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The AHS annual general meeting

Saturday, July 16th, 2011 | | No Comments

It is with some sadness that I write this post.  The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies AGM was held last weekend in Southampton and the event marked the end of my term as AHS treasurer.  It was a position I gained a lot from but, for this year at least, I’ll be taking a back seat from national involvement. The upside is I can now devote more time to being Leeds Atheist Society president and ensure that it is the best year ever for us!

The build up to the AGM was marred by two member societies, Hull and Edinburgh Humanists (a founding member), leaving the AHS.  The main reason for this was that, Edinburgh in particular, felt that the AHS had become too expansionist and were ignoring their established members.   This is certainly something to think about for the new executive.

Our treasurer Elettra Rastelli, former committee Norm Ralph and Nicola Jackson (who hold AHS positions) and I made up the Leeds contingent. The AGM itself was very well hosted by the guys at Southampton Atheist Society, special kudos to their president Dan Palmer for getting us an exclusive showing of the new film ‘The Ledge’ before its general release in the UK. There were three motions debated: The first was to represent different organisations on the AHS board, namely the National Secular Society and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.  The second was a motion to allow joint candidates to run for executive positions. The third was creation of a vice president position within the executive.  The first two were defeated the third withdrawn after much debate.  The new executive were elected, Jenny Bartle (Bristol) as president, Mike Paynter (Bristol) as secretary and Dom Blackclok (UCL) as treasurer.  The AGM was brought to a close by Dr Evan Harris who gave a talk entitled ‘The Secularist Manifesto’.  A fuller account and minutes will soon be available from the AHS website.

Going forward, I believe Jenny, Mike and Dom are absolutely the best people for the job.  I know from discussions I’ve had with them that they are already looking to address the problems from last year, in particular with regards to greater transparency and democracy in the AHS.  I’m sure they’ve got some great ideas of their own to bring to the table.

My sincere best wishes to the new executive, I’m sure they’ll do a wonderful job and I look forward to the next AHS event!

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BHA Presidential Reception

Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 | | No Comments

Last Friday saw the society president James Murray, along with Leeds Atheist Society representatives Chris Worfolk, Nicola Jackson and Elina Leinio, head down to London for a drinks reception with British Humanist Association. The occasion was to celebrate Polly Toynbee‘s time as BHA president. The event was initially planned to mark the beginning of Prof. AC Grayling presidency of the BHA. However the negative press surrounding the £18000-a-year private university he had set up led him to resign, as he felt this would be in the best interest of the BHA. He also didn’t attend the BHA conference in Manchester, where he was billed to keynote, due to a planned protest.

On to the evening itself, it was held in the Scott room of the Guardian offices. Some of the more distinguished guests in attendance included human rights activist Maryam Namazie, former Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris (or Dr Death to Daily Mail readers) and philosopher and writer Peter Cave. Polly give a stirring speech warning humanists that there are many battles still to be won particularly with the resurgence of religious politics in the last decade. In particular she talked about the increased influence that faith-based organisations are having in education due to the amount of free schools that are being built. The abortion debate is once again being discussed in politics, and conservative Christian views are strongly influencing government policy. Finally end-of-life care is a major area in which reforms need to be made. Currently in the UK we do not have the right to choose the manner of our deaths, even when faced with degenerative diseases, an issue addressed in the recent documentary presented by Terry Pratchett.

All in all it was an enjoyable evening that the BHA put on and it was great to catch up with some AHS colleagues and BHA distinguished supporters and members.

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Notice of Annual General Meeting

Saturday, April 2nd, 2011 | | No Comments

Leeds Atheist Society are pleased to announce that our AGM will be held on the 3rd of May in Leeds University Business School, room 1,03 at 7pm.  The AGM is your chance to make an impact on the society and get involved with making it better next year!

Positions available:
President – Is the person that sets out the society’s objectives for the coming year and makes sure that they are met!  Responsibilities include setting the agenda and chairing of committee meetings, dealing with the union, Events management,  as well as being the poster person of the society
Secretary - Very much the secret power of the society! They will be responsible for taking the minutes of meetings, room bookings, keeping membership database up to date, and  being  the second point of contact with union.
Treasurer-The person that looks after the society’s finances. They are responsible for keeping the accounts up-to-date, coming up with fundraising strategies and will also function as our AHS representative this year.

