Archive for the ‘Foundation’ Category

Last month, Simon Singh came to Leeds Skeptics to promote his new book, The Simpsons and their Hidden Mathematical Secrets.

Turn out was excellent, we had 85 people there, topping our previous record of 68. We had to move a lot of the tables out of the room, move extra chairs in and still had people queuing out of both doors.

Simon put on a very entertaining talk and it was a pleasure to host him.

After a great time last year, we returned to the North West Humanist Conference last weekend to represent our work in Leeds.

Organised by Greater Manchester Humanists and Central Lancashire Humanists the organisers do a great job of putting together a programme. This year featured a keynote by David Pollock, Sara Passmore talking about the BHA, Robin Cross talking about Humanism in the Armed Forces, Amy Walden talking about Humanist chaplaincy in prisons and the inaugural performance of the North West Humanist Choir.

Videos of the talks will be available via Worfolk Lectures at a later date and you can see the full set of photos on Flickr.

Last week we held the second meeting of Anxiety Leeds, a new self-help group for people living with anxiety.

We got off to a great start with the first meeting in September and this month’s meeting built in that success with even more people turning up and giving us positive feedback. We saw some returning faces and some new. There was such much discussion going on that we actually had to interrupt to bring the session to a close after it ran over!

It’s great to see people getting benefit from the group and we’re hoping to reach even more people. If anyone is willing and able to distribute some flyers for the group, get in touch and we can send you some.

Our next meeting takes place on Monday 11th November.

For our September meeting, Ian Bushfield presented a talk entitled “Skeptics with an Eh: A view of the Canadian Skeptical movement”.

On Monday, we held our first meeting of Anxiety Leeds.

I’m pleased to report that it was a success. For a first meeting it actually went very smoothly and the feedback we received on the nigh was positive. We’re not waiting for formal feedback which should hopefully tell a similar story.

The group will be meeting every month on the second Monday. Our next event is on 14 October. The best way to stay in touch us to visit the website and sign up for the mailing list.

The 2013 Annual Report for the Chris Worfolk Foundation is now available to access from our website. The publication gives you an overview of what we’ve been up to throughout the 2012/2013 period. You can find it here.

Earlier this month we welcomed BBC Panorama reporter John Sweeney to present his talk “Oi! Scientology!”, a mini tour he is doing to support his book, Church of Fear. It was a bit of a shaky start when we couldn’t find John, but once resolved he gave us a highly entertaining insight into his experiences.

The discussions continued long after the event – indeed, it was nearly 2am by the time the last of us left the bar of Malmaison!

For the June meeting of Leeds Skeptics, we had magic boffin Oliver Meech present his show “When Magic and Science Collide”. It was a hugely entertaining show that received a ton of positive feedback.

One the tricks, named The Evolving Trick, changes every time he does it. You can see a clip of it below.

Last month, we kicked off the first of what will hopefully be many Humanist brunches. The idea is to add some more order to the regular Sunday meetings that have been running in Leeds over the past few years. The first event was well attended and we look forward to growing it from here!

To keep up to date with all the events, join the Leeds Humanists Facebook group.

Today, CWF is proud to announce the launch of a brand new project launching this September, Anxiety Leeds.

This new self help group will be open to everyone who suffers from panic attacks, anxiety or any other related mental health difficulties and will provide peer led discussions and support for anyone who chooses to attend.

The group’s first meeting will take place in September 2013 and will be monthly, with a view to increase this is the service is popular. More details and a mailing list for updates can be found on their website. Anyone with experience of working with anxiety related issues or training in the area is also welcome to volunteer as a meeting coordinator. Please contact us for further details about this.

We would like to thank Leeds Mind and Leeds City Council for their support of the project.