Annual Solstice Dinner & Award Ceremony
About the Event
The Center for Inquiry- Michigan held its annual Winter Solstice Dinner and Award Ceremony on December 12, 2007. This was our 243rd gathering since our founding and 7th since becoming a branch of CFI.
The Solstice Party was held in the elegantly appointed Desdemona Dining Room in the the historic Women’s City Club in Grand Rapids. The lower floor is where we hold our regular topic presentation meetings; this celebratory gathering took the place of one of those meetings. There will be no further meetings this month.
Our first meeting of the new year will feature Taner Edis, Assistant Professor of Physics at Truman State University. He will be speaking on the topic: Science and Non-Belief: How Chance and Necessity Explain Our World. This meeting will take place on January 9, 2008 at the Women’s City Club; 254 Fulton Street, NE in GR, MI.
Vice- Chair, Jason Pittman gave the welcoming remarks, noting that we are celebrating over ten years as a vibrant organization. While the Solstice Dinner is an annual event for us, this year marks the first one as CFI- Michigan. Jason made other announcements and spoke of the exciting roster of speakers coming up for our regular meetings. In addition to the aforementioned Edis on Jaunary 9; Roger Brewin will speak to us on The Notorious Charles Darwin (Jan 23); Barbara Oakley will give her presentation with the intriguing title: Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend (Feb. 13). Our own Greg Forbes, who is always a crowd pleaser, will speak on the topic: When Logic No Longer Matters: Putting Science in the Cross hairs (Feb. 27). On March 12, CFI New York’s Susan Jacoby will give a presentation based on her latest book: The Age of American Unreason: Defining Dumbness Downward. Her previous talk, based upon an earlier book that she authored: Freethinkers, was given to a packed house. And on March 26, Ed Brayton, co- founder of Michigan Citizens for Science, will speak on the Anti- Christian ACLU (with anti- Christian in quotation marks, to signify the Religious Right’s demonization of this organization.) Brayton is an engaging speaker, who brings a goodly amount of humor and wit to his talks.
Jason, who has hosted the Movie Nights for our organization for years, gave us an overview of upcoming films that he will be showing at his Lockwood Street home, in the heart of what we affectionately call the Freethought or CFI Commune.
We also discussed the robust growth of our organization over the last decade. It is with deep satisfaction and even great surprise to see that virtually all of our purely dream/wish list ideas for our group to engage in, has now come to fruition, with even more ambitious goals now put in place. We now have over 60 FOCs (Friends of the Center), 900 on our e-mail list, and 1,100 people on our snail mail list! As for our Fund Drive: We are now employing the CFI model for fund drives, which is based on a three year commitment and have so far raised $129,000 of our $156,000 three year goal! These funds will allow our part time Assistant Director, the hard-working Jennifer Beahan, to move into a full time position and we will be able to greatly enhance already existing programs and services, while establishing new ones. And we will be better able to establish our presence in Michigan as a place for free inquiry, humanistic fellowship and so much more. It has been noted that for as little as a $28 per month pledge, one will be donating $1,000 over a 3- year period, in a fairly painless way! Fund drive volunteer callers were recognized, including Tricia Glaser, Jeff Seaver, Jennifer Beahan, Jason Pittman, Jordan Seaver and Rob St. Mary.
CFI-MI member Luke Galen launched the Non-Religious Identification Survey, which is the first ever rigorous survey instrument designed specifically to gather demographic and attitudinal information exclusively about America’s non-religious community. Past surveys have been based on religious individuals, with the non-religious being little more than an afterthought. Professor Galen will begin data analysis soon, and later in 2008, he will give a special presentation to us on the results of the survey. Check our website to see how to be included in the survey before he closes it out.
Next, we heard from CFI Campus Group leaders, Tricia Glaser and Dave Fletcher about their respective campus activities and growth at GVSU and Aquinas College. The Grand Valley State University group held several Movie Nights, featuring controversial and thought- provoking films and they had professors present on various topics at their Monday night meetings. Aquinas also hosted Movie Nights, one of the films shown was Jesus Camp—a chilling documentary to behold about the harsh indoctrination methods used on children of fundamentalist families. Other events included a Darwin Day celebration and Free Hug Day. Furthermore, CFI Aquinas caused quite a stir on their campus when they accepted an invitation from an Aquinas theology professor to engage in a debate with the title: The Great Debate; Does God Exist? This drew a standing room only crowd of about 300 students, faculty and community members; the largest student- led event at Aquinas this semester.
Dave Fletcher is also one of the creators of the CFI Michigan podcast: Reasonable Doubts, along with Jeremy Beahan and Luke Galen. RD is differentiated from other skeptical podcasts by its counter- apologetics focus, providing detailed counterpoints to the fallacious logic and blatant misinformation used by religious apologists. You may download episodes at http://www.doubtcast.org.
Our magnificent dinner was provided by award- winning chef and CFI member, Laurel Deruda, of the Women’s City Club. The meal featured Napalese cuisine and it was delicious!
Music was provided by our own Skip Page and the International Strings Band. Skip provides excellent before- meeting music on our regular meeting nights. It was a lovely sound and added delightfully to the overall convivial and festive ambiance. An impromptu performance was given by Jason and Sarah’s young daughter, Akasha, which was very well received!
CFI member, Robert Collins, gave the Invocation. This was presented at this year’s Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, where Dr. Collins represented the secular humanist community in general and CFI in particular. The theme was one of unity, rather than ideological divisiveness and had for its linchpin the idea and ideal that used to frame and define America and its citizenry: E pluribus unum (out of many; one).
