Welcome!

 Welcome!  SEA Events  6 Responses »
Aug 232015
 

Bus Ad

Welcome to the Society of Edmonton Atheists’ blog. 

Look to the right for information on how to:

If you’re not in Edmonton, we also have a resource list of other groups in Alberta that you may be interested in.

The “About” tab up above will give you a bit more information about the group’s history and current Board members. If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can use the “Contact Us” tab above.

You can also visit our FAQ for more information on our 2015 bus ad campaign.

Any first-time comments will be moderated to reduce spam, so please be patient.

Thanks for stopping by, and we hope to see you out at some of our upcoming activities!

Continued Misinterpretation Over School Issues

 Secularism, St. Albert School Issue  No Responses »
Sep 122019
 

Recently, the topic of The Lord’s Prayer in public schools across Alberta has come back into public media discourse, after a St. Albert school sent a letter home to parents regarding their continued practice of allowing the prayer by segregating the students into prayer and non-prayer rooms each morning.

Along with this news, there has also been a lot of discussion surrounding government budgets for school systems, after the MacKinnon Report seemed to point towards major cuts to education and healthcare systems.    This has spurred a renewed interest in topics regarding public funding of duplicate systems in our province, and discussions about ending funding to Catholic Schools, including a resurgence of my OP Ed regarding the Catholic School funding issues from December of last year.  

In both these instances, the prayer issue and funding of Catholic schools issue, the media and readers miss the nuance within the arguments.  This leads to misinterpretation of the motivations behind these concerns, and people basically writing off the issues as attacks on religion, or as anti-theist in their nature due to what is seen as atheist bias.

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This is not the motivation at all and while most of us leading the charge on these issues are outspoken atheists, faith and religion aren’t really the point.    These issues could easily be swapped out for concerns regarding racism, or sexism. The concern that segregation is happening, and that one group seemingly has extra special privileges over the rest of us is what we are actually calling out, not the religion itself.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 10:50 PM

Help ban conversion therapy!

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Aug 072019
 

Board member Tina put together some resources for us, in order to encourage the city, province and federal governments to ban conversion therapy.   Feel free to download these letter templates to use as is, or edit to make it feel more personal.

You can find local MP’s at this webpage:
https://www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members?currentOnly=true&province=AB
All other MPs at:
https://www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members

Also, remember that Federal Government mail can be sent free of charge.

Letters for Banning Conversion Therapy 

 Posted by at 8:09 PM

Summer Solstice

 Events, SEA Events  No Responses »
May 282019
 

Summer Solstice June 22nd, 4pm!      

This is at a private residence, so the exact address is not posted on the website or facebook page. Please message us or talk to us at one of our events in person to get the location.

Event is POT LUCK, so bring something for people to share (salads, chips/dip, crackers and cheese,veggie tray, fruit tray, pies etc) and if you are so inclined you can bring meat for yourself as a bbq will be availalbe for use.

Plates, cups, napkins, cutlery will be supplied. We’ll also have iced tea and lemonade.

Because this is a private residence, you are free to bring alcohol for yourself as well, make sure you arrange for a safe ride home if you do decide to drink.

We generally eat and then play some games afterwards, ending closer to 11pm or midnight. There is a yard, and areas where kids can play video games/watch movies to keep them occupied. Stop by whenever you can.

**PLEASE NOTE ANIMALS LIVE AT THIS HOUSE** (Three dogs and a rabbit). We can keep them isolated but if you are allergic you should take some allergy medicine prior to arrival.

This year we will be inviting all the groups we have had regular joint events with; Westwood Unitarian, Dying With Dignity, Secular Humanists of Alberta and the Secular Ethics Group in Stony Plain.

You can RSVP to the event on facebook, or by sending us a message:  https://www.facebook.com/events/282805132631948/

 Posted by at 10:21 AM

New Board Members

 News, People  No Responses »
Apr 072019
 

Thanks to everyone who came out to our annual general meeting this past week!   We discussed quite a few things, including what types of secular causes SEA will be supporting this year, as well as discussions on how we can be better LGBTQ+ allies, and different ideas for outreach.   Overall, a very productive meeting with lots of great ideas that will be researched and acted upon in the upcoming months.

Your executive members have remained the same, as those are 2 year terms, and 4 director positions have been filled.    Your 2019 – 2020 SEA Board members are:

President: Karen Lumley Kerr
Vice President:  Alexander Delorme
Treasurer: Mark Terpstra
Recording Secretary:  Tamara Pawluk

Directors:
Rob Chamberlain
Margaret Wardell
Ashley Zinyk
Tina Dmytryshyn

 Posted by at 4:51 PM

Be Ready Conference

 Secularism  No Responses »
Mar 222019
 

A few weekends ago I attended the ”Be Ready” Conference at the West Edmonton Christian Academy.   The organiser of the event had sent our page a message letting us know about a debate going on in Calgary as part of the weekend conference (which ran in both Calgary and Edmonton at the same time) because it included an atheist.   Unable to attend that, I looked at what was happening at the Edmonton event and noticed a talk entitled ”The Atheist Experience”


Continue reading »

 Posted by at 10:12 AM

AGM 2019

 Events, SEA Events  No Responses »
Mar 082019
 

TUESDAY, April 2nd, 2019 will be this year’s SEA Annual General Meeting (AGM), formally starting at 7:00 pm, in the Program Room at Idylwylde Library beside Bonnie Doon Mall.  We will be there from 6:30pm onwards for anyone that requires a membership or needs to renew.

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  up to four Director positions will be voted on, and if someone is interested, the final year of the Secretary term is available to be filled.

I would like to give notice that after this term is complete (April 2020) I will be stepping down as your President and taking on the Past President position the year after.  I have family concerns that need more of my attention and am also concerned that after 6 years in the position it’s time to change things up a little so we don’t stagnate as a group.  My commitment to SEA is as strong as it always has been so do not confuse this for anything that it is not.

With this in mind, April 2020 will see the President position open up, and 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).   If you intend on running for this position in the future it is worth thinking about joining the board at this years AGM.   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.  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 our current  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 one week before the meeting.

See you there!

Karen
President, SEA

 Posted by at 3:57 PM
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