We had a pretty decent size crowd this past Sunday: Ann, Sean, Brian, John, Tabitha, Lisa, Tara, Adam, Molly, Lyn, Jessica, Suze, Joe, Sue, Judy, Charles, Derek, Pam, Adrienne, Antonio, and Scott!
Good to see you if you were there, if not, hope to see you again soon!
Apparently, Saving Christmas was a hit for the Christmas Movie night at Lyn's house - Kirk Cameron explained away the pagan roots of the Christmas tree by pointing out that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a tree... as was the cross. OH. EM. GEE. The next movie night will be Footloose.
Also, in local upcoming events that our members might find interesting, there will be this.
Book Club will be having a Holiday Party on the 28th from 5-730 pm at Earth Fare. Gently used books, wrapped, can be exchanged as part of the party's book swap! Huzzah!
We are updating the SCOTT directory. Adrienne is in charge of it - if you'd like a copy, just be sure to sign up yourself. Only people included get copied in on it.
Charles has completed treatments for his tumor! More good news!
There is talk of a Drinking Skeptically in Winston Salem at a bar/bookshop. I think it's this one? Let us know if you'd be interested, and we can set it up!
Apparently, IHOP does fundraising breakfasts where 15% of the bill comes back as a donation to the group's cause.
We're going to be setting up a walk through the neighborhood where they host the Running of the Balls, an event I didn't feel well enough to participate in this past weekend. We were thinking January 1st! It should be up on the Meetup site soon! Come, walk, enjoy the lights!
We finished the shelving project!
Working on shelves
Staining!
Remember these? Our first project at the IRC, in use!
One of the finished, stained shelves!!! ...and John!
We talked about polygamy. This was an almost oddly centered discussion - it ranged a bit, but mostly it came back to the main topic. It was pretty quickly pointed out (by Lyn, I believe) that polygamy is nearly always used to talk about polygyny - not polyandry. I found this yes, it's wikipedia, but it's cited: Of the 1,231 societies listed in the 1980 Ethnographic Atlas, 186 were found to be monogamous; 453 had occasional polygyny; 588 had more frequent polygyny; and 4 had polyandry.[3] Polyandry is less rare than this figure suggests, as it considered only those examples found in the Himalayan mountains (28 societies). More recent studies have found more than 50 other societies practicing polyandry.[4]
Charles talked about the Canaanite "El," his wife Asher. We talked about Eloh and the plural Elohim. Moonies, or Church of God, believe in a YHWH as a father god and Elohim as a mother god figure. We talked about gendering of language and how the spirit of god is often referred to as feminine. We got, a bit, into a discussion of pronouns and gender neutrality. We talked a bit about polyamory.
A few people shared anecdotes about polygyny from Mormon sects and from other countries. One of the newcomers did not appear to enjoy this, so we tactfully told her that this was a safe space for people to share opinions and experiences.
This particular discussion was a lot more focused than some of the others we've had, but I thought it was a good one and would like to applaud everyone who had anything to contribute. You guys are great, and I can't wait to see you all next week (though not the one after that - I'll be in PA.)
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Organizer Meeting
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We're going to be setting up a PayPal Account/Quickbooks - this was approved unanimously.
We're changing the bylaws to reflect the following election procedures:
- We will be asking for nominations AND acceptance from the nominees before anyone can be elected - thereby ensuring that people WANT the positions for which they are being nominated.
- We will be introducing consecutive term limits - officers may be elected twice in a row but not a third time sequentially. Someone else must run, be elected, and serve a term before an officer can be re-elected beyond their second term. Obviously, this is to make certain that no one fossilizes in leadership, and that we get good people in the rotation as often as possible.
- We will be holding elections every year on the 2nd Sunday in February. (Survey will be opened)
501c3 Status will be applied for in January of 2020.
Dave Warnock will be coming early next year, we will be contributing money for a hotel room for him, though he will be driving here on his own dime. We wanted to collect a small honorarium at $5 a head for those attending - or more if anyone wants to contribute more.
We have a line on t-shirts. More information will be forthcoming.
Street Cleanup will be the January 11th. Stay tuned for location and event.
Treasury reports that our current funds are $497.97
Until next time, love you all!
