Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

Yesterday we re-launched the Leeds Skeptics in the Pub group with a new venue, new format and new speakers. The event went quite well despite Ariane have cancelled us on due to illness earlier the week – we got a better than average turn out and it was thumbs up all round for the new venue. We also took a lot of feedback about how we can improve in the future so we will continue to improve from here.

Last weekend the AHS ran it’s first region social. It was somewhat less than a success with only Leeds actually turning up to it but it still remains the most success regional social the AHS has ever run. Good times.

Yesterday Gijsbert returned to Leeds Atheist Society to deliver a One Life session on human needs.

I went down to the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire on Thursday to listen to Norm’s talk on student atheism. It was a good talk although oddly punctuated by an altogether not all their Christian who had randomly turned up and occasionally started talking about Jesus. Crazy times.

Tuesday saw Michael deliver his talk on Limits of Atheism. Suprisingly it was actually a fairly interesting talk, I’m not sure I learnt anything about what the limits of atheism are (presumably we can assume from that, that there are in fact none) and the philosophers in the room were looking very dubious, but it kept us reasonably entertained for an hour or so, so well done Money Bags!

Saturday saw Atheist Society’s legendary (as if any of our events aren’t 😀 ) Halloween party, hosted by our el presidente Sophie. It was a great night which ended in us performing a Satanic ritual which seems a bit on the edge but is really quite mild compared to the fact that Zoltan was dressed as the prophet Muhammad 😀 .

I went down to the English Defence League protest and counter-protest on Saturday to see what was going on. There were an amazing amount of police everywhere including loads of mounted police, riot police and an endless series of vans. The Manchester operation cost approximately £200,000 of tax payers money, I expect the Leeds operation cost a similar amount.

The EDL lot were based on city square where the police had them penned off with barriers across the entrances where they were letting people in and out. They had also blocked a number of roads round the area off though they didn’t seem to stop traffic going into the traps – so the most amusing point of the day was when a BMW X5 complete with a very middle class looking family found itself with nowhere to go on the one way system. As such the husband got out of the car, politely moved the cones blocking off the turned off onto Park Row, drove through them and put them back.

It was a bit dead down on the EDL side of things so I headed up to the counter demo outside the art gallery. There was far more of an atmosphere up here though I’m not convinced that drums are generally considered the sound of peace. It was a strange mix of leftist politics as you would expect, for example I’m not sure what the Stop the War Coalition has to do with any of this other than trying to hijack the event for some cheap publicity.

Not longer after I got there Revolution led a march away from the event as they tried to move towards EDL. The police soon had lines across the roads they didn’t want them to go down and they ended up down the financial district.

Having eventually nowhere else to go that would get them closer to EDL things inevitably turned ugly as Revolution charged the police line. They managed to get some people through though there was a second line of mounted officers and several police vans in support so the police eventually forced them back and they eventually gave up and marched back to the art gallery.

Wondering back down to the EDL protest it had really picked up with far more people there and a bit more atmosphere, especially when several coaches turned up bringing EDL reinforcements many of which were carrying banners. Doesn’t speak too highly for the Leeds movement if they have to bus in reinforcements but there you go.

The most enjoyable part of the day was chatting to the other amateur photographers which had turned to cover the event. Many of them had been covering such events for as long as a decade. There were some interesting lessons to be learned too. “I always follow the leftist side at these events,” one of the pro-left photographers explained. “It’s always the left that start the violence.”

Luckily on Saturday there was very little in the way of trouble – the day passed with only five arrests and no major injuries though of the clashes there were with the police I found the attitudes of those involved very disconcerting. “We could have broken through the police lines” one of the leftist supporters said. I replied “Well, I mean surely you shouldn’t do that?” “No, it would have worked, we had the number just not enough people went for it.” “No, I mean, from a moral point of view you shouldn’t be charging the police,” I tried to explain but the concept seemed lost on him.

EDL got approximately 900 people down there while the counter protest managed to get 1,500. Therefore we can conclude that only 38% of the population are in favour of fascism while the other 62% opposite it. Democracy works.

Of course, that isn’t a serious comment. Both sides are actually a bunch of fascists so the real conclusion we can draw from Saturday is that the 95.5% of the population of Leeds that didn’t attend think they are all wankers and wish they would stop wasting our tax money on huge policing operations.

Despite that though I’m glad the event happened. It is a true testament to the free and democractic society we live in when nut job organisations such as EDL, Revolution and UAF are able to speak their mind like this. It is ultimately this type of libertarianism which is so desirable that will ultimately defeat Sharia law, the object of both sides’ protests.

English Defence League crowd on city square.

The police attempt to block Revolution from marching on EDL.

Revolution charge the police line.

More EDL supporters arrive by coach.

Rich led this Friday’s session of One Life which was one Society & Community. The discussions got rather heated at some points but as ever it was a good evening of discussion and reasonably well attended too.

On Thursday evening I headed round to Rich’s along with George and Jonni for a Question Time pizza party. Between us we got through about five pizzas, as well as several bottles of win and half of Rich’s carton 😀 . This was of course to watch British National Party leader Nick Griffin appear on the programme.

It was at least an entertaining show if nothing else though was mostly just BNP bashing. Not that we should have expected any less of course but I’m not sure it was the most productive thing to do. As Bill points out, it was half way though the show before someone managed to fit an intelligent comment in – that perhaps the failure of the major parties had led to a rise in BNP support.

In the end though it was essentially a witch hunt which didn’t produce the desired result. If a better course of action as Rich pointed out would have been to ask the panel what their policies on health, education and the economy were so they could be compared side by side.

This would have likely done far more damage than the constant barrage of insults that were thrown at Nick and his party which no doubt made us Guardian readers feel good but actually won him a lot of sympathy and support in other social groups. Will the appearance be a good or bad thing for the BNP? I guess we’ll find out soon.

I delivered an updated version of my talk Debating the Theists to Atheist Society on Tuesday. It went rather well despite forgetting to plug my laptop in and having it try to hybernate half way through the talk but the audience seemed to enjoy it and the feedback I got was fairly positive. Maybe could have done with a bit more substance but it’s always a tricky balance.

Interestly, the BHA picked up on it and put it in their weekly e-bulletin which was great and made more amusing by the fact that with no background information, many BHA members around the country may be wondering why exactly I am a reverend and whether I’m religious 😀 .