Yesterday’s homeless action saw the best attendance for a Humanist Action Group of Leeds event in the history of the group.
As you’ll probably be aware the weather in the UK has been rather cold over the past month with several heavy snowfalls and as a result the group has made a special effort to make sure volunteers were on hand when needed.
Luckily everyone living on the city centre’s streets managed to make it into a shelter during the snowfall – it’s actually a really good feeling when you go out in the snow and find nobody because it means chances are they are somewhere warmer. Now people are back on the streets however we really need people to continue to sign up and volunteer their time.
If you are interested in volunteering you can register your details on the website or find out more about the group on their Facebook page.
At Leeds Skeptics we recently celebrated our first birthday with a talk by Steve Wade on big foot and other urban legends entitled “What’s That Coming Over the Hill?” The talk was reasonably well attended given the weather outside though we didn’t get anyone working on the bar which was a little disappointing. Still plenty of drinks from the bar downstairs later and everyone was enjoying themselves so the good times continued.
So I’m sitting here at work thinking “how late do we have to be here until we order Chinese into the office?” I say thinking, I’ve just said it out loud, then after that we had a conversation about it.
Anyway, the problem is this. We don’t know how long this problem is going to take, it could be solved in the next 30 minutes, it could be we’re here until 10pm. If we solve it at 6pm then it will have been pointless ordering Chinese because we can just go home and have dinner. But if we don’t order it and we’re stuck here till 10pm then we’ll be really hungry. But at what point do you say, right, this is the point I’m going to order Chinese food even though I still don’t know how much longer I will be there.
This problem occurs regularly with pub trips. You wonder if people are going to be there for a while because you don’t want to get there as they are leaving but the longer you leave it the more likely that is of happening. And at the end of the night, when you haven’t gone you say to yourself “if I had gone at the start I would have been there drinking for ages – but now it’s too late because they will be leaving soon.” Indeed this could well be applied to almost any point in the night.
The thing is, I’m sure this is some kind of grand philosophical problem that I am just applying to pub and takeaway activities. Anyone know what it is?
Lachlan having sent us over a picture of himself on the beach in Melbourne where they are currently enjoying 42 degree days we decided to enlighten him on the sudden heatwave that had hit the UK causing us to head off to the beach on Monday. A quick snaps and non involvement of Photoshop later and the email was on it’s way. You can’t tell by the pixels or anything…
Props to Vince for touching up everything slightly given the time constraints we were working under.
On Monday evening I headed over to York to speak at a meeting of the North Yorkshire Humanists a rather nice invite sat in between Ariane Sherine in December and Andrew Copson in February.
The talk went fairly well, I could really tell that it had been a while since I had done much public speaking and was somewhat out of practice but everyone I spoke to said they found it quite interesting and there were plenty of questions so the feedback was positive. Having run through it the night before I was a little taken aback at how much stuff I had so it’s probably for the best I kept things moving at a good speed.
Interestingly the street we were on, Priority Street, apparently has seven churches on it – five separate church buildings and two other church groups which meet in the same community centre as the Humanist group hold their meetings – most exciting of all was the Rock Church next door :D.
Yesterday we screened Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed documentary which looks at the reaction of the scientific community to intelligent design proponents. It was of course pretty rubbish and didn’t really present much evidence but has plenty of emotional pleas about the future of freedom and of course the obligatory appearance of Godwin’s law in.
Attendance was good for an exam period, at least for those who managed to find us tucked away in the Baines Wing, in the three years I spent running around that campus I think I have only been up there once.
On Tuesday we headed down to Cuthbert Brodrick for the usual Atheist Society Tuesday night social. Wetherspoon’s are currently running a January sale which includes meals for £1.99 and a pint or a glass of wine for 99p!
In a very drunken state on New Year’s Eve I got up and announced to my good friends attending the bash that this year was going to be the year of the Chris Worfolk Foundation.
And I mean it.
As such the foundation is officially making 2010 the year which we make a name for ourselves. We have some very exciting projects on the way which we will be announcing soon alongside the exciting projects that we are already working on.
I find the current climate an incredibly interesting one, interest in making a difference in the world has never been higher, people are really passionate about improving quality of life. With the right opportunities being provided this can be put to work to do tremendous good and I fully believe we have the experience, the skills, the drive and the ambition to achieve this.
We’re already on our way building better links in the community. Next week Leeds Skeptics will be celebrating its first birthday and in February our first humanist community will launch – I can’t express how excited I am about opportunities such as these to bring people together in the spirit of celebrating shared human experiences.
Later this year we will be doing this on a larger scale and will expand our activities to other regions as well as continuing to drive forward with new projects, form stronger links with other organisations and inspire more people to get involved and make a difference.
2010 will be a year to remember. I hope you will join us on the journey.
Best regards,
Chris
Trustee, Chris Worfolk Foundation
On Saturday I indulged my final act of hedonism before ending the Christmas amnesty on Campaign for a Debt Free Chris by heading to Browns for a meal with Kieran, Si and Sarann.
The food was good, myself and Si both opting for the Browns Bacon Cheese Burger which rose to the class the of the restaurant very well. The company was equally good too as we whiled away the hours reminiscing about back in day. Good times.
I recently stumbled across the idea of playing Bejeweled again and having brought it up in a conversation with Si a few days later he pointed out it was available for the iPhone too. As a consequence I purchased it and am now highly addicted. Like mega addicted.
It’s almost scary.
I mean, do you remember when that game took over the Enterprise on The Next Generation? In the episode, appropriately named The Game Riker brings back a game from Risa which is so addictive everyone is soon playing it but behind the game there is an evil plot lurking.
It’s easy to dismiss the idea as the science fiction that in that case it indeed is but I am really finding it quite shaking how easy it is to slip into playing Bejeweled all day. Last night I was playing it for hours rather than going to sleep and tonight as I tried to get some work done I was constantly like “I’ll just do this one last level” and say that over and over again at the end of every level.
Forget the Illuminati, the New World Order, the Umbrella or Rossom Corporations. If anyone has the power to bring us to 1984, it’s PopCap Games. Now there is something I wasn’t expecting.
