Tag: convention

This week­end I am attend­ing Skepticon 11 in St. Louis, MO with Shawn and Peggy. Skepticon is a free con­ven­tion for sec­u­lars and skep­tics.

Shawn and I are hav­ing a good time, meet­ing new peo­ple, get­ting new ideas, and com­muning with peo­ple who have sim­i­lar world views as we do.

I’ve learned how to make an awe­some pod­cast and how to per­suade peo­ple on issues I think are impor­tant. I also learned about the reli­gious right’s effort to have spe­cial laws passed in state leg­is­la­tures through their Project Blitz ini­tia­tive. Did you know Ohio has a chap­ter of the Prayer Caucus? It lob­bies state leg­is­la­tors in Columbus.

Shawn and I are bring­ing back meet­ing and event ideas for the com­ing year.

The only mis­step to this year’s con­fer­ence is it being sched­uled dur­ing the 5th Anniversary of the death of Michael Brown. He was shot and killed by a white police offi­cer just 10 miles away in Ferguson. Until one of the talks this evening, Skepticon made no effort to acknowl­edge the event. I hope they do bet­ter next time in mak­ing sure there are no con­flicts like that or at least ded­i­cate some time to mark­ing those kinds of tragedies.

Shawn walked around the area where our hotel is locat­ed and men­tioned to me she saw a lot of home­less peo­ple. It made me con­sid­er that a con­ven­tion like Skepticon should include a com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice project so par­tic­i­pants expe­ri­ence life out­side the hotel.

I do want to attend anoth­er Skepticon in the future. This type of con­ven­tion is need­ed by peo­ple in our com­mu­ni­ty.