Chris Worfolk's Blog

As I’ve previously mentioned to some of you, I will have a few days off over the holiday period which is quite a rare treat. Obviously I need to make the most of this time so I’m beginning the process of tendering for time early.

Therefore I will be taking applications and proposals for what to do with my time. Current proposals include…

• House Metrics
• Particle Soft
• Re-launching Worfolk Creative
• Spending time with the parents
• Authoring my far from long awaited book
• Sleeping

If would would like to submit an application or proposal for something I should allocate my time to please submit an application in electronic writing to the usual email address detailing what it is you think I should be doing and why it’s worth my time. All submissions are strictly non-confidential. Thanks in advance 🙂 .

Norm currently being struck down with illness, it fell to Sophie to lead this week’s session of One Life.

It went quite well, we got a good turn out as usual and the discussion kept rolling on around this week’s topic, science and critical thinking. The lesson I really took from it comparing it to the sessions I led was that you really need a critical mass in order to really get good discussion going which this year we thankfully have always managed.

Lil also did quite a good job as head chef for the evening so all in all things went very well.

Last night was the union council meeting to look at what motions should make it to the referendum or not. Myself, Norm, Nicola, Moz and Gijsbert turned up to support motion 4 and while it’s probably a good job we did, it didn’t do us much good.

I have written a more in depth article for Leeds Student (and anyone else who wants to run it) which we’ll be sending in along with all our other articles in the hope some of it will make it to the next issue, but I will briefly summarise things here.

First of all, amendment 4 passed which removed “this union resolves” part 1, which was to stop stocking Halal and Kosher meat. From a motion to remove Halal and Kosher meat from the union. There is no way that is constitutional! The union council rules state they cannot pass amendments that “significantly alter the nature of the motion.” How could you ever, ever come up with a less appropriate amendment? How could you change it’s nature any more than that?

The amount of open descrimination against the atheist community was also quite clear. It didn’t seem to matter how many times union council members had gone on and on about how this is about whether motions should go forward to referendum, not about the politics of each issue, union council members repeatedly voiced their own opinions and yet hardly any of them mentioned the core issue here – animal welfare.

Finally it would seem important in what is aiming to be a democractic process that union council members are free to vote how they wish. It is interesting then that when Barry abstained from voting on the motion (not even voted for it but simply abstained) he was ridiculed by the chair and asked to give reasons for his decisions.

All of this amounts to showing the clear descrimination that goes on, on campus against the atheist community.

Having finally made it home just before 9 last night we setup for podcasting to have a rant about the evening events. After only two or three months of Norm saying he was definitely going to be joining us this week, we finally got him involved in the two shows we recorded last night.

The real miracle, and I think this stands testament to how annoyed everyone really was, was that we managed to stay on topic for the whole of the first show. Crazy.

Well, it happened.

I finally moved my alarm to an earlier time than 8am. With the sudden increase in traffic now that November has arrived and as I want to be in on time every now and then as I tend to leave close to on time some days, I’ve moved my alarm back.

So much for the awesome fireworks display happening outside of my window, it was hidden behind the houses next door. Gutted.

Not that anyone else seemed to actually make it down there, despite many promises. Rumour has it Si was too busy getting his birthday present from Izzy too? 😉 .

I was very impressed by the Roundhay Park bonfire though it’s been literally a decade, probably longer since I’ve last been but they started building it last Wednesday. Last Wednesday! It was like a wooden pyramid by the time they had finished it.

Anyway, happy birthday Si.

The first formal debate of the year having arrived last night, myself and Tom took it upon ourselves to put forward the case for the Flying Spaghetti Monster being the one true god.

The debate was of quite a high standard with both sides making some excellent points. The motion was ultimately defeated but at a fairly even split of 14 votes to 12 but this is of course just part of his devine plan. Ultimately, it was a really fun debate and one we should definitely run again in the future.

Well, it’s over. America has a black president. A very white black president but a black president none the less. And rightfully so too, Obama is the man for the job.

We held somewhat of an election party to watch the results come in last night. With the projector hucked up to project accross our lounge wall and the sound system hucked into it too it was more than big enough to enjoy a life size picture of Christopher Hitchens when he appeared on the BBC’s panel.

Having work I went to grab some sleep not long before 4am and everyone else had dispersed by the time I got up but never the less it was a fun night. And I’m now loaded up with several litres of energy drinks at work so I should be able to make it through the day 😀 .

Having got my radiator working last night I finally woke up this morning being nice and warm. It was well worth waiting for. Well, it wasn’t actually by any stretch of the imagination but the point is, it was most pleasant to finally not be quite so cold on a morning. Money well spent.

As part of our “The Crusader is closed, what do we do” thing, we headed off to Xscape at Castleford for some bowling on Sunday evening.

I’m not a massive fan of bowling because it is technically a sport which means I am probably going to be fairly rubbish at it but I struggled through and managed to bowl 127 in my first game taking victory. I slipped down to second place in the second game but never the less I think I could be considered a minor success given I haven’t been bowling in a month or two.

The real fun though was given some road testing to my new digital camera (which I should really blog about sometime) and getting some action shots.