Welcome to the Society of Edmonton Atheists’ blog. If this is your first time visiting, click “Continue Reading” to get a quick summary of what’s here.
The Society of Edmonton Atheists are proud to be founding sponsors of the AB Secular Conference. The conference location varies each year as it travels the province. You can follow them on facebook or check out their website for the latest news.
A big thank you to Paulogia for skyping with us for our latest round table event, we had a great time talking about everything from Ken Ham, the Alberta Bible Quiz, Alberta Homeschooling to George Lucas and Star Wars!
If you want to check out Paul’s youtube channel you can find him here: Paulogia on Youtube!
Due to some recent facebook privacy issues, events are no longer linking to our page via our widget. We’ve been told they are trying to find a work-around, but in the meanwhile we’ll be looking at other options for our events calendar on our website.
For now, here are the most recent upcoming events:
April 29th, 9:00am – Breakfast at Bonnie Doon Mall Albert’s Family Restaurant
May 1st, 7:oopm – Round Table event, Edmonton Health Clinic Academy, Room 1-121. We will be voting on our bylaws that were amended at the AGM from 7:00 until 7:15pm, and then skyping with Paulogia from Calgary about his vlogcast.
May 1st, 9:15pm – Pub Night at Sherlock Holmes on Campus.
Thanks to everyone who came out to our Annual General Meeting and helped shape the next year for our Society. We are adding a quarterly volunteer event at the Food Bank, we will be having a 10 year anniversary party/1 year memorial for Michael Vester this year, and look forward to continuing to share events with other local like minded groups, including the Secular Humanists, Secular Ethics group in Stony Plain, and the Unitarian Churches in the city. We also voted to include a low-income membership, on a case by case basis. This will be added to our website soon.
A few bylaw concerns came up during the meeting, which we were too late to vote on that night as members need prior notice, however, we did work on the re-wording and will have an General Meeting prior to the next round table event in May to quickly vote on these so they can be submitted this year with our filing. This would allow us to implement them for next April’s AGM.
Our current bylaws allow us to have one person sit as Treasurer and Secretary, which we wanted to update. You can find the proposed changes in red here: 2018-BYLAWS PROPOSED CHANGES (changes include adding line 34, removing line 37, updating line 43 and adding a word to line 46.)
A big thank you to our previous board members and congratulations to your new 2018-2019 board!
In the spring of 2015 my son was enrolled at Sir George Simpson school in St. Albert, and we had an email message sent to all parents about sex education classes that would be offered. At the time, I was already aware of the issues with the Pregnancy Care Centre providing abstinence-only based sex ed classes, due to the stories out of Edmonton, where they were banned from presenting. I immediately contacted the Principal of the school to express my concerns and to withdraw my consent from my son participating. I made it quite clear that I was not withdrawing consent because I was not willing to allow him a proper sex education, but rather that this was NOT a proper sex education and that instead I would be teaching him at home.
Karen Lumley Kerr
Running for President
SEA Board history:
Vice President April 2013 – April 2014
President April 2014 – April 2018
Unfortunately, we didn’t get our goal of 20 committed SEA members signed up for marching in the parade by the deadline, however, we did get enough to man the booth for the day. So, if you volunteered to help with the booth we’ll be in touch once our application is approved with more news on shifts you can sign up for.
If you will really miss marching, the Unitarian Church has extended an invitation to march alongside with them (they have an atheist community within their congregation). Just let us know and we’ll pass on your info to them for their waiver forms.
A big thank you to our board member Mark T, for organizing our volunteer night at the food bank, and to all of you that came to help out. A two hour volunteer shift was easy and there is something for everyone, regardless of ability, to help with. Age limit for volunteering on your own is 14 years old, but one to one adult/kid ratio is allowed for kids 10 and over, so this makes it a great opportunity for family groups to get involved.
After our volunteer shift was over there was some chatter about doing this every 2 months or so as a group, so if you are interested watch for another event in the near future. In the meanwhile, you can also sign up to volunteer whenever you’d like by visiting their volunteer page.
TUESDAY, April 10, 2018 will be this year’s SEA Annual General Meeting (AGM), formally starting at 7:00 pm, Edmonton Clinic Health Academy at the U of A, Room ECHA 1-498. We will be there from 6:30pm onwards for anyone that requires a membership or needs to renew. Please note this is the SECOND Tuesday of the month, one week later than we usually meet.
Anyone interested is invited to attend; however, only paying members will be permitted to vote in the general election or on any other business.
If you are at all interested in running for the Board, please take a look at our explanation of the roles and responsibilities for each position, as well as some FAQs about joining the Board. This year all Executive positions and four Director positions will be voted on. Please bear in mind in order to run for President you have to have served on the board for at least one year (throughout the history of the group), so if you intend on running for this position in the future it is worth thinking about joining the board. In order to run for Treasurer you must have been a member in good standing for at least a year. You can email us to let us know that you’d like to run for a Board position (even if you will not be present at the meeting), ask another member to nominate you at the appropriate point during the meeting, or you may also self-nominate at the meeting.
If you would like to run for any of the board positions we also encourage you to send in your ”campaign”…including goals for the group and what skills you feel you will bring to the table. We will feature them on the website and facebook page prior to the AGM so people can make informed decisions regarding who they want to vote for.
If you would like to see 2017 BYLAWS, they can be found on the website, under “About”.
If you would like to propose changes for consideration at the AGM, they must be sent to the Board for distribution to the rest of the membership in advance of the meeting. Please try to have those into us before April 2nd, one week before the meeting.
We hope to have a large turnout as we will also be discussing the direction of the SEA, what types of events you are interested in and fundraising ideas. As per usual we will head to the pub afterwards for sustenance. See you there!
Karen
President, SEA
As a group we march each year to show our support for LGBT+ community!
This year the Pride Parade is on June 9th, and parade participants usually have to arrive around 11am.
Unfortunately, last year we had a poor showing for marchers and volunteer booth workers. We have come to the decision that if we don’t have enough commitment for 2018 we won’t be able to participate in both.
In order to apply to march in the Pride Parade we need a minimum of 20 committed SEA members plus one person willing to be a Pride Marshall (which will require a separate training event to attend).
In order to apply for a booth at Pride we need a minimum of 10 committed SEA members as volunteers for the day and we need at least 2 people willing to work the booth WHILE the parade is happening if we want to do both. Generally the booth opens at 9am and runs until the festivities end at 7pm.
Please contact us via email or through facebook messenger to show your support and commit yourself to helping SEA have a strong presence at Pride this year.
UPCOMING EVENT OF INTEREST, hosted by the Centre for Constitutional Studies:
Debate: Alberta Should Have One Public School System, Not Two
For the Motion:
David King
Former Minister of Education and Executive Director of the Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta
Against the Motion:
JK Donlevy
Professor, University of Calgary Werklund School of Education
Thursday, February 8, 2018
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM
TELUS Centre – Auditorium (Rm 150)
University of Alberta (87 Ave & 111 St)
Join us for a spirited debate on whether Alberta should change its dual school system of public and separate schools to one public school system. What are the constitutional considerations?
This event is free and open to the public.
Register Here (to help us estimate attendance)
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