Author: Doug

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Transparency and SHoWLE

On October 14th we had our annu­al mem­bers meet­ing as required by our bylaws. This is the time mem­bers get a pre­sen­ta­tion on the year pre­vi­ous includ­ing finances. We then hold elec­tions for the Board of Directors.

SHoWLE has always been a mem­ber run group. The mem­bers vote on Board mem­bers and the Board choos­es the offi­cers for the day-to-day oper­a­tion of the group.

Members can always ask ques­tions and have a right to see the full account­ing books we keep. Members can call a meet­ing to remove direc­tors or oth­er mem­bers. All the pow­er rests with the mem­ber­ship.

I found­ed the group in 2018 and want­ed it to be mem­ber­ship run from the begin­ning. Even with being the founder I still nom­i­nate myself and sub­ject myself to Board elec­tions. I also sub­ject myself to being elect­ed as an offi­cer. At any­time I could decide not be President or not serve on the Board.

This fall I start­ed my 30th year as a leader of a Humanist group. I served on the Board of HCCO in Columbus for 14 years and was President for two years and served as Treasurer for a year. I also serve on the Board and am the trea­sur­er for Toledo Integrated Media Education that oper­ates WAKT 106.1 FM and the Toledo Free Press news­pa­per.

SHoWLE is a 501 3 ( c ) char­i­ty under the umbrel­la of the American Humanist Association. We have to file IRS form 990s each year and in Ohio we have to reg­is­ter with the state since we sol­stice dona­tions. We are also incor­po­rat­ed as non-profit with the state. Because we are a 501 3© dona­tions are tax exempt. We also updat­ed our Candid (for­mer­ly Guidestar) pro­file and got the Platinum Transparency stick­er for 2025

Last year our income and expens­es were less than $3000 and that was out of char­ac­ter only because we had the Gloria Steinem speak­ing fees and we spon­sored the Bronze lev­el for the traf­fick­ing con­fer­ence our bud­get in 2025 was orig­i­nal­ly $1800 and that was approved by the Board in November of 2024. I am not paid to be the President — no Board mem­ber is paid. Over the years I have per­son­al­ly donat­ed hun­dreds of dol­lars to the group as well as hun­dreds of hours of my time.

Even though our FY2025 state­ment showed we spent $170 more than we brought in as rev­enue we have more than that in our bank account. Currently we have $600 in the check­ing account and almost $400 in our sav­ings account. 99% of the sav­ings is tar­get­ed for direct­ed dona­tions to sup­port our projects like the hol­i­day gift dri­ve we do with Lucas County Childrens Services.

My phi­los­o­phy has been for big tick­et items, we solic­it dona­tions for it and use mem­ber­ship dues for items like our postal box and to buy more brochures if need­ed.

I would agree with peo­ple who say we don’t oper­ate like a pro­fes­sion­al non-profit and that is because we aren’t a pro­fes­sion­al non-profit. We aren’t the Boys and Girls Club or the United Way. Our pur­pose is focused on our mem­bers and pro­vid­ing a sup­port­ive, diverse, local com­mu­ni­ty for human­ists and oth­er non­the­ists, while pro­mot­ing eth­i­cal and rea­son­able sec­u­lar world views through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, out­reach, activism, and social events.

We have a small mem­ber­ship but we aren’t alone. I sit in on zoom calls with oth­er chap­ter lead­ers around the coun­try and they say the same thing — their mem­ber­ship skews old­er and they are small too.

SHoWLE is open to all Humanists in sub­stan­tial agree­ment with our prin­ci­ples and our pro­gram­ing is based on what our mem­bers want to do. I am open to new ideas and we have tried new things over the years. My idea to encour­age mem­bers to take on host­ing duties for an activ­i­ty is some­thing I start­ed to do last year.

I would love to have our own build­ing and a paid staff and have pro­grams for the gen­er­al pub­lic like a teen drop in cen­ter but that takes more than dreams — it takes peo­ple will­ing to take a risk and sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing. That’s why we are trans­par­ent as we are, why we accept mem­bers in agree­ment with our prin­ci­ples and we try to do out­reach like our info booth and pod­cast.

Members are free to reach out to me or oth­er Board mem­bers with ques­tions about finances or the oper­a­tion of the group and if you have an issue we want to hear details so we can work with you to resolve those issues.

