Congress of Rational Moral Communities
I was looking forward so much to The Fellowship of Reason's 2003 conference on starting local branches, which was cancelled, that I've started discussions on the forums of the secularist groups I'm involved in, asking for volunteer workers to help me step up to the plate and organize this type of conference. It will be a congress of all moral communities that promote reason as primary, and do not require that we pretend to respect blind faith. The way I envision it, F.O.R., Universists, North Texas Church of Freethought, Houston Church of Freethought, Church of Virus, Brights Net, Reason's Fellowship, and the Center for Inquiry's new "Communities" program would be invited as delegations of equals. The purpose will be to network and plan how to promote this type of community. What I'm been saying to them is:
"if one of our organizations grows in our society, we all grow. Our differences are mostly allergic reactions to vocabulary, and are not as important as our common ground. We can make our shared goals work, if we all team together to share our brainstorming ideas!"
Imagine that it would go something like this.
Saturday
3:00 p.m. Opening Ceremonies, we welcome and introduce each other.
4:00 p.m. Keynote speeches from people who started the various groups, depending on whichever ones will attend. I would love to have Ford Vox, Martin Cowen, David Lucifer and Timothy Gorski among others.
5:00 p.m. How to start a philosophy cafe.
6:00 p.m. Banquet.
7:00 p.m. What to do about grief, loss and transition.
8:00 p.m. Ideas for publicity venues, how to increase memberships.
9:00 a.m. How to get more art, drama, music, etc.
Sunday
10:00 a.m. How much does a group need to have in common?
11:00 a.m. Fundraising tips and hazards.
12:00 p.m. How do you legally incorporate something, and why would you want to?
1:00 p.m. Ideas and advice for outings such as picnics, hikes, trips.
2:00 p.m. Using your group to encourage non-adversarial, constructive dialog between members.
3:00 p.m. Closing Ceremonies, feedback for convention committee.
Comments
temujin9 on Aug. 31, 2004 11:41 AM
I'm interested, if a little too swamped to help much.
matt-arnold on Aug. 31, 2004 12:33 PM
How many miles would you be willing to travel? How much would you pay for admission? How much for a hotel?
temujin9 on Aug. 31, 2004 1:46 PM
I generally day trip to cons. It'd have to be within an hour or two (about 100 miles), and pretty inexpensive ($40 is probably the max).
Once I'm less poor, this may change.
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