EDIT: For those just looking for the UCD humanist society webpage you can just click here. I realise I’m higher on the google results page for than the official webpage for the UCD humanist society.
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Yesterday evening I attended the first official meeting of the UCD Humanist Society, a new society just getting set up in UCD (University College Dublin). There was talk of setting up some sort of skeptical, atheist or otherwise non-religious society since at least the beginning of this year, and probably for the past few years. Currently in UCD we have an Islamic Society, a Pagan Society, two Christian Societies and a pro-life society that is just another Religious Society in disguise. So we felt it was about time that a non-Religious Society got going.
I first became aware of the movement to set up a non-religious society back in January, on the UCD sub-forum of Boards.ie. There was a meeting or two with the aim of setting up a Skeptical Society, but the idea seemed to fizzle out. Then only a month ago or so I found a page on Facebook for the ASH (Atheist, Skeptic & Humanist) Society so I decided to become a fan and see what was going on. Due to exams and tutorials on at the times of the first few meetings of this fledgling society I couldn’t go, but I was very happy to learn of one last one before the end of the year that I could go to. That one was last night.
When I got there there was only 3 others there but they filled me in on the comings and goings of what had happened so far. W
e were now setting up the Humanist Society and we were going to be officially recognised by the college. We had to hold a last minute meeting to sort out a constitution and a mission statement. So we waited for about 20 minutes for the rest of the party to show up and by that time we had a grand total of 7 so we decided to go ahead with it.
We spent about an hour and a half hammering out the constitution and the mission statement, all at a fairly rapid pace, only coming to one bump in the road. We then got a quick brief on the website and we spent the last half hour coming up with ideas for what to do next year, as it will be our first year and we want to come out with a bang.
By the end of the meeting I was happy with the ideas and plans we had made and, I must admit, impressed with the people that were there. They all seemed to be very intelligent, well-read people who knew where they stood on the issues. They didn’t mind a debate, and they didn’t mind being wrong and conceding defeat. I’m looking forward to what we’ll be doing next year, the guests we’ll be getting in to speak and the debates we’ll be organising.
As things happen I’ll be posting them here. However there is also a website for the Humanist Society where members will be able to post there, so I may be doing some cross posting if all goes well.