Presidents Column: It’s Been (and Continues to be) a Busy Year

By Heather Hegi

This has been an active year with the American Atheists Convention and our Day of Reason event at the capitol, but the year is not over yet! There is still time to get involved and become an active member of Minnesota Atheists if you haven’t yet. Well, you can drop in and out of events at any time really. That’s the nice thing about being an atheist: there’s nothing obliging you to be involved. But I hope you will get involved and become a member! The monthly programs are starting back up for the fall. The beginning of the year featured engaging talks. To reminisce:

In January, Dr. Anthony Pinn spoke on his book Humanism: Past, Present, Future. February was a preview of the American Atheists National Convention that was held in April. In March we hosted a live online interview with the of President of Atheist Alliance International, Tonoy Emroz Alam from Germany and Onur Romano from Canada; both ex-Muslims from countries where it is not safe to be an atheist in public. They spoke about a refugee program to relocate atheists from countries, where there are imminent harm and threats to their lives, to safer countries. April was the American Atheists Convention. And in May we held an event to introduce Minnesota Atheists to newer members of our organization who may have learned about us from the convention.

Looking forward, we will be hosting this year’s Solstice Celebration, and we will continue to hold our various reoccurring events.

These events include:

Weekly Trivia and Godless Gamers; twice Monthly Freethought Toastmasters and Freethinking Females (one online and one in person); and Monthly Bowling for Deities, North Metro Happy Hour, Blasphemers’ Brunch, Online Book Club, and a Nature Hike. Some other regular events include Theatre Night, the Flying Spaghetti Monster Dinner (Lunch), and a volunteer activity called The Pad Project where we assemble reusable menstrual pads for women in areas of the world where disposable hygiene products are not available.

We wouldn’t be able to do all of this without our dedicated volunteers. We don’t thank them enough. At your next event, please, take a moment to thank the organizer for coordinating the event. We wouldn’t be able to do it without them!

For a complete and up-to-date list of events, please find us on Meetup at: https://www.meetup.com/minnesotaatheists

Membership isn’t required to attend our events, but I hope you will join or renew your membership today to help support everything we do.

Thank You,

Heather Hegi

President, Minnesota Atheists