First Meeting A Success

Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) met for the first time offi­cial­ly on May 5th. We had a dozen human­ists inter­est­ed in the group and mov­ing for­ward.

The inter­est was so great that we were able to have enough AHA mem­bers to sign our chap­ter appli­ca­tion and we had sev­er­al peo­ple inter­est­ed in serv­ing on the steer­ing com­mit­tee. This com­mit­tee will help devel­op the for­mal struc­ture of the group as we become a chap­ter.

“I think it shows how need­ed a group like this is in Toledo and our PR cam­paign helped get the word out,” Co-founder Doug Berger said. “I am over the moon at the num­ber who attend­ed today with­out any pre­vi­ous his­to­ry.”

Berger led the meet­ing and gave a pre­sen­ta­tion about the group and what he would like to see hap­pen in the future. There was a good dis­cus­sion peri­od where the con­sen­sus was that there needs to be a group that can help pro­tect the 1st amend­ment and con­cern that our group is too small to be effec­tive.

“I under­stand the con­cern,” Berger said lat­er. “We need to start small and grow into some of the ideas I have for the group. I have no prob­lem with that.”

The next meet­ing will be on June 16th 2018 at 11 am at The 577 Foundation 577 East Front St.  Perrysburg, Ohio 43551 (just west of East Boundary St.)

Berger will also being doing a pre­sen­ta­tion about church and state issues in the Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan area.

All meet­ings of SHoWLE are free and open to the pub­lic.

Here is a clip from the Toledo Blade on May 5th: