Media Seminar! Oh Yeah!

This weekend we had the chance to meet the dashing Mr. Fred (Fredwords) Edwords, the national director of the United Coalition of Reason, during his seminar on how to deal with the media during our activism projects.




Mr. Edwords is a prolific figure in the Atheist community, and has worked in the upper echelons of the American Humanist Association, Camp Quest, and the National Center for Science Eduaction.

In the three hour talk we (and the Free Thought Society of the Midlands. Holla, yo!) were introduced to specific strategies for getting our message out through print media, television, radio, and the Internet. This is going to be especially important in the coming months since the Columbia Coalition of Reason is going to be putting up an (gasp) atheist billboard in the city! There's going to be a lot of controversy, and it would be a good idea for us all to not make idiots of ourselves.

The most important thing that was addressed in the meeting was PUBLICITY! In the (misquoted) words of Mr. Edwords, even if they disagree with you, you're still getting attention. That's the important thing in reaching our own people.

Oh my, we've been slack, haven't we?

Well, hi there, for people who still read the blog. My apologies for us being so slack recently. For what it's worth, we've had quite a lot going on in the last two weeks, and it's been a fantastic kick off to the year!!

We've had three meetings so far, and each one has been bigger than the last one. We may have to get a larger room if that's the case, since we had possibly 10 or so chairs left at the last meeting (and ran out of agendas - 25 people showed up!)

Stone-A-Heathen was on August 31st - we were on the front page of the Daily Gamecock AND we were on Friendly Atheist (two years in a row for this event)! There are some great photos from the event as well.

 The organization fair was this past Wednesday and we had LOTS of people sign up and come out. A new member was photographed by a Daily Gamecock reporter with our 'Best DAMNED group on campus!' sign and made it into the print paper on Thursday! We've been in the paper three times this year and it's not even halfway through August.

Look at these sexy, sexy people.

All hail the FSM! Also, Jesse is wooing people to the table with her feminine wiles. 

SWAG! It flew off the table this year! 

Last, but not least, Skepticon is now selling shot glasses with my design that I posted at Friendly Atheist while we were guest blogging. You should totally buy some! Half the proceeds go to Skepticon to keep it free and the other half come to the Pastafarians at USC (woohoo! More posters!)

Order yourself some pony swag here! 

(P.S. This fundraiser was also featured on Friendly Atheist!) 

Here's hoping we can update a little more solidly from now on. :)

New Year! (A summary of our first unofficial meeting)

Success! Our first (unofficial) meeting of the year took place last night with a lot of new faces. It feels good to see freshmen interested in the group, especially after our founder (MANdrew CederDOG) graduated last May. Thus begins Pastafarians 2: Electric Boogaloo (This time, it's personal)!

Things began smoothly with introductions, which I have almost certainly forgotten by now. Hopefully we can get to know everyone very soon. In addition to our name and majors, everyone got a chance to describe their views on religion and the supernatural. The overwelming choice seemed to be "Atheist", but we've got a more diverse crowd this year, which includes more than a few deists and agnostics. Discussions are sure to be very diverse.

This may be a good place to insert an idea of mine that could proove useful in discussion - an assigned position for "The Devil's Advocate" - someone to disgree with the majority view and represent a different view, for those not familiar with the term.

The word of the day was "Housekeeping" - we managed to outline our goals for the Fall semester, which include a fundraiser for Amnesty International and a guest lecture by the Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta. Also, be on the lookout for our "Religious War" around Mid-September, where four teams of mythological deities will play kickball for cosmic dominance.
Signup sheets will be posted closer to the event.

And there you have it! New year! Next meeting is also unofficial and should cover some of the basic tenants of our philosophy, mission statement, and maybe (gasp) ice-breakers. See you Tuesday!

//FORWARD Mixer Recap and Other Recruitment-Related Ramblings

Well, kids, the //FORWARD Mixer was quite the success. We had attendees and presenters from five campus organizations: Pastafarians at USC, BGLSA, FMLA, College Democrats, and The Roosevelt Institute. Networking opportunities abounded, and a good time was had by all. Heck, even the reporter from the Daily Gamecock covering the event was roped in by one of the presenters (in this case, the sexy bastards over at Roosevelt). Here's the DG's write-up of the event proceedings.