Written By Douglas Berger — President of SHoWLE

For fur­ther info includ­ing past Board min­utes and trea­sury sum­maries check out our gov­er­nance page

Video Recording of our 2025 Members Meeting

Folder with all the charts and fig­ures used at the mem­bers meet­ing

Photo by Anh Tuan To on Unsplash
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Group Discussion Guideline Reminder

The fol­low­ing group dis­cus­sion guide­lines were cre­at­ed when SHoWLE was cre­at­ed back in 2018. We thought it was a great time — espe­cial­ly with what is going on in the world con­cern­ing free speech — to remind peo­ple about them. These guide­lines are avail­able on the Things to know about SHoWLE page

We intend to fos­ter a mem­ber­ship that is curi­ous about the world and who want to explore human solu­tions to human prob­lems with­out regard to any spe­cif­ic world view or pol­i­tics. We want to cre­ate a space that is open and hon­est about these top­ics and ideas. To that end, here are some gen­er­al best prac­tices to be used dur­ing group dis­cus­sions or “Question & Answer” peri­ods after a speak­er.

1. Discussions will be mod­er­at­ed by an offi­cer or vol­un­teer. Please raise a hand when you want to speak and allow the speak­er to fin­ish what they have to say before ask­ing to speak. The mod­er­a­tor will have the pow­er to stop a speak­er and move to the next speak­er if peo­ple are wait­ing to speak.

2. Please stay on top­ic and be as brief as pos­si­ble in mak­ing your point. Be con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers who might be wait­ing to speak. If you want to pon­tif­i­cate on a top­ic, save it for your blog or pod­cast.

3. Remember – Treat all with basic dig­ni­ty and worth even those you dis­agree with. “Attack” the idea and NOT the per­son. Name call­ing, bul­ly­ing, or harass­ment of any­one will NOT be tol­er­at­ed. Punishment for doing it may include being asked to leave the meet­ing or event and could lead to your removal as a mem­ber of the group.

*Note* Critical exam­i­na­tion of beliefs, includ­ing crit­i­cal com­men­tary on anoth­er per­son­’s views, does not, by itself, con­sti­tute bul­ly­ing or harass­ment.

4. Because we are a non-profit group we will not and can­not endorse can­di­dates for polit­i­cal office. We can advo­cate for issues such as civ­il rights, keep­ing abor­tion legal and safe, and the need for a strong and ratio­nal pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem for exam­ple. Members can wear polit­i­cal shirts and but­tons at meet­ings and events. Members can also ask for peti­tion sig­na­tures but please do that before or after a meet­ing.

5.  Although all top­ics and ideas are open for dis­cus­sion at a meet­ing, there is one top­ic we won’t be dis­cussing. SHoWLE is a human­ist group and many of us are human­ists because we came to a rea­son­able con­clu­sion on the exis­tence of “god” ques­tion. Arguing reli­gious points or apolo­get­ics won’t be wel­come.  Also com­ments that unnec­es­sar­i­ly dis­par­age reli­gion are sim­ply bor­ing to those of us who have moved to sec­u­lar human­ism and won’t be wel­come.

Comments that attempt to den­i­grate whole groups of peo­ple also aren’t wel­come. We are inter­est­ed in solv­ing prob­lems not scape­goat­ing.

6. While we do want to have frank and hon­est dis­cus­sions, we acknowl­edge that in some cas­es a dis­cus­sion or top­ic will be trig­ger­ing or uncom­fort­able. We try to be clear on what the top­ic of dis­cus­sion will be and you can always reach out and ask ques­tions about it. It may hap­pen that you attend the main part of the meet­ing but don’t wish to stay for the dis­cus­sion and leav­ing at that point is up to you. The only sub­jects we will not dis­cuss are the top­ics men­tioned else­where in this doc­u­ment — Arguing reli­gious points or apolo­get­ics or com­ments that attempt to den­i­grate whole groups of peo­ple — for exam­ple.

7. If a dis­cus­sion par­tic­i­pant offends you please lim­it crit­i­cism dur­ing your turn to talk and address your con­cern not the per­son who made the com­ments and remem­ber guide­line num­ber 3 above.

8. There will not be a right to speak with­out con­se­quences. Humanists believe all ideas are open to ques­tion includ­ing our own. There is a pos­si­bil­i­ty we are wrong.

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Why We Didn’t Table At the Maumee Summer Fair in 2025

This week­end was the Maumee Summer Fair. SHoWLE was not there this year and I want­ed to explain why. The first cou­ple of years we had a booth there were great. We were on West Wayne Street and we had a lot of foot traf­fic as we were near the beer and food and the kids zone. Which is the holy tri­fec­ta…

Douglas Berger — President of SHoWLE

Then in 2023 there was a mas­sive recon­struc­tion of the down­town Maumee area and they had to shoe horn every­one into a small­er foot­print. The orga­niz­ers had us in the very back park­ing lot next to a toi­let. Foot traf­fic was very much low­er than before. We said no prob­lem that when they get the con­struc­tion done things will go back to how it was before.