These are the executive positions up for election however the current committee are happy to open up further positions in response to interest.  Those who do want to be on the committee next year should prepare a short (ca. 5 mins) presentation of their manifesto outlining what they can bring to the society and why they should be elected.

If you would like to know more about the roles or the society drop us an email or come along to one of our spring holiday socials at the Stick or Twist on Tuesday 7pm.

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Reason Week 2011

Thursday, March 17th, 2011 | | No Comments

On March 7th Leeds Atheist Society began their fifth annual Reason Week.  If you are not familiar with Leeds previous reason weeks, we have usually held it in a marquee on a central area of campus and the marquee was occupied for the whole week and we’ve had events all day!  Unfortunately the layout of the university campus has changed and there is no longer a suitable area to set up  a marquee; so the committee decided we would shift the focus towards a speaker orientated week.

We still wanted a presence on campus all week so we had a stall set up outside the university union and were running events from their and advertising our evening events.  At times it was a battle against uncharacteristic Leeds weather; we had to move our stall under cover to avoid rain and weigh down our leaflets to stop them blowing away!  Despite this we were still able to run our events, these included awareness discussions on Human Rights, Science and Medicine, Sex and Sexuality, Scepticism and Morality. We also had ever popular Make Your Own God:  a blue peter style arts and craft session, Ask an Atheist,  an afternoon promoting the Census Campaign and Debaptisms!

The main evening events started on Monday with a discussion on Religion as a Human Creation; the panel was made up of a Humanist, Sea of Faith and a Quaker.  It was good discussion although we didn’t get much further than agreeing religion was a human creation!  A side note, I still don’t really know what Sea of Faith are but enjoyed meeting and talking to them.

Tuesday we had Dr. Antony Lempert chair of the Secular Medical Forum who delivered a talk entitled ‘Cutting Religion out of Medicine’, it was entertaining but the serious message of the talk was put across very strongly, I highly recommend him if you want to know how religion still interferes with medicine in Britain today. His details will be available on the AHS speakers directory soon.  Afterwards we headed down to our favourite karaoke bar!

Wednesday saw chief executive of the British Humanist Association Andrew Copson come up from London to talk about humanist ethics, he was enjoyed by all and we then went down to a local restaurant with Andrew and had some fantastic food!

Thursday we headed down to Humanist Society of West Yorkshire who were hosting a debate on Humanist chaplins, the debater for was head of the humanist chaplaincy network Gjisbert Stoet and chair of HSoWY chair Paul Dean argued against.  Both sides made very compelling arguments and certainly give us all a lot to think about on the issue.

Friday we had Mark Edon talking about Creationism in the UK and the work that the British Centre for Science Education do to combat it.  Generally thought of as an American problem, but is becoming one in the UK too; one example Mark brought along a genuine looking GCSE biology textbook that taught creationist pseudoscience and this book was sent out to secondary schools across the UK! The BCSE details will be available on the AHS speakers directory very soon.

The final event of the week was LAS’s famous All night debate we were outside the union from 10pm to 3am chatting to, mostly drunk, students over hot drinks and sweets. We had some entertaining discussions, and some idiotic ones such as one student who shouted at us for being atheists then walked off saying ‘I don’t believe in God but I’m not an atheist!’

I thoroughly enjoyed coordinating Reason Week 2011! The highlight of the week for me was all night debate, after Reason week had finished we had a couple of hours sleep and then headed to London for the AHS convention!

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New website for 2010/2011

Friday, August 20th, 2010 | | No Comments

I’m pleased to announce our brand new website for 2010/2011.

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A-Soc Intro Week

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 | | No Comments

It’s that time of year again, that period of time when Leeds fills with fresh faced eighteen years and every commercial body is out in force trying to get everyone to part with their hard earned cash. It is also the time when we societies get out there to try and get members.

A-soc is no different and we have been out in force this week recruiting. We have been pretty successful too, with over 40 new members signing up in the first three days! Check out the pictures below and the blogs over on the A-Soc website.

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Welcome to the AHS blog

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 | | 1 Comment

This is the first post in what should hopefully be many on the AHS blog. We have finally got some sort of web presense and hopefully will be building on this shortly. Until then, stay tuned to the forums.

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