A society for atheists, rationalists, secularists and humanists
Getting up at 6am, after a night out painted as a blue Avatar is never easy. The excitement of meeting other students from around the country, with the same obsession I have made it a lot easier. After a somewhat eventful journey down south and then through the enlarged rabbit warren Londoners call the tube, I arrived at St Ethelburga's where the first NUS Interfaith Forum was due to take place.
The forum started off with a welcome from Ben Whittaker, NUS Vice President for Welfare. This was followed by an introduction by Kat Luckock, NUS Student Inter-Faith Coordinator. She went though why the forum has been set up and forum guidelines.
We then got into small groups and discussed what Interfaith is, what we have been involved with personally and issues and challenges that we have faced. My group had four faiths represented, with varying experience in interfaith work from a strong interest to someone that set up a coexist society at Warwick and someone that organises interfaith football at Bath. Each group presented their discussions to the rest of the room. One thing that became startlingly apparent was the Leeds Atheist Society has arranged and been involved in more and a wider variety of Interfaith events than any other group present, including interfaith/coexist societies!
After a lovely lunch Campusalaam trained us in the FlashPOD method. This is a way to record a deep discussion of a specific event or issue and then share it online.
The day lived up to my high expectations. After almost two years of arranging Interfaith events mostly through Leeds Atheist Society, meeting other people with the same goal was invaluable. We shared stories of problems we had encountered and how we had over come them.
It was great to see that it is not just Atheists who believe in the importance of Interfaith. The forum was made up of mostly Jews and Muslims and I met one Sikh and one Baha’I too.
The forum is going to meet with the Minister for Universities, David Lammy on 4th March. How this is going to be ran was discussed by the forum.
Amongst the project aims the six Interfaith Forums will help the members to develop a strong inter-faith collaboration and enhance campus cohesion by creating space for interfaith dialogue and activities.
I believe it is already doing this. By using the FlashPOD method my group discussed why certain faith societies are less than enthusiastic about supporting interfaith events run by Leeds Atheist Society. I found this extremely insightful. Apparently people of faith feel they have nothing in common with Atheists and the idea that we want to spend time with them is greeted with suspicion as they think that we think they are stupid. I at least managed to dispel the popular myths about atheism.
Many of us that attended the forum have added each other to facebook so we can keep in contact until the next forum meeting. It was defiantly worth travelling 400 miles on Valentines day to attend.
I hope that the future forums will include more networking and small group discussions. These will facilitate the sharing of ideas for how to arrange successful interfaith events and discussion of problems that arose when staging these events. There is also need for training and a sharing of know-how on how to word things, as these are contentious issues and insensitivity benefits no-one. It would be terrible to unintentionally offend two faith societies on campus within minutes, wait that might have already happened!
I have suggested Leeds SU as a venue for the next forum and have sent in an article similar to this to the NUS, which will hopefully be appearing on their website shortly.
Oh and I think Leeds Atheist Society are officially entitled to the title ‘King of UK Interfaith.’ :D
Following on from the recent AGM, it is with some sadness that I write what is likely to be my final post as President of Leeds Atheist Society.
The past year has been a great experience for me, both as an atheist and as president. I have been a part of one of the strongest years the society has had performance wise - with our membership roster now approaching the hundred mark and our finances looking healthy for the first time in three years.
I have also had the pleasure of meeting some great new friends and future leaders of the society. Many of our new committee are just finishing their first years of study at university. In fact, this is by far the youngest committee we have ever had, yet strangely also one of the most experienced! I look forward with great interest as to the future direction of the society under my successor, Sophie Stringfellow. I wish her and her new executive all the best.
Fortunately for me, I have kept a small finger in the A-Soc pie as I was returned as the new AHS Representative for the society, taking over the reigns from Tom. I hope that I can continue to serve the society's bets interests on the national stage.
Thanks to all the members of Leeds Atheist Society and I hope to see many of you return as members next year. Remember, we are not just a stuident society and are open to all. We have a really good alumni scheme in place for all you graduates out there!
Luckily, my reign is not quote over and we have plenty of great events lined up for the rest of the year (and all summer too!) Check out our events listings for all the latest info!
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.
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!
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.
Well, that's it. Christmas is over and we can get back to normality and a more sensible approach to all things festive.
I recommend everyone catch up on this year's address to the nation from Her Majesty. It will get you in the mood for some real debate and argument at A-Soc in the new year.
Hope you are all enjoying your time off and that you are ready for the new semester which is only 11 days away!
First off, I would like to thank everyone for their continued support of A-Soc and I am sure you will all agree that this semester has been one of the busiest we have ever had! Some of my personal highlights have included Make Your Own God, Debating the Theists, The AHS Conference, Interfaith Panel and our trip to London.
Not to worry though, we haven't exhausted all our good ideas and semester 2 will be just as jam packed as ever with exciting things to do and see. Things to watch out for include our new course Perspective, our inaugural formal debate with the Islamic Society and of course the much anticipated Rationalist Week 2009.
As always we rely on your support to make these events happen, so I hope we will see all of you again in the New Year and if you have enjoyed what you have seen then why not tell your friends and bring them to meetings too!
We will continue to run our weekly socials over the holiday period, so those of you still in Leeds are more than welcome to join us for a few festive beverages.
Good luck for those with exams in January.
Merry Winter Solstice (or Chrismukkawaleid)!
In the spirit of maintaining regular blog posts, merry winter solstice everyone!
The time of present giving being for the most part over means the society has been able to cash in on the January sales (which now start online on December 23rd apparently lol) in preparation for next year's activities.
Along those lines Monty Python's Life of Brian arrived this morning ready for it's screening next month. Not an event to miss!
It's quite an exciting time for the society at the moment. Which is why we haven't blogged for ages, it's all just been too exciting :p. Seriously though.
Tonight's meeting, "What God can't do" saw a strong turn-out and quite a good chat in the pub afterwards. Plus we have a lot of exciting events coming up.
Namely, in a few weeks time it's Atheist Week. This is a week long (well, 4 days actually so not a week at all) series of events, debates and talks about Atheism. It's not quite on the scale of Rationalist Week but it's going to be big!
Secondly, the weekend following that is the Weekend in London. We're currently throwing together all the details for that and it's shaping up to be an amazing weekend. One which I wouldn't want to miss!
Next week is a crazy week for the society - we have 5 events! Yep, count them, 5 of them. That's crazy. Actually don't count them as only 4 are listed on the events page as we don't explicitly mention our weekly social because it's just implied by now.
We have two debates on Tuesday, a talk on Thursday and social on both Tuesday and Thursday. So seriously, you have no excuses for not coming to at least one of those events!
You think you have it intense but think of us poor committee - we have 7 events to attend as we also have at least two meetings to go to. A-Soc doesn't half keep you busy!