CFI Board and Advisory Board members were recognized. For the regular Board, we have Jason Pittman, Jennifer Beahan, Charles LaRue, Amanda Narvaes, Robert Clark, Jan Van Oosterhout and Bob Goodrich. Jeff Seaver is the Executive Director. On the Advisory Board we have Luke Galen, Carl Bajema, Bob Collins, Greg Forbes and Christine Smith.
DJ Groethe was our special guest speaker. He is Vice- President of Outreach for Center for Inquiry- International and host of Point of Inquiry and he gave a special commentary on what CFI is, its mission, why it was founded, its growth, general publications and specialty journals, branches, student groups and its many programs in the US and all over the globe. It is exciting to be a part of this international organization and all that it does in the world.
Jennifer Beahan gave a run- down of, and offered gifts to, our hard-working but seldom spotlighted stalwart volunteers. These included Sherron Collins who works the information table and is always seen doing a myriad of tasks to make the meetings run smoothly and assist in any way. David Cleveland provides, without fail, a wide variety of newspaper clippings and articles of interest to the freethinking community to check out on a board he sets up. He also maintains our scrapbook and always has his sleeves rolled up to provide any sort of work needed for any of our endeavors. Jeff Seaver, founder of the Freethought Association, whom Jennifer described as a mentor, was recognized. There is not room in this summary to give a decent account of all that he has done to get us to where we are today. Suffice it to say that he has been instrumental in every single area of our growth and development in some way. Joni Murphy provides generous help with childcare services that we now offer and is often first in line to offer assistance in whatever comes up. Amanda Narvaes has been supportive in many ways, including being our Treasurer and countless other behind the scenes tasks and efforts. Josh Dunigan runs sound and ensures proper lighting for each meeting and he arrives early for set up and leaves late for packing up. He and Jennifer provided so much drive, enthusiasm and sheer effort in making the 1st 3- day Summer Retreat such a success. Jason Pittman organizes the fund drives and hosts the Movie Nights as well as organizing other fun activities and social outings. He has been vital to the success of our organization. Rob St. Mary helps with publicity for our Events and may be seen assisting in any capacity where ever he sees a need. Don Trondreau is diligent in creating the E-news Alerts to help publicize our events and availing himself to help in any other area where he can. Gordon Matousek and George Lanning do the videotaping of our meetings which airs on GRTV broadcasts for those who cannot make it to our meetings to view. Bob Goodrich has been a very generous supporter of our efforts and donated to us our CFI office space. Bob Collins, along with Sherron, help to attend to the needs of our members who are sick or elderly by visiting them in their homes or in hospital, and providing advice, guidance and comfort to them and their families. Bill Van Oosterhout can be relied upon to man the greeting and information table and answer questions for newcomers. He and wife, Jan, have offered up both their home- for Board meetings and get togethers, and their Lake Michigan Cottage for Women’s Retreats and our annual summer party there. The entire Freethought/CFI Commune on Lockwood Street was recognized, all of whom are instrumental in our group’s success and ever ready to lend a hand. Besides those already mentioned, AJ Koorstra and Jeremy Beahan (as well as the aforementioned Rob St. Mary) have jumped in frequently to man the video system at our meetings.
Laurel Deruda and the staff of the Women’s City Club were recognized for all of their effort in making this event and all others at the WCC such a success. And finally, the membership itself was recognized. We are an organization of by and for our members. So many hands from so many of our members are involved both sporadically and continually, that it was impossible to mention all by name, but they are an integral part of our success as well.
This is a bit awkward, but this summary- writer was the grateful recipient of the 2007 Freethinker of the Year Award, receiving a very nice introduction by Chairman Jeff Seaver, hugs and warm comments by members and a lovely plaque that I will treasure always. I opened my acceptance speech with a touch of humor, indicating that I had written out my comments on a thick stack of papers, in keeping with my notoriety for voluminous writing. The actual remarks were kept within a reasonable time frame. After expressing my genuine honor and thrill at being selected for receipt of the award, I gave a little background history of our organization’s humble beginnings as well as our subsequent growth and development and told of the venerable late Don Hansen who was my mentor for the written records made for our group and whose warm and gentle personality still glows in my memory. Both of us consider/ed the recording of meetings a labor of love.
I went on to make a brief autobiographical sketch of my background and worldview and how my need for the company of like- minded people increased over time. Quote: But as I grew up and became more fully engaged in larger adult society, I saw ever clearer how alienated one becomes from so much of the population when one espouses no religious beliefs and when one critically examines extraordinary claims [...] I desired to know that those who loved learning and exploring all manner of issues in an unfettered way, were not as remote and rare as they seemed to be.. I needed, in short, the company of freethinkers- even though I wasn’t, then, all that conversant with what being a freethinker, let alone secular humanist or scientifically- based rationalist, really even was. End of condensed quote. This led me to talk about how I became a part, early on, with what was to become the Freethought Association, then CFI- Michigan and of the joy I experienced in the sense of kinship and fellowship with the growing group membership, knowing that I had found a place where I belonged.
I ended with the following: This organization, composed of hard- working and dedicated volunteers, a visionary and energetic leadership, heavy- duty thinkers and bold seekers who are unhampered by sacred cows and thought- ossifying doctrines and dogmas, as well as fun- loving and warm- hearted brothers and sisters…this little group that could—and DID—has given me me far more than I could ever have dreamed of experiencing.
To be part of this new phase in our development is immensely exhilarating for me. I’m thrilled that whatever small part that I have been able to contribute has been deemed worthwhile.. and I thank you all not only for this award, but for all the enrichment of my life that you, my friends, have given me. End of quotes.
Have a Happy Winter Solstice!
Summarized by Charles LaRue.
