Brian Whiteside on Humanist Ceremonies – Wed 17th

This Wednesday at 1pm in the Student Center Brian Whiteside will be giving a talk on Humanist Ceremonies. Brian is the most well known Humanist Minister in Ireland and has presided over a large number of Naming Ceremonies, Weddings & Funerals, as well as other events.

This talk is of particular importance given the number of high profile Humanist funerals lately, as well as the huge increase of Humanist ceremonies in general. Brian will be giving a short talk, followed by questions afterwards. So if you’re close to any of these milestones, know somebody that is,or just want to find out more make sure to come along.

Humanist Ceremonies are secular ceremonies which mark milestones in a persons life such as Naming Ceremonies, Marriage & Funerals. For more information see here : http://www.humanism.ie/website/ceremonies

We hope to see you there.
Best Regards
Chris Salij

UCD Humanist Society joins the AHS

We are pleased to announce that the UCD Humanist Society has joined the AHS.

The AHS is the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies. We are the umbrella organisation for all non-religious student societies in institutes of higher education across the UK.

As we aren’t a UK based group we’ve joined as an associate member organisation. We hope this will lead to greater cooperation between ourselves and other secular student groups like us in the future. The experience and knowledge of other groups and the AHS it’s self should help us to become an even better society.

New associate member: UCD Humanist Society

UCD Humanist Society (Facebook, Twitter) were founded in March 2009, and have held a number of events since then, including talks by PZ Myers and Ian O’Doherty. Chris Salij is their President, and Rita Harrold is their AHS Rep. Rita is also a counsellor of Camp Quest UK, helped set up Camp Quest Ireland and is on the Board of Directors of the Humanist Association of Ireland. The society charges €2 per person for membership. UCD are our third Irish member.

With UCD joining the AHS, the AHS has gained 7 members since the 2010 AGM in mid-July, meaning that the AHS has grown by 50% over the last three months. AHS President Richy Thompson commented, “Excellent.”

Written by Richy Thompson

By Rita Harrold Society Secretary

 

James Randi Lecture Cancelled

It is my sad duty to announce that the James Randi lecture scheduled for Thursday the 14th of October has been cancelled.

This was due to be our first event of the year, and a rather large one at that. Mr Randi is travelling to the UK for TAM London, and agreed to fly in a few days early in order to come to Ireland. However due to various issues, including an increase in the price of flights from Florida (where he is based), it has become infeasible for Mr Randi to visit Ireland before his event in London. Thus we have had to cancel the event.

We are still talking with the JREF in the hope that we will be able to get Mr. Randi back before the end of the academic year. He seems keen to come to speak to the Humanist Society so a visit before next year’s TAM London is still on the cards.

However there is some good news, the organisers of TAM London have given us a ticket, worth €230, to the event on the 16th/17th of October. In order to help recoup the costs of the event which we have incurred (getting posters printed etc) we will be offering this ticket to any member of the society or any person who has reserved a seat for our event.

See this page for a list of speakers/performers. http://www.tamlondon.org/

The cost of the ticket is €200 (€30 less than the official website). If you wish to purchase this ticket, and are available to travel to the event in London on the 16/17th of October, contact us immediately (ucdhumanist@gmail.com). The ticket does not cover travel and accommodation costs, you will have to organise these yourself.

Because the event is little more than a week away, and prices for flights and accommodation are rising. If there are no offers by this Friday at Noon, I will randomly draw a name from those that have reserved seats and offer than person the ticket.

It is our deepest regret that this event is not going ahead and our sincerest apologies if we’ve caused any inconvenience.

More details regarding our next event will come shortly.

Best Regards

Chris Salij

(Auditor)

James Randi: First Speaker of the Year

The UCD Humanist Society is proud to announce that James Randi, the world famous Magician, Skeptic and Paranormal & Pseudoscience Debunker will be speaking to the Humanist Society on October 14th at 6pm in the UCD Arts building, Theatre L. He will be presented with an honorary lifetime membership of the society.

