Past list view

This month we need to accomplish a bit of real work. An event is upcoming: on Tuesday, June 5, we will be co-sponsoring a presentation with the local skeptics' group, Rational Examination Association of Lincoln Land (REALL).

Here?s a description: Victor J. Stenger, author of the New York Times best selling book "God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist", will discuss his book, as well as answer questions and sign copies of the book.

We should do everything we can to capitalize on this. Right now that means putting together text for group literature, finalizing T-shirt designs, and possibly writing text for ads if we can come up with the money to run them. And anything else we can think of that might be good for us to do under the circumstances.

Here are some things you can do in advance to prepare for this meeting:
1. Write down some favorite freethinker quotes that we could use
2. List your best recommendations for books for people interested in freethought
3. Come up with an alphabetical list of gods you don?t believe in (for use on T-shirts)
4. Write a brief statement about freethought from your own perspective for us to use
5. Think about our group and what it should be and do, then put that into words
6. Consider possible alternative names for the group
7. Write down your favorite freethought sources on the web, with URLs
8. If you are good at humor, write for our freethinker "tract" parody (got tracts? bring 'em!)
9. Think of anything else we ought to do, and speak up for it!

Because of the nature of this meeting, I am changing the meeting location for the month. Instead of Panera's we will meet at the Buffet King, 2753 S. Veteran's Parkway (between Toys 'r' Us and Kohl's). This is just a quarter of mile or so north of the Panera's location. However, the buffet has larger tables butted together instead of small ones, and is much quieter. There is quite a bit of choice in food and of course, since it is a buffet, people can keep going back for as long as we are there. Note: there are two buffets in that shopping center, make sure you go to the right one!

Hope to see everybody there!

After last month's party, we return to a more prosaic get-together format. Let's strive to get some work done, as in setting agendas for what we'll do this year, as well as indulge in entertaining conversation.

We are looking for a new location, since we seem to be outgrowing Panera's, alas! Anyone with suggestions, please post a message on the message board under the "meeting place" thread.

We need a place that is big enough it won't be discommoded by having twelve or more people take up tables for a long time (we often end up lingering two hours or so). But it also needs to have good food--meaning not just tasty but healthy choices are available--and really good coffee.

Until we pick somewhere new, I'll leave Panera's as the default choice.

Party! Party! Party! A solstice party, that is.

This meetup will be a potluck party at my house. We will be celebrating the annual event of the sun reaching its lowest point and beginning to rise again in the sky, thus promising the return of Spring after Winter.

If we feel like it, we could watch some videos too. But mostly we?ll just relax.

If you are coming, check out the discussion board and let me know what you can bring.

Please note: time has been changed to 5 PM for this event!

See you there.

We will be trying to pin down some of the issues we talked about at the last meeting.

We need to:

Choose a group name, one that has a good acronym
Choose a slogan
Design/choose a logo
Come up with a list of books to read and a timetable for reading them
Come up with suggestions for field trips, especially ones that tie into the reading
Decide if and how we want to do member enrichment activities, like working on public
speaking, and what activities might be appropriate
Commit, or not commit, to becoming a Center for Inquiry community:
see http://www.centerforinquiry.net/communities/ for information on this
Compose literature for public distribution
Find some community service activities that the group can sponsor or do

In other words, we need to do lot more than we can possibly accomplish in one meeting! So I urge anybody who has an interest in or knowledge of any of these areas, to work on it ahead of time so your contribution can be considered at the Meetup.

I?ll try to prioritize things so we can at least whittle down the list in the most effective manner.

See you then!