The 2013 PA State Atheist/Humanist Conference is now selling tickets!

We are pleased to announce that we are helping to produce the 2013 PA State Atheist/Humanist conference. This will be our second annual conference – We’re working very hard to top last year’s fantastic event!

TICKET SALES ARE NOW LIVE! Go here to purchase tickets for this event!

It will be located at the Embassy Suites Airport Hotel in Philadelphia, and take place the weekend of September 13-15, 2013. We have arranged a special price of $130 per night, and you can use code “113″ to reserve your hotel room at that rate. You can call the hotel at: (215) 365-4500. Your hotel reservation includes breakfast, internet, parking and Happy Hour.

The Freethought Society, Lancaster Freethought Society, PhillyCoR, and PA Nonbelievers are working together to plan this year’s conference.

The Freethought Society will be throwing one of its famous anti-superstition parties on Friday the 13th of September at 7pm to kick off the conference weekend. This party is not part of the ticket price and will cost the small additional fee of $13. General admission to the conference costs $100 for the whole weekend, and includes Saturday lunch and Saturday dinner. You can find out more about our other packages on the ticket page.

You can also help us out by sharing our handout cards on bulletin boards, and by sharing the webpage on social media!

Check out the main website for the event here. You can also catch us on Facebook, and join the event for updates as we get them.

Brian Fields
Co-Organizer
2013 PA State Atheist/Humanist conference
President, PA Nonbelievers

Richard Dawkins is coming to Philadelphia!

The Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania is hosting a Richard Dawkins speaking event, which PA Nonbelievers is proudly sponsoring! The event’s detailed information can be found here.

It is a free event, and the tickets are available here: http://annualoration2013.eventbrite.com/

It will be held at the Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania on March 12, 2013 at 6:30pm located at 3401 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA.

Happy New Year, everyone!

This has been a fantastic year for PA Nonbelievers. We accomplished quite a bit in 2012, and 2013 can only be better!

First, this is a reminder that our annual elections will take place on March 2nd, 2013. The election will be held at the Unitarian Universalist church in York, PA at 10am. We have 4 board members up for re-election (3 year seats):

Gail Crow
Paulette Parquette
Jason Fegley
Chris Feaster

Gail and Jason have indicated to me that they do not intend to run for re-election due to obligations in their personal lives, which leaves their seats open for new directors! We also have an empty 2 year seat on our board.

Any member of PA Nonbelievers is welcome to run for our board of directors. If you aren’t already a member, please consider joining us. We are a 501(c)3 educational non-profit organization, and all donations are tax-deductible as permitted by law.

Here’s looking forwards to a great 2013!

Brian Fields
President
PA Nonbelievers

2013 Membership Drive

It’s time once again for our 2013 Membership Drive!

As you may already know, PA Nonbelievers memberships operate on a calendar basis. That means all current memberships will expire on December 31, 2012.

Here is the 2013 PAN Membership Form! We’re working hard to protect your rights in PA – As well as to provide a welcoming community for Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and all other non-believers in Central PA. We need your support, however, as we can’t operate without your donations. If you aren’t already a member, please – Join us!

Take time and fill out this form and become a member. Take a stand against religious fundamentalism, and for the Separation of Church and State. We are a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization, and your donations are tax deductible to the extent that the law permits.

Winter Solstice Party Tickets

We are now selling tickets for our Winter Solstice party! You can get more information and buy them here:

http://www.panonbelievers.org/noshow/winter-solstice-party/

ACLU’s Year of the Bible Panel

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has put together a panel to discuss the implications of the Year of the Bible. I’ve been invited to participate in the panel, and I hope to see everyone come out and show your support. The panel will be held at the Midtown Scholar bookstore in Harrisburg, PA on Thursday, November 29th, at 7pm. It will be free to attend.

Hope to see you there!

Brian Fields
President
PA Nonbelievers

Atheists, Boy Scouts and the United Way

It’s always shocking to catch a respected organization or person in a lie. Citizens of York County are having that experience with the United Way of York County.

Both of York’s daily newspapers have written articles about whether the United Way will continue to support the Boy Scouts, in light of their exclusionary policy toward the LGBT community. This issue has received a great deal of publicity recently, and some United Way agencies, such as the Capital Region agency that serves Harrisburg, have decided to stop funding the Boy Scouts.

Not so the York County United Way, according to Robert Woods, its executive director. A story in the York Daily Record on October 11, 2012, written by Tim Stonesifer, includes the following paragraph: “Woods stressed that the two United Way organizations have ‘very different’ anti-discrimination policies, and the York group’s anti-discrimination policy applies only internally, not directly to partner organizations.”

Really? The United Way of York County’s own website (http://www.unitedway-york.org/UnitedWaySystem.html) states their position quite differently:
Read the rest of this entry »

Student Tickets for the PA State Atheist/Humanist Conference now available!

If you are a student, and have a current student ID, and would like to attend the conference, I am pleased to announce that we are offering a ticket price of $10 for students. There are a limited number of tickets, so they’ll go fast. Don’t wait and miss out!

If you haven’t bought your ticket yet, student or not, what are you waiting for? We’ve added a ton of speakers, and there’s more to come – Beat the rush, and buy your ticket now!

The website to go to is http://www.atheistpa.org.

PA State Atheist/Humanist Conference Update

Tickets are now on sale here on the conference website. Please contact us if you have any questions or comments!

PA State Atheist/Humanist Conference

It’s my pleasure to announce that we will, in conjunction with other area organizations, be having a state convention at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Harrisburg, PA on September 28-30, 2012. I’ll have more details coming soon, but what we really co

uld use is an idea of the attendance we can expect.

It’s our expectation that a general admission ticket will be $50, but we are not quite ready for ticket sales yet. We have arranged a group rate for rooms at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, but there’s a limited number of rooms, so PLEASE, reserve your space early if you will be staying in the hotel. If you are interested in helping us out physically, or financially, we could use that as well.

If you would like to donate additional funds to help turn this into a fantastic convention, please donate on our website sidebar on the right. I will be making a convention website over the next week or so to sell tickets for the convention itself. In the meantime, we would love to have donations to help us with the convention directly, and there is a drop down on the right side of our website that will allow you to signify that your donation is to help support the convention. Please Note: We are a 501(c)3 organization, and donations are tax deductible as permitted by law.

We have already confirmed Dan Barker, Dave Silverman, Herb Silverman, Sharon Hill and Justin Vacula. We are also working on other speakers, I will be able to announce some more over the next few weeks. The more donations we have, the more and better speakers we can have.

I suggest you also reserve a room on Friday night – If there’s enough preregistrations, we will also have a small reception that night. The primary events will be on Saturday and Sunday.

ROOMS
Crowne Plaza Harrisburg
23 South 2nd Street
Harrisburg, PA 17101
(717) 234-5021

When you call, mention that you are part of the PA State Atheist/Humanist Conference, and the room rate should be $105/night.

If you have any questions at all, please contact us.

Brian Fields
President
PA Nonbelievers