We Pastafarians managed to a attract a few new members as well! Which brings me to my next topic.

Atheists, agnostics, and "nones" in general are all over this campus.

Seriously, Kelley and I can't seem to walk from one end of campus to another without tripping over non-religious types. I know of at least four potential new members who will be coming to meetings this year just because we took the time to chat up strangers here and there. When you start talking about student organizations, which is a pretty relevant and easy topic to get into this time of year, that's when you want to name-drop the Pastafarians. If they don't seem immediately interested/amused, drop it and move on to the next topic. But if they do, that's your cue to start gushing over how ridiculously awesome we are!

Remember, somewhere around 30% of Americans under the age of twenty-one are non-religious, and that percentage climbs even higher on college campuses. The only thing standing between our organization and potential new members is silence and lack of exposure. One thing that any lay member can do to be an active and important part of this group is simply to get out there and start talking. I don't mean go proselytize about the merits of atheism/agnosticism/etc., mind you. Just be sure to watch out for opportunities to talk about student orgs. In particular, our student org.

Right now, we are a largely ignored minority. But "nones" make up approximately 15% of the total population of the United States. That accounts for more than 30,000,000 people! We are disorganized, yes, and we will never fully utilize our numbers, but the more noise we make, especially in heavily religious areas like South Carolina, the harder we will be to ignore. So remember: if you are looking to make a positive difference for secularism in this country, you are already equipped to do so. All you have to do is open your mouth and talk.

We're guest blogging this week!

Hey guys! 

A few of us will be blogging over at Friendly Atheist this week, so you should scoot on over there and check out our blog posts. We may be smug and repost them here after the week's over and Hemant is back. Until then, go read there! :)

SSA Conference 2011

Hello, all! This is a video that we made after the SSA Conference this year, which took place from July 29th to August 1st this year in Columbus, Ohio. You should certainly consider attending next year, with a group or solo, especially if you're interested in starting your own group or taking a leadership position in a preexisting organization -- either way, you'll learn some very useful information/skills. I won't go on too long here, though, because that's what the video is for. However, you might find the following useful after you watch:

• The Secular Student Alliance website
  
• American Atheists website
  
• The Center for Inquiry website
  
• The Freedom from Religion Foundation website
  
• Jessica Ahlquist's blog
• Greta Christina's blog
• BlagHag (Jen McCreight's blog)
• The Friendly Atheist (Hemant Mehta's blog)

Be sure to check out The Friendly Atheist over the next week(s?), because Hemant is on vacation, and students will be posting there (us, too!). This isn't a comprehensive list of the speakers, so just ask in the comments if you're interested in knowing the others. I can do some research, which will probably consist of redirecting you to some place on the SSA page.

A note on Authors and Transition

We're still in the process of migrating registers for our blog, and are currently fighting GoDaddy.com for the name of our 'classic' URL, pastafariansatusc.org.

In the mean time I thought I'd update you all with our changes.

1. We have moved to blogspot in order to streamline our tools. We rely heavily on google sites, calendar, docs, and apps, so it makes sense to move the hosting service here as well.

2. We have a paypal now! The 'Donate' button is in the right hand column. Please give, since we're poor.

3. There was an error in moving the old posts to the new blog, so now I'm the author of everything. It's unfortunate, but needed to preserve our old information. I believe our writing styles reveal the true authors readily enough.

• Kelley generally posts crafts and community stuff.

• Cederdahl writes long essays on religion and humanism.

... you get the idea.

We're continuing to finish editing everything before long, since we've been asked to contribute to Hemant Mehta's awesome blog, Friendly Atheist.

Also, we're hosting a progressive mixer for Welcome Week at USC as part of a collaboration with the B.G.L.S.A. (Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Straight Alliance) and the F.M.L.A. (Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance). Please come! The details are here on Facebook.