In 2024, we got our appli­ca­tion in as soon as the process opened and we got the very first booth spot on Conant St and we were so hap­py. The prob­lem was they rearranged the booth space again and had them all spread up and down Conant. Our booth was at the far west­ern end of the fes­ti­val area, across from the Indoor Theater, with most of the action hap­pen­ing way down by Wayne St. Foot traf­fic was min­i­mal AND the booth next to ours was for the group try­ing to recall most of the Maumee city coun­cil. They were nice peo­ple but in their zeal to get recall peti­tions signed they would basi­cal­ly block Conant St. and what lit­tle foot traf­fic we did see was way less than if we were fur­ther east and the cit­i­zen group was­n’t next to us imped­ing the traf­fic flow.

The SHoWLE Board decid­ed to sit 2025 out. Besides not believ­ing we would have a good spot, the fact we need more than the usu­al 3 or four peo­ple to help out played a part in the deci­sion.

I looked at the lay­out they had for 2025 and it was much bet­ter than 2024. The booths were most­ly on Conant and East Wayne and that cor­ner was where they set­up the stage for the bands. I think, if we had been there this year we would have had more con­tacts and inter­est.

I think too that if the cur­rent fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is like it is now, we need to be vis­i­ble to those who sup­port our val­ues. We may not be com­mon to Maumee but we nev­er had an issue at the Summer Fair.

Let us know what you think? Should we attend the Summer Fair next year?

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We Are Hosting a Showing of The Last Class

Info for our showing of The Last Class film

Join us for a Screening of The Last Class at Cinemark Franklin Park 16 and XD: The Last Class is a nuanced and deeply per­son­al por­trait of mas­ter edu­ca­tor Robert Reich teach­ing his final course and reflect­ing on a peri­od of immense trans­for­ma­tion, per­son­al­ly and glob­al­ly. It is a love let­ter to edu­ca­tion. The for­mer Secretary of Labor might be famous for his pub­lic ser­vice, best-selling books, and viral social media posts, but he always con­sid­ered teach­ing his true call­ing. Now, after over 40 years and an extra­or­di­nary 40,000 stu­dents, Reich is prepar­ing for his last class.

Over the course of the film, Reich con­fronts the impend­ing final­i­ty, and his own aging, with increas­ing can­dor, intro­spec­tion, and, ulti­mate­ly, emo­tion. He dis­plays a raw­ness of feel­ing he has nev­er shared pub­licly before. Drawing on his life­time in pol­i­tics, he uses his class, “Wealth and Poverty,” to offer us all a deep­er look at why inequal­i­ties of income and wealth have widened sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the late 1970s, and why this pos­es dan­ger­ous risks to our soci­ety.

One thou­sand stu­dents fill the biggest lec­ture hall on the UC Berkeley cam­pus, the last class to receive Reich’s wis­dom and exhor­ta­tions not to accept that the world has to stay the way it is. His belief in the next generation’s abil­i­ty to take on the fight is inspir­ing.

Humanists sup­port edu­ca­tion based on the truth, facts, and data. We also sup­port social jus­tice issues that Robert Reich talks about and we are also con­cerned about income inequal­i­ties.

Even if you can’t attend, you can buy a tick­et for some­one who wants to attend but can’t afford it. Feel free to share this event with your friends, fam­i­ly, and social cir­cle. Being a mem­ber of SHoWLE or a Humanist is not required. The film is open to all who buy a tick­et.

For tick­ets, vis­it our screen­ing web­page

https://bit.ly/lastclass-toledo2025

We met our min­i­mum tick­et sales on August 15th. Tickets are still avail­able. We can have 100 peo­ple.

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Sign-up for our Summer Solstice Picnic

We now have a potluck sign up form for the pic­nic on June 21st. This just to avoid dupli­cate food but feel free to bring what­ev­er you want to share.

SHoWLE will have a lim­it­ed num­ber of ham­burg­ers and hot dogs as well has cold soda and water to drink and plates and uten­sils to use. Feel free to bring any games you want to share.

Food sign-up here

More infor­ma­tion about the pic­nic can be found the events page.

