Archive for the ‘Foundation’ Category

In a very drunken state on New Year’s Eve I got up and announced to my good friends attending the bash that this year was going to be the year of the Chris Worfolk Foundation.

And I mean it.

As such the foundation is officially making 2010 the year which we make a name for ourselves. We have some very exciting projects on the way which we will be announcing soon alongside the exciting projects that we are already working on.

I find the current climate an incredibly interesting one, interest in making a difference in the world has never been higher, people are really passionate about improving quality of life. With the right opportunities being provided this can be put to work to do tremendous good and I fully believe we have the experience, the skills, the drive and the ambition to achieve this.

We’re already on our way building better links in the community. Next week Leeds Skeptics will be celebrating its first birthday and in February our first humanist community will launch – I can’t express how excited I am about opportunities such as these to bring people together in the spirit of celebrating shared human experiences.

Later this year we will be doing this on a larger scale and will expand our activities to other regions as well as continuing to drive forward with new projects, form stronger links with other organisations and inspire more people to get involved and make a difference.

2010 will be a year to remember. I hope you will join us on the journey.

Best regards,
Chris
Trustee, Chris Worfolk Foundation

Here at HAGs we’re making a real push at the moment to premote HAGs and get people volunteering.

It’s absolutely freezing here in Leeds at the moment and it’s often we at the moment as well so if there was any time of year that you don’t want to be stuck out on the streets, it’s probably about now.

As such we really need volunteers to make sure we’re going out as much as possible so if you can spare some time, do get in touch. We’re also working on how we can roll similar schemes out to other cities around the UK, and indeed the world, so if you’re interested let us know.

In November we hosted an interfaith panel inviting speakers from all major faiths to come down and field questions from an open audience. We had speakers from Buddhism, Baha’i, Humanism, Sikhism, Christianity and Judaism.

We held the first planning meeting for a new course today which will hopefully be piloted by Leeds Atheist Society next year. It will focus around issues on sex and relationships but in a way relevant for atheists, in particular students.

How much this will be abstract discussion and how much will be real issues is yet to be worked out but the idea behind the course is to actually make it useful for attendees – for example nobody really needs advice on what contraception is available and how it works because this gets taught in school and we all know it anyway. But things like breaking up with people for example aren’t really looked at.

Development will continue for the next few months though if you have any ideas or feedback regarding the project do get in touch (or even just comment on this blog post).

When we launched the Perspective course in 2009, we had no idea it would be such a huge success. Of course you hope that it will be a popular event but the interest we received in the course was far better than we thought we could hope for.

It proved to be popular with both members of the society and with the religious speakers who came to give the talks. Not only that but it even proved popular with your rank and file religious followers who wanted to learn about what religions other than their own believed and it wasn’t long before our events were packed out to capacity.

Given the course had worked so well we set about, as we have with all our courses, developing a leader’s guide so that the course could be run by other societies around the country and even the world. This suffered some delays over the summer but finally we have it in a state ready to ship out – as such we are now officially launching the guide!

So if anyone is interested in running a Perspective course at their local community do not hesitate to get in touch with us for a copy.

A few days ago we tweeted that we had a big announcement coming in the next few days. Well, here it is – so prepare to be slightly excited or every disappointed having had your hopes up since Wednesday!

In early 2010 the Chris Worfolk Foundation will be launching our humanist community pilot project. To supplement the current range of humanist and atheist events we are launching a new community group running on Sunday mornings. We’re going head to head launching a secular alternative to church.

The project is still in the early stages of development but we’re hoping to have the first event in February next year. Currently we’re in the process of recruiting people who are interested in getting involved and preparing the format. So if you are interested in being involved, get in touch.

Yesterday the new foundation website went live! I say that like it is a whole new website, it isn’t, it’s just a slightly updated version but now located at ChrisWorfolkFoundation.org. There is some new content too though lots more new content is on it’s way soon.

Wednesday saw the first official meeting of the trustees since formation.

It was most productive with us talking long into the night over possible ideas and strategies for the organisation and out of it has come some really productive action points. I can’t talk about what these are yet but hopefully we’ll have more news on these soon!

We have also established regular trustee meetings now also so things should start moving forward at quite a pace.

Received the certificate of incorporation from Companies House on Monday! As such it went straight into the most expensive Tesco Value frame available – and no, I won’t be claiming that on expenses 😉 .

For the time being I have decided to host the foundation’s blog within my own personal blog, at least until it merits its own blog. As such this is the first of what will hopefully be many posts about the foundation!

For those who are interested you can also keep up to date with the activities of the foundation on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.