Yay, productivity!

Today was an awesome day.

I met with my officers today, and we discussed at great length the feedback we got from the brainstorming session last week. We made a lot of decisions, in terms of what we need to be doing before fall. In mostly chronological order:

We are going to have my VP talk to Phil Plait about speaking for us this fall. He has already offered to come speak to the astronomy club (that my VP is president of) for free, so we think this will not be too hard a sell. He will, we hope, be our big name speaker for the fall. We also decided there was no harm in trying to find out about getting Neil DeGrasse Tyson for the spring. I wrote an email to the "Request a Speaking Engagement" address on his website this evening, asking for information about bringing him in in the spring. Here's hoping!

The first big event we are concerned with is the Celebration of Mines, our fall club fair. I've ordered tabling supplies from the SSA, found a link about buying Darwin fish and other things in bulk, emailed the RDF about buying Out Campaign stuff in bulk, and my treasurer is going to talk to the person in charge of such things tomorrow to be sure we have a booth space reserved. We decided that instead of having people write their name and email on a list, we'll have them type it into a spreadsheet on my tablet-- no handwriting issues, and my tablet has enough battery to last through the day with no problems. We'd like to have event cards to give out-- that is, an index card or smaller sized thing that has information for the next event we are doing. We also talked about having people fill out surveys so we can get a better feel for the campus's attitudes, and about having some sort of game for giving away swag. We're not yet sure what we will do to attract attention, but we'll put some thought into it.

We talked for a while about other events-- debates we could host, movie nights, getting a group together to go to the Reason Rally next year-- and then moved onto service. We love the idea of helping with Jeffco's Outdoor Lab program, and reaching out to the Girl Scouts (but NOT the Boy Scouts-- they allow neither gays nor atheists). In the nearer future, we'd like to help clean the campus-- pick up trash, mostly-- and donate to the food bank, or a similar organization. Those are simple things to get started in, and if we're going to reach Tier 3, we have to do at least 3 service events a year.

Then we moved onto education, and started talking about my VP's pet project. He wants to collect videos of people talking about how they came to be atheist/agnostic/humanist/whatever label they wear, and put them online somehow. It's rather nebulous at this point, but this does make it very convenient that our faculty adviser is also in charge of the AV Club. I decided to find out about what it might cost to get a more professional website set up; a friend is researching that for me now.

Fundraising is always a challenge; we have decided that our big event is going to be an annual Flying Spaghetti Monster Dinner. Buy a plate, get spaghetti and a raffle ticket (more raffle tickets can be purchased at an additional cost) and some kind of entertainment. Servers will dress as pirates, naturally. We're thinking this should happen in November; we've already decided that there will be a committee for it.

Finally we talked about other groups we could cooperate with. Sigma Lambda (the local GLBT group) came up again, as well as APO-- I am told they do a lot of philanthropy, and would be happy to work with us. We also talked about gradually taking over the newspaper-- apparently a few years ago they were all super conservative and Christian. This has improved, but it's about time we got another voice in the paper.

As the meeting wound down and we talked about committees, we got a little silly. The committees would all have excessive names:
- Fundraising: There's Always Money in the Banana Stand Committee
- FSM Dinner: The Committee Touched By His Noodly Appendage
- Outreach: Really, We Don't Eat Babies
- Events: Cool People Doing Cool Things
- Planning: Hindsight Is 20/20, Foresight Should Be 20/20
- Executive (officers): Committee for Investigation of Recursive Committees

Then we made a to-do list, which I have already made a good start on. All in all, a very productive day.

It's (almost) official!

On Thursday, I and a couple others from my group met with Dr. Shorey, who was interested in being our faculty advisor. Dr. Shorey is probably my favorite professor that I have yet met at Mines. He's a paleoclimatologist who teaches in the Geology department, and I am so fond of his teaching method that I went out of my way to have him again this semester. He uploads all his lecture powerpoints to his website-- but a lot of professors do that. He also has a podcast series for every topic he lectures on-- if you miss a class, you can go and listen to the lecture. Best of all, he has a list of objectives for every subject, things that might apper on the test. He talks a lot about things that are not objectives, and many of these things are fascinating, but having the objectives makes note-taking and studying vastly easier. But none of these are why I like him so much. I like him because he is incredibly enthusiastic about what he does. I love it.

So Dr. Shorey was interested in being our advisor. He runs the AV club, offered to help us do podcasts, or take videos of speakers to share. He has some great ideas about speakers and discussions we can have. He brought the same enthusiasm to us that he brings to the classroom. This makes me very happy; having a faculty advisor who is so enthusiastic and so on board will make this all very much easier. So we got him to sign our paperwork, and I turned it in that afternoon.

Less than an hour later I had an email to set up our orgsync page. Orgsync is the website that all student groups are encouraged to use for organization, scheduling, and such. I got it set up, created events for our upcoming meeting and for Ask An Atheist Day, invited all the group members for which I had contact info. I also set up a twitter account for us (@SSACSM), and through orgsync, set up a website.

We will hopefully be made official on tuesday, that being the next time the student board meets, and they need to approve our application. I submitted the application to officially affiliate with the SSA, with a note that we were not yet official but would be, soon. We've got the lecture hall reserved for our introductory meeting on Thursday, and fliers are up advertising it. I've been working on my presentation/talk for that meeting. I've also found out who I need to talk to in order to set up a table for Ask An Atheist Day.

