Tuesday 29 November 2011

December Free-For-All

Our December meeting, at 7pm on 8th December in the Notley Room at the White Rock Hotel will be open for anyone present to give a five-minute talk or presentation on anything they think may be of interest to us. It doesn't have to be a rant or specifically about Humanism. The timing will be flexible.

We will also vote on the decision that was held over from our AGM, whether to change our relationship with the BHA from Affiliation to Partnership. We will also review other activities such as attendance of members at meetings of BHA Group and SACRE Representatives and at the NSS AGM, and the successful launch of our Twitter account @HastingsHumanists).

Friday 11 November 2011

Decisions at our AGM

The following are the decisions made at our Annual General Meeting. Since the minutes I took are rather illegible, and my memory is known to be fallible, please notify me if you spot any errors or omissions. There were 16 members in attendance and one apology for absence.

The annual membership fee remains at £5, and the cost of attending a meeting will be £2 (this is to cover the cost of the room which is currently £30 for two hours but may go up next year). The start-time of meetings will be 7 pm instead of 6:30 pm in future.

The Chair, Stephen Milton, and Secretary, George Jelliss, were reelected. Lesley Arnold-Hopkins stood down as Treasurer but becomes Deputy Chair. Duncan Cleverly becomes Treasurer as well as Social Secretary. Helene White remains formally Assistant Treasurer.

Lesley and Duncan will open a twitter account (@HastingsHumanists). Helen Mitcham will act as a Group Representative at GRAM. The decision whether the group should be an Affiliate or Partner of the BHA was postponed, and Felicity Harvest agreed to examine the BHA proposals in more detail and report back to the committee. We will continus to send Humanist Observers to the East Sussex SACRE, and lobby for more formal recognition.

So far only two meetings are definite for next year: January will feature a formal Debate between Joe Fearn and Stephen Milton on "Is a Disembodied Mind Possible?". June will be a talk from Barbara Burfoot about the Sea of Faith organisation. Enquiries for other outside speakers are in progress. Offers of talks from members (Joe Fearn on the Anthropic Principle, George Jelliss on Rewriting of History, and on Scepticism) are so far available to fit in the programme as needed.