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Petition Gathering has started to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 1

Petitions to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 1 have start­ed to be dis­trib­uted. SB 1 as it is known that was quick­ly passed at the start of the year, over the objec­tion of many uni­ver­si­ties and protests by stu­dents, would cen­sor uni­ver­si­ty class­es and is anti-union. It is also known as the high­er edu­ca­tion destruc­tion act and many of the points in the law scratch con­ser­v­a­tive bias­es about col­leges such as the pow­er of unions, not teach­ing how great cap­i­tal­ism is, and hate towards diver­si­ty, equal­i­ty, and inclu­sion.

For a break down of what is in SB 1 check out this explain­er sheet from AAUP Ohio and Honesty for Ohio Education:

Substitute Ohio Senate Bill 1 — Bill Breakdown

Upcoming Signing events:

Our friends at Toledo Troublemakers is host­ing a peti­tion sign­ing event on May 14th from 5:30 to 7 :30 PM at Earnest Brew Works Westgate 3134 W. Central , Toledo.

Findlay Forward Together will be hold­ing a SB1 Repeal Petition Signing Drive-Thru Thursday May 15th from 5 to 7 PM at 111 3rd St in Findlay.

When we hear about oth­er sign­ing events we will share them on social media accounts.

The con­ser­v­a­tives will be very picky about sig­na­tures so here are some basic rules:

  1. You must be a reg­is­tered vot­er to sign
  2. Make sure you sign the peti­tion that match­es your coun­ty
  3. You are only allowed to sign a peti­tion once

“With the title and sum­ma­ry lan­guage approval, peti­tion­ers can now start gath­er­ing sig­na­tures. About 248,092 sig­na­tures are need­ed — 6% of the total vote cast for gov­er­nor dur­ing the last guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion. The sig­na­tures must be from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 coun­ties. The sig­na­tures would like­ly be due at the end of June. ”

For more infor­ma­tion check out this web­site:

OH SB 1 Petition

*Update 06/30/2025* - Even with a strong effort, the peti­tion dri­ve fell short by 50,000 sig­na­tures. The group behind the effort ran a tru­ly grass­roots dri­ve and did­n’t use paid peti­tion sig­na­ture col­lec­tors. SB 1 is a very unpop­u­lar law so hope­ful­ly those opposed to it will try again soon.

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Donate to sponsor a conference about human trafficking

The International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference, which is put on by the University of Toledo, Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute, recent­ly reached out to us to ask if we could spon­sor this years con­fer­ence that will be held vir­tu­al­ly in September. This is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for SHoWLE to have our name out pub­licly in sup­port of an event that fits in with our val­ues.

They have spon­sor­ship lev­els with the low­est pack­age being $500 which would have our name and logo in the pro­gram and web­site and would pro­vide three one day tick­ets we could give out to donors.

Our goal is to raise $500 by June 30th for our spon­sor­ship. If you donate and want to attend we will have the tick­ets avail­able on a first come first serve basis. The largest spon­sor­ship pack­age is $5000 and each pack­age comes with more free tick­ets but our goal for now is $500.

We will donate any funds we raise to help with the con­fer­ence.

To donate for our spon­sor­ship fol­low the link below:

SHoWLE Sponsorship Campaign

Here is infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence from their web­site:

“Human traf­fick­ing is one of the most preva­lent and active crim­i­nal enter­pris­es affect­ing our local, nation­al, and inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Responses to com­bat traf­fick­ing include pre­ven­tion, pro­tec­tion, pros­e­cu­tion, and part­ner­ship. The International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference is proud to be the host of the old­est and largest aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ence on human traf­fick­ing in the world. As the world’s lead­ing aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ence on this top­ic, we serve as the hub through which prac­ti­tion­ers, pol­i­cy mak­ers, researchers, crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­fes­sion­als, busi­ness­es, health­care pro­fes­sion­als, social work­ers, and more become edu­cat­ed and equipped to pro­vide the best local and glob­al respons­es pos­si­ble. We remain com­mit­ted to edu­cat­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and we need your help!

The 22nd Annual International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference will be host­ed vir­tu­al­ly on September 17–19, 2025 and will high­light a vari­ety of skilled pre­sen­ters at the fore­front of both human traf­fick­ing and social jus­tice issues. This year’s con­fer­ence will fea­ture over 100 pre­sen­ta­tions and thou­sands of atten­dees tun­ing in from all cor­ners of the world. Attendees will learn how to iden­ti­fy risk fac­tors, improve respons­es for vic­tims, and learn how we can col­lec­tive­ly move for­ward with an agen­da for change.”

https://www.traffickingconference.com

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Good News We Have T‑shirts Available

If you missed the Here 4 Good sale through Jupmode in March we have good news. SHoWLE has a lim­it­ed num­ber of T‑shirts for sale and 100% of the sale goes to the group. We have 5 shirts each in the fol­low­ing sizes: S M L XL 2XL. Once these shirts are sold there will be no more until next year.

