AGM – Good or Not Good?
… depends on your point of view. It was certainly well attended – as AGM’s go. And those who attended were not backward at coming forward (as my Gran used to say) – we even experienced a unanimous vote!

The downside was we allowed some of the discussions to divert the meeting from its main purpose (to receive reports on activities – finances – elect officers etc) and, as a consequence struggled to get through a full agenda in a way which allowed sufficient time to each and every item.

However – there were heartfelt views expressed and a feeling that work was being done at this meeting – even if this meeting possibly wasn’t the place to be doing that work.

I left looking forward to 2011 with optimism; given the enthusiasm for a more pro-active engagement with the community to make as many people as possible aware of our core values.

Much AGM business did get done – thanks to members dragging the meeting back to the job-in-hand.
A new Treasurer was elected – a steering group of elected officers and ordinary members was floated – and a brand new post ‘On-Line Marketing Officer’ was created.

Full minutes will be forwarded to all Members.

The LSH hosted ‘Exploring Humanism’ Course – written and led by GMH’s Robin Grintner & Anna Whitehead – got off to a good start on Saturday 25th September.

The Committee Room at the Gt Eccleston Village Centre* was ‘just’ big enough to accommodate the eight participants – plus Robin & Anna … but nevertheless served us very well indeed.

The original course was designed to run over six weeks but to overcome excessive travel and room hire costs Robin & Anna have worked hard to re-design it to fit into three X three-hour sessions – each session now comprising of two modules instead of the original one … Consequently this first week covering ‘Humanist Beliefs & Practice’ and ‘The Historical Roots Of Humanism’ was necessarily ‘busy’ to say the least … a lot to fit in!

However, by the end of the morning those there all agreed it had been interesting; informative; thought-provoking; stimulating; (at times) challenging but also entertaining.

That enthusiasm augers well for the remaining two sessions – and I (for one) am eagerly anticipating next week ‘Humanist Moral Values’ and ‘How Humanists Handle Moral Dilemmas’ as well as the concluding session ‘The Meaning And Purpose Of Life For Humanists’ and ‘Humanism Today’ – concluding with a review of the course.

A comprehensive review of the completed course will feature in next month’s Newsletter.

[*With more than a passing sense of irony we were amused to discover the downstairs rooms were being used by a ‘Crystal Healing’ group - but I’m pleased to be able to report no-one with us was tempted to invest in Chakra Jewellery [£30] (to balance the energy centres of the body encouraging more efficient healing, to feel more energized and to have a more positive outlook on life) … Money Toads [£5] (to be placed facing the door during the daytime, to attract abundance, and faced away from the door during the night time, to keep the abundance in the home) … or Oracle Cards [£12] (for divination and inner guidance)]

As explained in the previous post (http://www.lancshumanism.org.uk:/blog/?p=61) having naively failed to anticipate erupting volcanoes it transpired that we had no speaker for our long-awaited Dignity in Dying debate for April’s meeting at Great Eccleston. At very short notice we managed to download a DiD recommended you-tube Battle-of-Brains debate hosted by The Institute of Ideas ‘Should Doctors Be Able to Help Us Die?’

Chaired by Helen Birtwistle, press officer for the Institute of Ideas, the four protagonists were: Raymond Tallis; Brendan O’Neill; Debbie Purdy and Kevin Yuill.

Raymond Tallis was Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester and, amongst many other things [far too many to list here] was Chair of the Royal College of Physicians Committee on Ethics in Medicine.

Brendan O’Neill is the editor of spiked and writes widely for publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He is also a feature-writer for the Christian Science Monitor in America and for the BBC in Britain.

Debbie Purdy became a Board member of Dignity in Dying following Diane Pretty’s battle a decade ago, then gave up her place on the Board to pursue her own legal case to clarify the existing law. Debbie won this case in June 09 and awaits the DPP’s interim policy on assisting suicide.

Kevin Yuill is senior lecturer in History & American Studies at Sunderland University. He’s preparing a book outlining a humanist, libertarian case against assisted suicide. Previously, he has published articles in Spiked, The Spectator, and The Tablet and other journals on assisted suicide.

The hour-long debate – interspersed with questions and comments from the floor [some more ‘pithy’ than others] – provided a good launching pad for our own debate to continue.

Unfortunately the sound quality of the debate was not all it could have been and [at times] required a great deal of effort by some of our forty-odd strong audience to hear everything being discussed … especially those at the back of the room or who already had impaired hearing. We can only apologise for that and hope the resulting discussions between ourselves went some way to redressing any points which might have been missed in the screened debate.

Anyone wanting to re-visit the debate can do so here: http://fora.tv/2009/11/01/Should_Doctors_Be_Able_to_Help_Us_Die#chapter_01