Conference


So, you


day for our Scottish Humanist Annual Conference 2011. Striking in every way, the challenging conference theme: "So you call yourself a Humanist?" set a tone of expectation that carried us through presentation after presentation of high quality content and delivery. The conference was pulled together by Anders Ostberg, Vice- Convenor and MC and the proceedings flowed smoothly,


www.humanism-scotland.org.uk


Humanist? A


call yourself a


A run down of the HSS Annual Conference


TERRY MARTIN


bright October Saturday in Edinburgh and enlightenment was the order of the


each contribution catching the mood of the full house. A comic flavour was Les Mitchell and his delightful parody of an air hostess, arms akimbo, alerting us to the ritual pre- take off fire drill. We began the morning with a suite of important policy contributions from our Convenor, Policy Officer Steve Chinn, and Education Lead, Clare Marsh along with support from Jack Gold. We could see the calibre of our leadership in reshaping the dynamic of what has become a rapidly expanding and vibrant


Society. Each speaker spent time spelling out the implications and impact of their central project, nothing less than a breakthrough new paradigm for Scottish Humanists. Through a combination of visual aids and the skill of each speaker, we were left in no doubt that the hard work of active members over the past few years is about to pay dividends. By a combination of our resolve to do our bit as rank and file members plus the expertise and professionalism of our leadership the message was one of optimism. What a way to launch the Conference, delivered with panache and not a little humour. Here was real substance to the vision of reform in the HSS. THE H FACTOR Particularly attractive was the occasional thirty second or so large screening snippets for the audience of talking heads from our new campaign by Tim Maguire and his team, budding stars of a vibrant PR campaign and our first TV commercial. The H Factor is a brilliant innovation and we were softened up by these faces engaging with us in larger than life overhead projections. Here was the


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