Thursday, November 19th, 6pm, Arts D418, Irish Independent journalist and author of ISpy column Ian O’Doherty will be speaking with us on Freedom of Speech. This will surely be out last speaker of the year, so don’t miss out!

Light refreshments provided.

Well some bad news and some news news.

Maryam Namazie will not be joining us as previously announced, but she will be attending a Law Soc event in 2010, so we’ll at least get to see her.

Also, our next event is Senator Bacik, who will be speaking at 1pm in Arts on the subject of religion in the Irish education system. She’s a fantastic speaker and is the only openly atheist member of either the Dail or the Senate.

This will be our last speaking event of 2009, but next semester we have Fintan O’Toole, Luke Flanagin, Ian O’Doherty, and more TBA (although the two journalists are hard to get a hold of!).

I’m ecstatic to announce a number of things.

Firstly, Maryam Namazie, the leader of the Council for ex-Muslims in Britain and of the One-Law-For-All movement will be joining us sometime in early 2010.

Secondly, I can announce times for Michael Nugent: Thursday October 8th, 6pm. Due to Lawsoc’s event with Noam Chomsky, we’ve decided to move Senator Bacik’s slot to another time TBA.

Thirdly, it isn’t confirmed yet, but Ian O’Doherty has indicated that he would like to come and speak with us at some point during the year.

This is going to be a most exciting year, and I predict we’ll be one of the most active societies on campus, as we plan to hold events for three weeks out of every month, including at least one guest speaker.

David- Auditor

Our first event will be held on Wednesday the 23rd of September, Arts, C214. A speaker from the Humanist Association of Ireland will be with us to talk about Humanism, and there will be wine and cheese for all. The time will be shortly after 6.

I’m very happy to announce that Roscommon independent county councilor Luke “Ming” Flanagan has agreed to speak on the subject of the importance of using (non-anecdotal) evidence when legislating.

I’m more than happy to announce that the Irish Times Journalist Fintan O’Toole has agreed to speak with us on the subject of the Government, State and Secularism in the month of October.

And another minor note, we are now included in the UCD wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_College_Dublin#Societies

I’m happy to announce that Senator Ivana Bacik, who opened the first AGM at Atheist Ireland, has agreed to speak with us in the coming year on the topic of the Irish Education system.

I’d pleased to announce that Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland has agreed to speak with us. Check this space in late August for a time

David Osborn
Auditor

It is my pleasure to announce two confirmed speakers, Paul O’Donoghue, founder of the Irish Skeptics society, and Dick Spicer* of the Humanist Association of Ireland. Dick will be speaking at our inaugural event, and Paul some time later in the first semester.

We also have a preliminary agreement with a major international personality to speak in second semester, though this person’s identity will not be released until confirmed.

(*Or another senior member of the HAI board, if he is unavailable in early September.)

David Osborn
Auditor

The inaugural Mission Statement of the Society has been approved at an Extraordinary General Meeting, and uploaded to the website, here.