What you said
who might otherwise like further contact with like minded people. The numbers attending monthly meetings do not reflect the membership of the society in the various areas and venues have to be paid for. Apart from those meetings, social occasions in a pub for many reasons are not ideal. Having said all that, there would be no reason such meetings shouldn’t continue and perhaps even develop. In the future they could do so within a Humanist Society area centre which would be a focal point in the community. It is accepted that the acquisition of such local centres would be some way distant but the concept should be considered in the longer term.
What the HSS should be doing
now, is looking for a headquarters. A headquarters like this has endless possibilities. First and foremost it would put the HSS on the map, a focal and tactile nucleus. It could serve as: a training centre; a meeting place for the AGM; the Gathering and Annual Conference (venues for which are currently paid for by the Society). The cost of renting these would be saved and go towards the mortgage payments; thereby no longer wasted capital. The headquarters could be open permanently as a visitor centre and further income derived from running it as a private hotel for members of the HSS and their families, perhaps for weekend breaks or a short holiday? There are many different ways of running this that would not involve numbers of employees,
perhaps not even one? Simply by existing and being open to visitors, income could be achieved to offset the running costs. The National Trust Café that was until recently in Charlotte Square Edinburgh was a great example of where like minded people could drop in, enjoy a bun and a coffee, which they paid for and simply by dropping in, increased their awareness of the National Trust. It was yet another window, a permanent and tangible advertisement, an opening into the organisation; people joined, met others, helped out, left bequests; the organisation grows and endures much in the way the HSS could. Such a future for the
Society would be dynamic, exciting, vibrant and a lovely place to visit. The time is now and the HSS should be taking positive steps now to discus this as the way forward.
Duncan F Robertson Humanist Society Celebrant
The Board would welcome expression of views on this proposal, via the Executive Secretary. DR’s idea was first mooted about a year ago. Since then HSS has strengthened both itself as
an organisation and its balance sheet. The Board has had a policy of not investing in either a physical office or in contracts of employment. This remains today, but if members thought otherwise.
John Bishop HSS Secretary
Dear Editor, In his interview by Tim Maguire, the new HSS convenor, Les Mitchell, makes two assumptions that I vigorously reject. One, that when we
Humanists are so angry that our faces are ‘flushed with rage,’it is because of our personal rancour at having had a ‘lifetime of being excluded’ and being told that our views are ‘unacceptable.’ Two that being
‘pugilistic’ though it is ‘understandable’ is ‘a habit we need to shake off.’ The majority of us who had the good luck of being born and raised in secular Western Europe have only been excluded, if at all, from circles that we do not want to belong to in the first place, e.g. happy- clappies. And in a democracy, we do not expect everybody to share or even accept our views; what matters is we are
www.humanism-scotland.org.uk
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