Board of Directors

The Bylaws of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie require a Board of Directors be formed to man­age the day-to-day busi­ness of the group. The Board elects offi­cers from among its mem­bers.

You can read our Board meet­ing min­utes and view reports about our Treasury.

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Our Current Board of Directors

Douglas Berger — President

Douglas is a co-founder of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. He is also host of the Glass City Humanist pod­cast and the Secular Left pod­cast. He also serves on the Board of Toledo Integrated Media Education that oper­ates WAKT 106.1 FM Toledo’s com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion.

He first got active in the sec­u­lar human­ist move­ment as a mem­ber of the Humanist Community of Central Ohio where he served as newslet­ter edi­tor from 1996 to 2007, President in 2001 and 2002 and many oth­er small­er roles over the past 20 years. HCCO named Douglas their Humanist of the Year in 2013. He also served as co-chair for Secular Coalition for Ohio from 2013–2018.

When not work­ing, Douglas spends his time enjoy­ing movies, music, read­ing books, and argu­ing pol­i­tics on the Internet.

Shawn Meagley — Vice President

Shawn is a co-founder of Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie and cham­pi­on explor­er of rabbit-holes.

She found her way to Secular Humanism via typ­i­cal child­hood indoc­tri­na­tion with an encour­age­ment to learn about the world. A mom of two adult chil­dren who share her sec­u­lar per­spec­tive, Shawn has a pas­sion for advo­ca­cy of those unable to advo­cate for them­selves; a cham­pi­on for the under­dog.

Like many, the cur­rent cli­mate of polit­i­cal and social ten­sion has cre­at­ed a sense of urgency to be more aware and involved.

Edward Schaperjahn Jr. — Treasurer

I believe that there needs to be a healthy com­mu­ni­ty for peo­ple to share and help each oth­er in times of need with­out tying our actions to a reli­gious insti­tu­tion. People are for the most part good and we should work togeth­er to bet­ter the com­mu­ni­ty. I think I can bring an dif­fer­ent out­look from oth­ers since I am a recent trans­plant from anoth­er part of the coun­try. Being on the board would allow me to help fur­ther the inter­ests of the orga­ni­za­tion and hope­ful­ly increase par­tic­i­pa­tion.

I owned my own busi­ness for over 15 years. During that time I had to teach myself account­ing and man­ag­ing the busi­ness using QuickBooks account­ing soft­ware. As a result of that learn­ing expe­ri­ence, I was asked to teach a basic account­ing and use of QuickBooks course for the local SBA Small Business Development Center at the SUNY Oswego busi­ness cam­pus in Oswego, NY. I also end­ed up help­ing my office part­ner, an enrolled agent for the IRS, with book­keep­ing audit­ing and record cleanups for her busi­ness clients. Additionally, I have been prepar­ing audits for a local vol­un­teer fire depart­ment in Granby, NY to sub­mit to the NYS Comptroller for the last 8 years. Also dur­ing my time as a busi­ness own­er, I was a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors of the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce for 12 years serv­ing as Secretary for two years, and a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors of the Oswego Heritage FCU for 1 year and a mem­ber of the Supervisory Committee.

Anne Epstein

I joined the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie in an effort to find like-minded indi­vid­u­als who believed in help­ing fel­low human beings with­out the need for reli­gious doc­trine and poli­cies. Having grown up in a house­hold where orga­nized reli­gion was eschewed, I despair at see­ing the grow­ing influ­ence and weaponiza­tion of reli­gion in soci­ety today. Increasingly restric­tive poli­cies based on reli­gion have cre­at­ed a sys­tem where divi­sion becomes fur­ther entrenched rather than every­one being treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and respect. Since I joined, I have had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn about the many dif­fi­cul­ties affect­ing soci­ety includ­ing pol­lu­tion, cur­tail­ing of repro­duc­tive and civ­il rights, harm reduc­tion and pover­ty. I have also been intro­duced to the orga­ni­za­tions which address these issues and the ser­vices they pro­vide. As a SHoWLE mem­ber, I hope to con­tin­ue learn­ing about the strug­gles human­i­ty faces and the reme­dies offered through vol­un­teer work.

Since I was in col­lege, I have been inter­est­ed in the issues fac­ing women includ­ing lack of access to edu­ca­tion, health­care and employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. A recent online course I took offered by Stanford, exam­ined these issues as well as the com­mon plights of gender-based vio­lence, sex-trafficking and pover­ty in old age. Due to this inter­est, I hope to one day take cours­es in human rights offered by the City University of New York. As an American, I feel I have an oblig­a­tion to learn about those less for­tu­nate across the globe and offer my ser­vices either in the form of vol­un­teer work or char­i­ta­ble dona­tions. I believe SHoWLE, on a local lev­el, will be ben­e­fi­cial to fur­ther­ing this goal.

Aside from the usu­al col­lec­tion of dead-end retail jobs in col­lege, I have twen­ty years’ of expe­ri­ence as a med­ical biller although I will be pur­su­ing oth­er career options in the near future. In addi­tion, I have many hob­bies includ­ing read­ing, bowl­ing, stargaz­ing, jig­saw puz­zles, ush­er­ing and attend­ing plays, trav­el­ing and tak­ing pic­tures, going to the sym­pho­ny and tak­ing art class­es. I have no inter­est in cook­ing and have told every­one I can­not boil water. Nobody seems to believe me.

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Are You Interested In Being On Our Board?

We are able to have up to sev­en peo­ple on our Board of Directors. If you are a vot­ing mem­ber and inter­est­ed in join­ing the Board, send us a note using our con­tact form.