Last I'd heard from Earth Fare, they still aren't certain as to when they are going to be closing the doors and locking them. I've just e-mailed the Griffin Community Center in Jamestown (thank you Rachel Moore for the suggestion), the only rec center in Greensboro that has advertised Sunday hours (we'd have to back things up to 1pm). I plan on checking in with some of the other places we'd looked in the past: McKay's and the local libraries (both would, I believe, make us back things up as well.) This Sunday, we'll be meeting to come up with a game plan for where and when to meet in the future - same time - 11 am:
475 Windflower lane
Ashebore, NC 27205
Obviously, nothing will be decided until later, and if you cannot make it to this but have ideas, please let me know. I want as much input here as possible. I don't think that there's exactly a huge number of places where we can hold Secular Sunday, but we really ought to chase down any available leads. That brings me to a big THANK YOU to everyone who has already e-mailed me with suggestions. And, keep them coming. If you have an idea, but you haven't sent it to me yet, it may be the one that gets a place to meet.
Without further ado, here are the notes from February 2nd:
Announcements
Lisa's potluck was a success, and it will be a reoccurring event! Huzzah!
While we're on the subject of how great Lisa is, she deserves a great many hats off for having organized Dave Warnock's talk/ Q&A, which was awesome. As of this e-mail, I still cannot find the Greensboro video on his website, so I will be posting my broken up thirty minutes of it soon. (I'll be a bit busy in the next few days ... see above!)
The Book Club will be meeting to discuss A Freethinker's Gospel - location is TBD, and Molly will be sending a survey out this Saturday to poll about a new location. You can still RSVP on the link there.
The Craft(y) meetup was another success, and Jessica was mentioning that she might host those on the last Friday of every month - check the Meetup site for more!
Indivisible is hosting a Power Hour - check the link for details.
Democratic Women of Guilford County will be having a Meet and Greet with Candidates this month - according to the site, the date is TBD.
If you want access to the SCOTT facebook group, message me,
Meeting
For some reason that has eluded my notes, we began today talking about entertaining videos and websites on the internet (MOST are at least tangentially connected to good-natured jabs at religion). Included are the ones I remembered:
(A LOT OF THESE ARE NOT SAFE FOR WORK)
Noah's Ark (by Ricky Gervais)
Noah's Ark (by Eddie Izzard)
Mr. Pickles (Anything beyond this video is Not Even Close to Safe for Work)
Amazon's "The Boys" Chiristian nationalist/evangelist commentary (can't find a video of it... It's good!)
We talked about generational marketing, Hitchhiker's Guide, queuing, Stonehenge (where, apparently, the ticket booths and queue have no real meaning). We got into faith, nationalism, sacraments, and the use of scripture to reinforce injustice - particularly slavery. Herd mentality and scriptural interpretations came up. We talked about cultural identity and the rooting of religion within those identities. Roger talked about Dave Warnock's response to why there appear to be so few black members of atheist communities. Dave's response was basically, "I've noticed that, but I'm not black, so I wouldn't venture to say..." From there, the conversation turned to the use of term "African American," and its inherent problems. (Apparently, someone - not in our group - called Idris Elba "African American" - He's Welsh, dammit!) Toward the end of the discussion, we got into the possibility that Roger may not ever again be joining us - if a recent acquaintance is correct about having prayed for him and The Thing That Can Give Him Faith occurs... whatever that is...
Roger... are you out there? Did it happen?
If I missed anything, I'm sorry! I love and value you all! Please, check your e-mail as time goes by. Survey results will be published soon, we're still doing t-shirt stuff, and WE HAVE TO FIND A NEW PLACE TO MEET! AUGH!
-Sean
