonably well attended - around 20 people showed up for it which is better than we normally do on the first day of Rationalist Week. The evening screen attracted only half that but was never the less a good event, who can say no to Life of Brian?

Ellis also delivered me a tour of Durham which is a beautiful city and includes lots of cool bars too so it made for a very interesting day. I was very impressed with however together they are in Durham and I’m sure they will have a very succesful future.

Committee Profile: Secretary

Monday, March 16th, 2009 | Leeds Atheist Society | No Comments

Name: Nicola
Position: Secretary/Interfaith Co-ordinator

What has been the highlight of your year on committee?

The highlight of this year has definitely been Perspective and Darwin Day! Perspective has been a massive success and despite my worrying that the speakers wouldn't turn up, they all did. Interfaith assassins was lots of fun too. Watching Atheist Society grow from a few loyal members to one of the bigger societies on campus has filled me with quite a bit of pride, definitely another highlight!

What has been the hardest part of the job?

Dealing with the emails! It is quite a feat to not let them get on top of you.

What skills do you think you have learned/developed?

I have really developed in terms of confidence and the ability to approach a vairety of pople and get them to do what I want. My ability to target my audience has also greatly improved.

What are you responsible for?

As secretary, I deal a lot with the Union and especially the ARC. My main duties are focussed around membership and other admin type roles. I also take notes and minutes at the meetings. I basically control all the society paperwork. The interfaith part of my job means I am responsible for co-ordinating all the itnerfaith events we do, both in terms of organising speakers and ensuring we maintain a good relationship with other societies on campus.

What advice would you give to your successor?

Learn to use Facebook! Everything the society does is on Facebook.

Perspective: Paganism

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Friday saw our Perspective session on Paganism with a practicing witch coming into to talk to us. You have to respect the guy’s honestly, he opening said “it’s all made up” and was created about 30-40 years ago. However it is apparently a belief system that works for him and he has seen it working with his coven using the power of their mind to change reality. Fair enough I guess.

Zoltan provided the food this week and did a rather nice vegeterian dish. We also had meeting room 8 rather than meeting room 5 so we actually had enough space for once. All in all, a very nice session if I do say so myself.

Committee Profile: President

Monday, March 9th, 2009 | Leeds Atheist Society | No Comments

Name: Norman Ralph
Position: President

What has been the highlight of your year on committee?

The highpoint of my year as President was leading the society into the newly formed national umbrella organisation for atheist societies, the AHS. Leeds A-Soc was heavily involved in setting up the AHS and hosted their first AGM in November 2008 where both AHS representatives from Leeds were elected the the Exec.

What has been the hardest part of the job?

The hardest thing about president is trying to make sure that the multitude of events that A-Soc runs actually happen. Most of the plannign and organising is carried out by the various co-ordinators and secretaries, but it is still nerve wracking every time you turn up to an event and seeing if the hard work has come to fruition!

What skills do you think you have learned/developed?

I have definitely improved my committee and communication skills. Having to co-ordinate the communications that emanate from a large society like Atheist Society is quite a task! My organisational and time management skills have also been hugely increased.

What are you responsible for?

As president, I am ultimately responsible for everything that goes on in the society. On a day-to-day basis I am repsonsible for manageing the rest of the committee team, ensuring that everything is done to the same high standard our members have come to expect. I am also the main contact with the Union, so I deal with the ARC and our development co-ordinator on a regular basis. As an experienced A-Soc member, I also take responsibility for delivering a lot of the talks and for chairing the meetings.

What advice would you give to your successor?

Buy a diary! Then make sure you use it as your time can fill up pretty quickly some weeks.

Anything else?

I have served on the A-Soc committee for over two years now as both Secretary and President and I have thoroughly enjoyed both roles immensely. The friendships and relationships you build, both within A-Soc and with other societies, are incredible and I have seriously enjoyed the task of helping build A-Soc up from a handful attendees in the Green Action Zone to the successful society we are today.

Fancy running your own society?

Monday, March 9th, 2009 | Leeds Atheist Society | No Comments

Have you ever fancied running your own society? Have you ever been sat in a meeting and wondered "I could do this"?

Well, you can now have your chance!

The A-Soc Annual General Meeting is only a couple of weeks away now. The AGM is where we elect the officers to run the society for the coming academic year. So, if you have always thought you would make a good manager or leader, here is your opportunity.

Almost all employers look favorably on a candidate that has committee and leadership experience at university, so if you want that extra string to your bow then why not run for office?

All of our current committee positions are avaialble, plus a couple of new ones to reflect the growth of Atheist Society over the last few years.

We will be doing a small profile on all of the positions on the blog for the next few weeks and if you have any questions then just speak to an existing committee memeber or drop us a line at leeds[at]atheistsoc.org

Talking Humanism

Sunday, March 8th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Tuesday saw A-Soc roll around again and with no exec members there on the night, it was up to Sophie to lead us for the night. But of course she didn’t so I had to do it . The night involved a short introduction to Humanism given by myself followed by a formal debate on whether Humanism was a religion.

Michael argued it was and made some good points but was ultimately beaten by Tom who bravely swapped sides at the last minute after none of the speakers who were going to be arguing Humanism isn’t a religion showed up.

Sikhism

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

So it turns out that Sikhism is just Humanism.

It has a bit extra, some stuff about “the Divine” but basically they believe that everything is god pantheism style so basically there isn’t a god and we should just all be nice to each other.

The other fact we learnt about Sikhism is that it’s followers are not big fans of sandwiches. We made a lot of sandwiches most of which went uneaten. Luckily however the CU were right next door and so gave us a hand with the whole sandwich consumption thing.

It’s interestingly really because it goes back to the whole Atheists and Christians are united by their love of sandwiches. We really need to do some kind of joint sandwich event in the future.