Price for all shirts is $20 each and if you want it mailed to you then it is an extra $6 for ship­ping. Once you buy a shirt we can arrange a meet­up to get the shirt or you can pick it up at a meet­ing if you want to save ship­ping costs.

This is an excel­lent way to sup­port SHoWLE and show the town you sup­port us.

If you would like one fill out the form below while pro­cess­ing a cred­it or deb­it charge. Be sure to let us know the size you would like.

If you plan to mail a check click on the Sending a Check link and fill out the form let­ting us know, skip the dona­tion form, and mail the check to SHoWLE PO BOX 6433 Toledo, Ohio 43612. We will hold a shirt for you until the check arrives.

We only need your address from this form if we will be mail­ing a shirt. Once you sub­mit the form it will take you to our dona­tion form to pay for it.

First come first serve.

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Resources to help support Democracy

People protesting in support of science

SHoWLE recent­ly cre­at­ed a new resource page that has links to tools and sources to help us sup­port democ­ra­cy.

These links include links to liked mind­ed groups and news sources that actu­al­ly cov­er the real news and not the cor­po­rate white-washed ver­sion we see most often.

The title of the new page is Supporting Democracy and can be found under our Resources menu on the web­site.

Also includ­ed is links to new videos cre­at­ed by President Doug Berger that helps the view­er set­up and use the My Ohio Legislature and GovTrack.us leg­is­la­tion track­ing web­sites.

If you have any sug­ges­tions or cor­rec­tions for this new resource please let us know.

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Resolution In Support Of The LGBTQ+ Community And Opposing Bigotry

The SHoWLE Board of Directors adopt­ed the fol­low­ing state­ment in sup­port of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty and to oppose big­otry. This state­ment can be found in our Policies and Resolution page of the web­site.

The Board of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie vot­ed on January 21, 2025, to “sign on” to a state­ment issued by a major­i­ty of the sec­u­lar, Humanist, and freethought groups in the coun­try affirm­ing our com­mit­ment to sup­port and pro­tect the rights of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty in this coun­try.

In a state­ment titled “Statement from American Atheist, Humanist, Freethought, and Secular Groups Affirming Commitment to Protecting LGBTQ+ Rights” 16 nation­al sec­u­lar groups affirmed:

“We will not per­mit reli­gious extrem­ists to foment a moral pan­ic, encour­age harass­ment or vio­lence, and enact dan­ger­ous poli­cies that seek to force LGBTQ+ Americans generally—and trans Americans in particular—out of pub­lic life and out of exis­tence. Nor will we sit silent­ly or ignore when the talk­ing points, mis­in­for­ma­tion, and out­right fab­ri­ca­tions of anti-LGBTQ+ extrem­ists are laun­dered and giv­en a veneer of legit­i­ma­cy or accept­abil­i­ty by those who hold them­selves out as voic­es of rea­son or sci­ence.”

The SHoWLE Board agrees 100% with the state­ment and we intend that our group will con­tin­ue to be a wel­com­ing place for all peo­ple no mat­ter who you are or who you love. Our Humanist val­ues demand it.

We need more com­pas­sion and under­stand­ing and much less irra­tional hys­te­ria. We need laws and poli­cies based on data and actu­al real­i­ty and not bias­es, reli­gious indoc­tri­na­tion, or tabloid anec­dotes.

SHoWLE also will not tol­er­ate big­otry from our state leg­is­la­ture, gen­er­al com­mu­ni­ty, or our mem­ber­ship. We will call out that big­otry when need­ed. We will not sup­port or work with any group that sup­ports big­otry of any kind espe­cial­ly toward the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty.

Some peo­ple have said that recent attacks on the Trans com­mu­ni­ty have been only about dis­cussing sci­ence and biol­o­gy and that by not allow­ing that dis­cus­sion we are cen­sor­ing sci­ence. We reject that argu­ment.

Free speech argu­ments should nev­er be used to jus­ti­fy hurt­ing peo­ple and whether a group should have basic dig­ni­ty, and worth should nev­er be debat­ed.

No one should live in fear for sim­ply exist­ing.

Adopted January 2025