In this blog you'll find details of our past events, as well as other information about what Plymouth Humanists get up to
Andrew Copson - What is Humanism
Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association and President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) spoke to us in January. Andrew is an enormously effective advocate for Humanist, regularly appearing in the media, and his talk was as entertaining and informative as you’d expect.
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Looking forward to 2017
2016 ended with an enjoyable social evening in the Fortescue’s cellar bar. A tasty buffet was provided, largely by Martin and Uschi’s efforts. It was great to be able spend some time chatting to local Humanists.
2017’s first meeting was a book club to discuss Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go. It’s a poignant and moving story, but only one of us could see what Ishiguro’s aim was in writing the book! The rest of us were surprised that the Sci-Fi element of the book was just a convenient handle on which to hang a story about love, friendship and mortality. Still we all enjoyed the book and had a good evening discussing it.
We’re now all looking forward to the events planned for the rest of the year, starting with Andrew Copson’s talk at the end of January.
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Wellbeing – why it matters and what we can do about it
Wellbeing is an important subject, but one that too often gets lost the bustle of day to day life. Roger Higman, director of Totnes based Network of Wellbeing, talked to us in November about why wellbeing matters and what we can do to improve it.
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Read more: Wellbeing – why it matters and what we can do about it
School Speakers training
We were fortunate in November to have a School Speakers training course run in Plymouth by the British Humanist Association. Thanks to our friends in Cornwall Humanists for arranging it.
18 people attended, mainly from Devon and Cornwall, but also from as far away as Birmingham. The course lasted a full day and was an excellent introduction in how to engage with young people about Humanist. There was also good advice on how to build relationships with schools. The BHA’s Understanding Humanism website is a rich source of resources to help school speakers, and also for anyone else wanting to better understand Humanism.
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Book Club – the Young Atheists Handbook
We were very fortunate to have Alom Shaha, author of the Young Atheists Handbook, speak to us over Skype for 30 minutes at the start of November’s book club. He answered a wide variety of questions, including telling us how well the book had been received in schools (the BHA provided a copy to every secondary school) and giving his thoughts on how he’d write it differently, now four years have passed since its publication. A good discussion amongst the eight people who’d come along then followed, continuing until the B-Bar closed and we had to leave!
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