HUMANIST SOCIETY OF WEST YORKSHIRE
Affiliated to the British Humanist Association

NEWSLETTER (103) DECEMBER, 2007

December meeting:- “First Offender to Old Lag  - Inevitable?
Angie Petit, Head of Performance, H.M. Prison, Leeds

With some politicians saying “prison works” and others saying that re-offending rates have never been higher, this is a subject of much current debate.  With prisons reaching their maximum capacity this has become a matter of urgency.  We last had a talk on this subject from a member of staff at Armley seven years ago and it was one of the best meetings we have had so this promises to be both informative  and interesting.  Come along  at 7.30pm (coffee from 7.00) Tues. 11th Dec. at Room 2, Swarthmore.         

November meeting:- “The Planet - Plan it or Damn it!

            Another virtually full house!  David Fanaroff structured his talk as a Room 101 ‘game’. with global corporations as the first contender.  They force trade liberalisation on poor countries that have no recourse to law. Bywater are suing the Tanzanian Government for cancelling their contract  after two years of bad service.  RTZ is destroying the rain forest in Madagascar despite their promises,  Clothing companies such as Gap pay illegally low wages but hide it through a network of sub-contractors. For these and many mire misdeeds the meeting voted global corporations into Room 101!
The next candidate for Room 101 was nuclear power.  There are 440 power reactors in the world and safety from human error can be guaranteed in none.  The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 has left 240,000 people with ailments.  The waste problem has not been solved.  The alternative is to use less energy and use renewable methods.  Voting was about equal for and against Room 101 so it was left teetering on the edge.
GM foods was the next candidate for the drop.  The main objection was the way the technique was being researched by biotech companies who hide any adverse findings and leave inadequate exclusion zones to prevent contamination of other crops.  The main fear was the side production of  ‘super weeds’ resistant to herbicides.  Brazil had adopted GM maize crops but was now getting a lower price than for non-GM as it could no be sold into the EU.  However, the point was made from the floor that this was not directly the fault of GM but of pressure groups such as ‘Friends of the Earth’ whose “Frankenstein Foods” scaremongering had resulted in the EU ban.  GM was not voted into Room 101.
The next candidate was incineration of waste, taking the proposed Leeds incinerator as the example.  The main objections are the generation of air-borne particulates with their affect on health, dioxins if industrial waste is included, inflexibility that would result in less recycling and as a way of generating electricity it would produce 33% more carbon dioxide.  The better alternative is recycling and crushing the remainder then composting it for horticulture.  Incineration was voted into Room101.
There was little time to consider aviation , the main target was domestic flights.  The meeting enjoyed the fun and audience involvement of the speaker’s approach to the subject

Group Representatives Annual Meeting 3rd November 2007

This meeting was at Conway Hall, London and I was able to take advantage of an Evening Post   promotion to return by train for £16.
The first agendum was “Secrets of Success” when speakers from four Groups  gave their ‘experiences of what works.  Two of the Groups were from the London area and had to agree with me that their success in getting nationally well-known speakers was mainly due to their location.  One sent almost  all of its newsletters out on line.  The S,W. London Group had its inaugural meeting last January.  Those present were asked what they most wanted from the Group and the biggest response was ‘to meet like-minded people’.  The largest Group was N.E Humanists with 232 members!  It covers a large geographical area, from the Tees to the Scottish border.  It meets in Newcastle and has a Tees-side sub-group meeting near Middlesbrough.   It has a Humanist ‘Thought for the Week’ published in the local paper; it manages to get its posters and leaflets displayed in libraries (not merely put in an ‘Events’ file as happens in Leeds).  It has a team of letter writers to the local papers and has made donations totalling £6000 to a school in Uganda and makes charitable donations of some £1000 a year!  It has a web-site and entries on Facebook and Wikepedia.  It has a ‘Link’ scheme for housebound members and a ‘Hundred Club’ lottery.
In “What about the Young?” We had an account from a student from one of the seven newly affiliated student Groups of  the problems and successes of  setting up a group in her university; there now nine such Groups.
We then had a run down of the services the BHA provides to Local Groups.  It sends a list of Groups to all new members and advertises Groups in the “New Humanist”  It intends to appoint a dedicated ‘Groups Officer’ in the new year.  The ‘Group Wise’ manual is being revised and will be available on the web.
The next item was about the new Special Interest Groups (Vegetarian, Armed Forces, Green and the Family Network),   Henry Cummings told us of the special difficulties if the, as yet, small Armed Services Group in a suitably military style!
John Catt then told us what a website can do for a Group and what the Humanist Groups website can do for all Groups.  Only two Groups are without a website (one of them must be the HSWY).  The Humanist Groups Network is a ‘Yahoo’ group (Google “Yahoo” to get on to it then ‘Braveheart.com).  A useful reference on the web is the “Skeptic’s Annotated Bible”
The last subject was about two projects to spread awareness of Humanism.  The Local Development Project was part of the October talk; it now has 130 recruits.  Richard Hogg’s project is to get leaflets distributed by local groups in their areas; he has just had 30,000 printed.
Hanne Stinson closed the meeting with a very upbeat short account of progress.