Last month we held the first ever Leeds Transhumanists meetup at the Veritas bar in Leeds city centre.
I’m sure that most of you have, by now, heard the news with Sir Jimmy Savile has passed away. Not just a larger than life character, Jimmy was also a true inspiration in his tireless devotion to the charities he supported. Not to mention that his death now leaves us with Chris Moyles and Scary Spice as the biggest names to come out of Leeds.
Still, at least we can remember him by supporting the campaign to name the Leeds Arena the Jimmy Savile Arena. That will show Scarborough and their silly statue.
A few weeks ago, we dropped into the Golf Bar down by the train station.
While it seemed a nice enough place, with an outside area overlooking the river, the staff seemed somewhat shocked when we actually turned up and tried to order a drink. I always thought that was kind of the point when running a bar business, but maybe I’ve misunderstood.
The first Sunday of August saw Leeds Pride 2011. Everyone likes to see a parade, particularly when it comes right past your house, so as with last year I took plenty of photos. I was a little disappointed by the floats this year, but it was an enjoyable day nonetheless.
You can see more photos from the event on Atheist Stock.
Recently, Bradford Atheists headed over to Leeds to join us at Nation of Shopkeepers.
Having had to make a last minute cancellation of my trip down to London to attend the BHA AGM, I decided to head down to Leeds City Museum to attend the HSoWY summer social. Given how many people are away over summer, especially for HSoWY, it was quite a respectable turn out, and the city museum is always worth a visit.
Last Saturday, the Leeds Slutwalk took place. Slutwalks are protest marches which assert a woman’s right to dress how she wants without being blamed for getting raped because she was somehow asking for it. Unfortunately, the Leeds event suffered from a somewhat poor turn out but was a worthwhile event in any case.
As usual, the red flags of Revolution also turned up to cloud the message too. Still, at least it added to the numbers.
Last week, we headed over to Nation of Shopkeepers for the Tuesday night Atheist Society social.
In general, I was very disappointed. Given we’re in summer socials, the nights always involve dinner but we couldn’t find any suitable seating that had enough space for us all and still allowed us to conveniently eat.
The food was quite nice, but nothing special and there was distinct lack of drink choices. This was a huge disappointment as usually when you go somewhere trendy that at least have a very well stocked bar to compensate for the high pricing.
It wouldn’t be a bad call on a warm summer night when you could sit outside but for now it didn’t seem worth the trip. If I wanted to hang out in a pretentious bar I would just go downstairs to Call Lane lol.
On Wednesday, I received a letter from the company that runs my car park.
It stated that some permit holders where parking there on a Sunday even though their permit did not entitle them to and if this continued, they would get their parking enforcement company to start issuing tickets.
Now, I have no idea if they sent this to everyone or not, but I do know that I am pretty much the only person who parks there on a Sunday. So I can’t help but feeling a little bit victimised by this.
Apparently, even though I have been parking there for two years now without any problems even after explaining to them when I first signed up I would be there all the time, the standard permit I have only covers Monday to Saturday and if you want to park there on a Sunday, you have to pay extra.
This is despite the fact that all council car parks are free on a Sunday and nobody parks there anyway so it isn’t like they need the space.
You could of course argue that this is just a company trying to pull as much cash as it can from every available orifice but pragmatically, it’s just them being wankers. They make virtually no money out of having this separate pay extra policy because no permit holders park their on a Sunday anyway, so the only person they are getting extra money out of is me. Their price gouging brings them little reward, but plenty of angry blogging.
Earlier this month, the Atheist Society held it’s 2011 AGM. This was an important event, as it marked the end of my involvement with the group. This year has very much been consultative anyway, as fresh blood takes over, and it’s great to see the society is returning to its great shape.
This December will mark five years since the society was founded, though it seems like forever ago that we were first starting things up. As such, I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who helped make the society what it is.
Without a doubt Norm is due the biggest amount of credit, having signed up on day one and being easily the most influential person also to be involved in the society. I would also like to say a big thank you to Matt and Claire for helping the society to get started and Nicola and Paul for their tireless work over the years. And of course, all of those who have served on the committee and helped out at events have all made valuable contributions which I’m grateful for.
The recent elections saw James, Elettra, Will and Michael form the new committee and I’m sure with such excellent leadership, the society will continue to prosper and grow.