He is flying to Ireland to speak to the UCD Humanist Society and will not be appearing elsewhere in Ireland. Make sure not to miss him. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The title for his lecture will be “Search for the Chimera”, An Overview of How Science Has Pursued Magic and Miracles in the 20th Century and Into the 21st Century. http://bit.ly/dizyV1

James Randi is most well known for his $1,000,000 paranormal challenge for anyone who can prove under scientific conditions that they possess paranormal abilities (so far nobody has won it). He also founded the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation) and is known for his role in debunking Uri Gellar. As well as many other achievements, too many to list here.

Seats are strictly limited for the event so make sure to contact ucdhumanist@gmail.com to reserve a place. Entry is free for members, €2 for students and €5 for everybody else. If enough people contact us, we will book a larger venue.

If you wish to book a media interview please contact the society directly.

(Click on the poster below for a full sized PDF)

A new committee, A new year.

We’ve finalised our committee for the ’10/’11 year. The committee is as follows.

• Auditor: Chris Salij
• Secretary: Rita Harrold
• Treasurer: Aoibheana Hobson
• OCM: Liz Jennings

This will be our second year as a society and we’re ready & raring to go. This year we managed to get such celebrity speakers as PZ Myers, we also had talks from high profile guests like Dick Spicer, Ian O’ Doherty, Paul O’Donoghue & Michael Nugent.

Our former auditor, David Osborn, took part in the famous L&H God Debate as well as writing a number of articles for the college papers. We want to continue this fantastic start and so we’re currently gathering ideas for events and speakers for next year.

We’ve got a few ideas up our collective sleeve, but we’d appreciate knowing what you would like to see. So if you have  events you’d like us to hold, or any guest speakers you’d like to see, please feel free to contact us.

We’re also going to be using our facebook and twitter pages quite a lot more than last year. So do join our group and follow us.

For any suggestions, questions, comments or ideas, You have 4 ways to get in touch with us.

• Via our Facebook group
• @UCDHumanist on twitter
• Commenting on this website
• Emailing us directly on ucdhumanistsociety [at] gmail.com

We appreciate any feedback you give us and wish you a (hopefully) sunny summer.

AGM

Our AGM will be held in Arts 101a at 6pm on Wednesday 21st of April, 2010. On the agenda is the election of the new committee, and reports on the year’s activity.

New event – ‘Fitna’ and ‘Submission’

The UCD Humanist Society will be hosting a film night at 6pm on Wed 24th of February in UCD Arts Room A109. We will be showing two short films, ‘Fitna’ and ‘Submission’ As always, all are very welcome.

Both films are polemic works that explore the issues of gender and terrorism associated with Islamic extremism and Islamic texts.

Geert Wilders, who made the film “Fitna” is an outspoken critic of Islam and is currently on trial in the Netherlands for comments made against the Islamic religion. The movie is therefore topical, and of interest to anyone who is of the Islamic faith, or indeed to anyone who is curious about free speech and its relationship with organized religion.

PZ Myers update

At 6.30 on February 2nd in Theatre B in the Science Hub, PZ Myers will be giving a talk with the University College Dublin Secular Humanist Society (now in our first year!), and will receive an honourary lifetime membership of the society in recognition of his contribution to the evolution-creation controversy and the general secular/atheist discourse.

The event is open to the public, with entry costing non-students 5 euro. However, spaces for non-UCD students are limited. If you’re interested, please contact me at ucdhumanistsociety@gmail.com and I’ll put you on the guest list. Tickets can be collected from UCD by appointment, or you can pay at the door, though this isn’t recommended. (Please note that right of admission is reserved and we cannot fill the theatre beyond capacity and if it fills out we will have to turn away anyone who arrives.)

Thanks goes to NUIG Skeptic Soc and Zoosoc for getting the ball rolling. If you’re interested in seeing him in Galway, please contact them via skeptic.nuigalway.ie

PZ Myers

We’re very pround to announce that on Tuesday2nd of feb, PZ Myers, Humanist of the year 09 and writer of Pharyngula, the world’s top rated science blog, will be speaking with us. Venue TBA, time 6.30 PM.

Freedom Of Speech Means Freedom To Offend

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.