Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

I would just like to congratulate my friends in the various north west humanist groups that were involved in the inaugural North West Humanist Conference which took place last weekend. Unfortunately I missed the event due to illness (gutted, as a Yorkshireman I can’t stand not attending events I’ve already paid for) but it was never the less a big success and I look forward to attending next year.

A few weeks ago, we held the first Margarita Monday.

Having recently watched Franklin & Bash, our policy was, if two fictional lawyers in Los Angeles can party on a school night, so can we. I actually felt reasonably well the next day, which isn’t bad given I got through seven shots, two cocktails and a bottle of cider.

In any case, it is definitely a winning idea, if a little time consuming in terms of preparation when you are having to make vegan pizza.

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.

Laster this month will see the inaugural Genital Autonomy conference taking place in at Keele University. It’s a two-day event looking at “Law, human rights, and non-therapeutic interventions on children.”

My friend Antony Lempert from the Secular Medical Forum will be speaking on the subject of “Conscience and Foreskins: A Medical Paradox”, which is well worth attending as anyone who made it to his talk at Enquiry 2010 will know.

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.

It has been eight months since our last poker night, which is far too long a time, so I decided it was time to get another one going.

Given to make it feel like a true Vegas poker night, we of course need bunny hostesses, I invited Kat and Elina stating clearly on the invite they “are also welcome to attend as we need people to wait on us and mix drinks.”

For some unknown reason however, despite Wench Vicky and Batgirl Rebecca, they thought we were joking. Sometimes, I worry our friends don’t even know us… As a result, they were somewhat surprised when they were handed their outfits.

The game carried on long into the night – well, until around 11pm, which when you get to my age, that is rather late. In the end Kat and Jonni were the only people left in so decided to call it there.

It was such beautiful weather at this month’s Humanist Community meeting that we held the meeting outside. However, just as we were going to get started, a drum parade started behind us! Luckily it had soon passed and we got down to discussing a range of topics – so much so I didn’t even get chance to give the talk I had written – but maybe that is what people were aiming for ;).

With the BHA Reception to welcome in new president A. C. Grayling taking place at a very convenient time to converge with mine and Elina’s six month anniversary, I decided to take a trip down to the capitol with her.

We got down there with only a slight delay and met up with Phillip and Linda from West London Humanists who are amazing people who have a lot of great ideas for community projects. They have a great vision for making a difference and I’m hoping I can help them develop their ideas based on what has and hasn’t worked for us in Leeds.

Afterwards, we wandered down to the National Gallery which was fantastic of course though it was a mission to find any paintings not about Jesus or some other religious subject matter. Luckily the Dutch artists finally came to the rescue, and there is currently an excellent exhibit on Swiss and Norwegian artists there too!

In the evening we met up with James and grabbed some dinner at a nice place called Canal 125. The food was good though I don’t think the salad I had turned out to be a light option after all once I had eaten all the dressing, cheese and chicken lol.

The hotel we stayed at was the Thistle City Barbican. It was mediocre, especially for the £150 we paid for it, and despite getting a family room we actually got three single beds and with Norm not having joined us after injuring his ankle, we ended up paying for three beds and only using one of them.

On the Saturday we headed over to the Natural History Museum which is always enjoyable though I’ve done a lot of it now (and yet I still go back even though I’ve never been to the Victoria & Albert Museum lol) and includes exhibits such as rocks and cooking pans that I’ve never seen before.

I would have liked to have had more time there as we didn’t get there until mid-afternoon, having spent out time walking over and stopping for lunch at Las Iguanas on the South Bank. That was very nice but it was directly under the Waterloo bridge rail track, so made for noisy intervals.

All in all we did around 13 miles walking, which is only half that of the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge! Still a good bit of exercise though.

Last Saturday we hit Wendy House to celebrate Oli’s birthday (as if he wouldn’t be going anyway lol). Unfortunately Viki got in a mood and refused to come, and banned George from going as well.

Never the less we pushed forward and Sarann set around customising Norm appropriately for the evening. Turns out he pulls off the top hat very well.