Liz isn’t drunk!

She wanted to stress this quite a lot last night.

Nicola however was far more open about her level of intoxication.

But let’s rewind for a second. The evening started with the usual commitee meeting to which Kate didn’t turn up to (because apparently she had bailed on London but was too scared to tell me or Norm face to face) nor die Rosie who apparently is putting her degree ahead of A-Soc (but not ahead of the pub, /judge),

The meeting went well given that Norm forgot his talk and indeed all of the A-Soc stuff, it was rather well attended which was good to see which both together was a bit of a shame as the topic really has a lot of potential especially given recent events. Still there was some good discussions, especially at the pub afterwards so all is good.

The talk was on discrimination against atheists which as we found out when we got into discussions is very wide spread in society which is already fairly evidence despite the fact that we actually make up the majority.

Becky bailed on the pub which was disappointing but both Brett and Nicola arrived, killing any rumour that they had eloped to Mexico together but we can’t rule out the plan being put in place for a later date. I left shortly before midnight with a few hard core A-Soc’ers still hanging on. As ever these days, a rather good night.

Tuesday came and it was time for another exciting A-Soc meeting. We bashed our way through quite a number of issues at the committee meeting before heading down to set up for our screening of Jesus Camp, a film about the Evangelist summer camps for young children to prepare them to “lay down their lives for the Gospel” in the same way Muslims are.

It is a scary film. Some of the one liners in it are incredible.

Attendance was following our usual numbers of popularity, I’ve also got almost everyone’s name now which I’m quite pleased about. It was good being able to put names to faces. The real bonus though is the amount of people that have signed up for London – we’ve sold almost all the places now, there is like one or two left.

The social went on long into the night and I ended up getting home at like 1-1:30 or something with a very drunk Michelle and Liz in toe.

It’s not easy being popular. A-Soc had moved of meeting room 4 because we weren’t sure we could fit everyone in as it only holds around ten people. We were right. Especially when 45 people turned up to A-Soc last night .

We had a lot on, a committee meeting, Norm’s talk “Intolerance in religion”, Pro Life Through Pro Choice, preparation for the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire’s debate against Bradford University’s Islamic Society and a social and it really pulled in the crowds.

When we arrived in The Terrace for our social not only did we fill an entire row of benches outside on the terrace itself but we had to move a few benches onto the end of the row to fit everyone on!

It really has been a fantastic start to the year for the society and I would like to congratuate everyone involved on really getting stuck in and making it work. People are already focused on maintaining this strength as well, it has really got me excited about what the society at the moment.

These past few days have been fairly laid back. I’ve not felt too well so I’ve taken it easy. Next week is going to be rather busy though. With A-Soc’s meeting, A-Soc’s social, Pro Life Through Pro Choice meeting, I-Soc’s freshers’ dinner, the Alpha course I’ve been invited to, podcasting, One Life, Liz’s houseparty and the TKD social I recon it’s going to be a rather tiring week.

Another acamedic year has arrived and once again the A-Soc machine is rolling. We delivered out intro meeting to a packed out room last night at which Norm gave an excellent talk resulting in another load of sign-ups for the society.

Afterwards we headed down to OK Karaoke, taking around 30 people with us and despite the fact that nobody else turned up we still managed to make the place look crowded all by ourselves. They were so impressed that we’re now in talks for regular visits . Not to mention that they kept the bar open all night for us having been planning to close at 11.

Everyone seemed to have an amazing night and by the looks of things we will have lots of new people coming back. I had to leave at 1am due to having to be up for work that morning and most people were still in there! May the good times roll.

Tuesday night saw the A-Soc members’ dinner party to welcome in the new acamedic year and say thanks to our existing members for sticking with us before the intake of fresh faces arrives.

No less than eighteen people turned up to sample the “delights” – a modest four courses by comparission to our last dinner party but never the less when you scale that up to that many people that is rather a lot of food to cook. Luckily Liz and Michelle very kindly contributed dishes, as did Tesco.

The real hero of the night was Fonze however who battled his way through the various dishes and a mountain of washing up alongside myself for the entire night.

I haven’t really had a debrief with most people as I didn’t get chance to get that much chatting done on Tuesday night though most people seemed to enjoy the food – I got no less than three adjectives in Paul’s thank you text message. I’m still fairly convinced the rice was awful and the soup was stone cold but for now everyone is at least pretending the food was edible.

And, as with last time, nobody died (that I know of), so perhaps we can chalk this one down as another success.

One thing I think is worth commenting on is the situation regarding Leeds Unviersity Union when el presidente Norman submitted some events to the events calendar for Atheist Society.

You see, apparently, they turned us down. Apparently events such as “make your own god” may reflect badly on the union. Whereas, I guess, they have already taken the abuse for censoring anyone connected with the union resulting in at least one front page of Leeds Student.

This is a clear freedom of speech invasion with no real reason, the event is not in any way negative (it’s a fun craft day) and does not target one specific religion. This will certainly be added to our ongoing discrimination complaint which the union have apparently burried as the new societies officer has never heard of it.

Yesterday was International Freshers’ Fair, a chance for international students to find out about the societies at LUU. It was quite busy, much better than last year and as usual we had an interesting placement. We had ISoc to our left and the CU just down from them. Plus the Irish Society were on the same table and apparently asked to be moved!

Our banners seemed to work well, they were the tallest their (with ISoc just coming in behind us) and we did very well for representation – we had 7 of us there, 5 of which were in t-shirts or hoodies so I think we had the best coordination going.

The final A-Soc social of the summer ended on a rather good note with 17 people turning up. We were yet again screwed over by the union but never the less things proceeded well with us re-grouping in The Old Bar for a night of good fun that didn’t end until gone midnight.

Especially given Nicola and Zoltan were at a gig, Moz is in Europe, Rich is missing in action, Bo was on a date, Gijsbert has just disappeared, Brett couldn’t make it down, Rosie is in America Bevis couldn’t make it either. These are just A-Soc hardcores if you also add people like Oli, Chinese Matt and Charlie we did fantastic to say so many people weren’t there.

Roll on freshers’ week!

Another Tuesday, another record breaking A-Soc social. This time we managed 18 people just creeping ahead of the previous summer socials and most probably the most well attended event since Rationalist Week 2008. We had more people in there than the rest of The Old Bar put together including both patrons and staff.

There were so many people I wanted to chat to I didn’t manage to make it round everybody though I did manage to beat Oli at pool. It was fantastic to see everyone in good spirits too – Rich returned for a second week which was fantastic, Liz got quite drunk, George was out and about and both Matt’s were brandishing a smile which I am most pleased about.

The evening came close (in a way) with my somehow standing on the steps outside of the union preaching about upcoming events to everyone and though I am reliably informed by a multitude of texts from various people that many of the others went on to party in Hyde Park. Fantastic stuff.