Posts Tagged ‘york’

Yesterday we headed over to York Rock Church to see their main weekly service, held on a Saturday evening, called Communicating Life.

I first noticed The Rock when I was down giving a talk at North Yorkshire Humanist Group and decided to google it when I got back. The website I found was fascinating – it looked like it was basically an entire church service delivered in the form of rock music (and with some very catchy songs too!).

So we arrived just on time for the main service, which even had a countdown to let you know how was left until the rock began! I would describe the atmosphere as reasonably friendly, someone took us through to the main hall and once we had sat down two other people came over and introduced themselves in the ten minutes or so we were waiting.

The service itself started with about eleven people on stage, most of which were singing in a line at the front which really reminded me of the American evangelical mega-churches. It didn’t feel quite as big as it did on the videos – the place could have held maybe 300 people of which there were about 100 there which is a lot of people but I guess I was expecting it to be more like what Abundant Life looks like from the photos.

Afterward we were taken to the cafe, named Pillars, complete with free wifi internet and branded coffee cups. Here we got chatting to Beth who works on the youth outreach projects for the church. She even invited us back to their house party which apparently follows on from most of the weekly services.

All in all well worth the trip, they have a great community feel and excellent biscuits.

Last Saturday I headed over to York to see Stewart Lee.

The opening had Simon Munnery opening for him who was in my opinion as good as Lee himself, especially when he moved onto Dawkins. “I’m writing a new book called The Salad Delusion. There’s no such thing as salad – it’s just different ingredients on a plate.”

Afterwards Stewart Lee came back to the stage for his new show, If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One. Yes the criticisms are true, he did spend around twenty minutes talking about how he wished Richard “The Hamster” Hammond was dead but then again, it’s just a joke, like on the Top Gear! In any case, highly recommend for fans of Stewart Lee ;).

No, I’m not talking about the classic song by Poe which was featured on the Book of Shadows soundtrack.

Last night I headed over to York for a good old fashioned ghost tour. York Brights coordinator Ewan is one of the tour guides to invited us over and it sounded like a good laugh so I thought I would attend.

I had been forewarned to keep an eye out for sly skeptical comments in the talk and that there certainly was :D. Lines like “one of York’s genuine mediums – if that isn’t a contradiction in terms” and “she swore them all to secrecy about the elaborate array of hidden wires and sound effects she used that night” provided a good night of amusement and entertainment.

Afterwards we headed to Caesar’s Restaurant for a very nice meal indeed – although we didn’t get any free garlic bread as Ewan had assured us we were almost certain to receive. The food was never the less excellent though.

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.

I headed over to York on Wednesday night for the monthly York Brights meetup. I ended up having a really enjoyable night (not that you should expect anything less) despite still being ill with a cold, made especially interesting by the fact that I got to have a good read over the legendary Atlas of Creation, a book published by a Turkish Muslim Adnan Oktar who explained that evolution is all lies.

His wacky viewpoint is actually one of “Old Earth” creationism in that he believes that the Earth has been here for millions of years, it’s just that species have never changed. What a gangster.

Headed down for the monthly meetup of the York Brights on Wednesday which saw a record turnout for the group! That said the pub wasn’t exactly up to scratch – they had run out of lemonade and pint glasses!

In any case the group provided it’s usual good conversation and entertainment as well as a chance to flash my new title and charity. Good times.

On Saturday night I attended the annual BBQ of the North Yorkshire Humanist Society (so don’t get confused – it wasn’t a BBQ where we cooked North Yorkshire Humanists 😉 ).

The BBQ itself was good although I feel I was mis-sold when told it was in York as it was in a village just outside named Haxby – not a problem when you’re coming from York but on the far side when driving up from Leeds.

It was interesting to see the demographics in North Yorkshire, the age range is much better than West Yorkshire although this could have been disorted by the fact it was a bit more of a social event than a regular meeting.

They seem an active enough society though, they hold 11 meetings a year (just missing out August) which is more frequent than a lot of societies which take extensive summer breaks and they seem to have quite a bit of committee rotation going on.

Yesterday I headed over to York for the monthly York Brights meetup.

While it wasn’t overly attended the conversation was interesting as always and the real shocker of the evening was that I managed to make it to York and back without GPS and without getting lost! Now that is a successful evening.

Heading over to the April meetup of the York Brights group I was finally able to get there while it was daylight. Therefore I took the opportunity to get a few photos in as I walked past the Minster.

The group meetup itself was excellent as usual and rather well attended this month so it made for plenty of interesting conversation. Plus it was a chance to talk about Rationalist Week to a whole new group of people 😀 .

Wednesday saw me head over to York for the Brights meetup over there. Nick kindly lent me his GPS which resulted in it being rather easier to get there but when I took the suggestion to follow it’s directions on foot things went a little worse. After some serious walking and a quick phone call I eventually found my way to Stonegate though and met everyone else.

The conversations made for some very interesting discussions, while there is usually this in most of the events I go to, the night’s discussions were especially interesting. As ever it also provided me with a good excuse to do some name dropping which is always fun.