I said it before, but I will say it again: here we go!

Here we go!

Well, it's official.

Almost, anyway.

Today I finally met the elusive Matt, and collapsed his wave-function most favorably indeed. Cats have been herded, we got all the student signatures we need, our by-laws are ready except for our statement of purpose (which will be done within a couple of days), we've got a faculty adviser who just needs to sign the form, and we have a President, Vice President, and Treasurer already in place. (I am that president, by the way, a fact which pleases me even though I know it'll make life busy as hell next year.) We even have our first TWO things planned!

We are going to be an officially branded affiliate of the SSA, bearing the name "Secular Student Alliance at the Colorado School of Mines" or "SSACSM" if we are being lazy. Huzzah for support from a national organization. We decided today that, whether we have ourselves made official by the school yet or not, we would like to have an informational meeting on Thursday, April 12. There will be pizza (our new VP offered to buy it) and I'll be talking for a few minutes about who we are and why we exist and what we want to do.

A week later is National Ask An Atheist Day. Since we've already got one thing going, we figured, why not do another? Get us some visibility, grow our membership. (Did I mention that the SSA will give me business cards? Not really related to the current topic, I'm just excited about it.) We're going to set up a table, either in the student center or the big field where people hang out, depending on the weather, with SSA banners and stuff and a big sign that says "Atheists! Ask Away!" Should be fun.

In the mean time, I've got to make sure the by-laws are good, come up with a mission statement we can agree on, create a powerpoint and write some sort of presentation for that first meeting, ask whether the Meyer Hall lecture hall is open at the time we want, meet with Dr. Young for his signature, get all the paperwork into the Student Activities office, and ask a few important questions there, approve a flier that has not been created yet for posting, help post fliers... and maintain my grades, of course.

I do believe I'm about to be busier than I have ever been before.

Bring it on.

Herding Cats

Today, I'm wearing a button with the logo of the Secular Student Alliance. This makes me a little nervous, for a couple of reasons. One, I'm not the most naturally social person, and I am wearing this button in the hopes that people will ask me about it and I can tell them about the group I am trying to start. I am a little afraid that it will have the effect I want, and also a little afraid that it will not, and then I'll have to find a better way. Two, I'm not certain what I will tell people if they do ask me about it; there's been some difficulty with communication, which I will talk more about it a bit. And three, of course, I wonder if it will change people's perception of me in a negative fashion. It is not so obvious as the sticker I'd put on my tablet if I were sure it would stick-- that one says "I'm an atheist! Ask away!" or something of the sort, because the SSA likes to host "Ask an atheist" events. In fact it's probably too subtle for anyone who didn't know what to look for to recognize, which means most of the people who would know what it meant would be friendly, but...

Story time. I've been an atheist for much longer than I have known I was. Once I realized I was an atheist, I didn't have a big coming out or anything. Nor did I feel I was hiding-- my closest friends knew how I felt, why should I tell everyone? Then one night, after a few drinks, I had someone ask me straight up if I was an atheist, and I told him yes, I was... and he stopped talking to me. He avoided me for weeks. And then when he did start talking to me again, it was weird and awkward, like he didn't know how he was supposed to treat me. That is far less severe than I know others have faced. Public perception of atheists is extremely bad-- a recent survey said people trust us about as much as they trust rapists. Things are improving-- where we used to be the most hated group in America, we've now been displaced by the Tea Party. Of course, that could just be because they're louder and more obnoxious. There are a lot of people who are afraid to let the world know that they don't believe in god.

In part, I am afraid of how people will react, too... but in part, I am simply unsure if I want to take this on. It seems a bit like tilting at windmills, trying to alter public perception of such a group of people. I will take it on, though. I made that decision before I set the wheels in motion to start this group. Speaking of which...
Organizing atheists, it has been said, is a little like herding cats. We all very much value our own thoughts and reason, and therefore getting us to follow anyone else is a bit difficult. At least, that's my theory on why we're so difficult to organize. Anyway. When I arrived at Mines and found that there wasn't an atheist/secular/nontheist/skeptics/ANYTHING group, I was a bit miffed. Surely, at a school where everyone is studying science in one way or another, there would be more of us? But no. There are eleven Christian groups, one Muslim group, and nothing for the rest of us. So, when I was getting things in order this semester, I thought I would see about finding others here, maybe starting a group. That set things in motion-- a board member from the SSA contacted me, I met with him as soon as spring break was over, and things are going well. Mostly.

Another person on campus, it turns out, requested a group starting packet back in January. Nate promptly emailed him about meeting and talking about things. And then heard nothing, until last week. Matt (this other student) says that he's gotten a lot of the legwork done, he's found other interested students, and he apologizes for not replying and invites Nate to a meeting on Tuesday... but does not say where this meeting is. Now, I would be happy to collaborate with other students, especially if they've done the part that I find hardest already. But if he vanishes for two months and then doesn't even give us a location... well, the kindest thing I can think of is that he's a space cadet, who forgets things when he's busy. Which makes me wonder how suitable he would be for running a group of this kind. Nate, it seems, is as wary as I am. If we cannot reach Matt to find this meeting tomorrow, how long should we give it before we give up on him and I just do it myself? I don't know.

I would rather avoid this drama. There's bound to be drama enough once the group gets going (it's inevitable, really), I'd rather not have any before we even get off the ground. *sigh*