Humanist Association of Manitoba

HAM at the Red River Exhibition 2011

Its a wrap / random pics

Monday June 27, we are done and tired and happy. A few pics for you, including Donna's regular re-arrangement of the displays.

The L layout was comfortable but only lasted two days or so. My favorite part - the blue candy bowl. A big winner with a lot of people walking by too.

After the L, a return to the side table layout with a few variations.

This was the final refinement of the Winnipeg Skeptics side. They were less likely to change things that seemed to work, but new material was rotated in over time.

The HAM side changed constantly. Candies, prizes, new posters all the time.

I wonder how many fundies saw us as like this guy. He was one of several reptiles at another display in the building. Most of us made the trip several times to see each as they brought them out. Besides snakes, a large turtle and a tortoise, a monitor lizard, and a cayman.

Somebody's library got raided to put on yet another free draw. For anyone who entered, all the free draws are done and you will be notified withn a few days. The $2 raffle draw happens in September.

There are more pics of mostly the many volunteers. If you want yours up, let Donna or Grant know and thine will will be done (if we have a pic).

Report from The Booth / June 24

Donna says...

We're a week into our booth at the Red River Ex, and we're having a most excellent time!

We've had debates with a couple of creationists, heard one man who took offense to seeing us and stated that it was humanists who led the recent hockey riot in Vancouver (??!!), and met one couple who totally believed in woo of all kinds (chi, homeopathy, etc.). However, we've also had lots of interest from people who were very happy to see that we're around. It's exciting and most worth it to reach out to those who may have not known that we have an organized secular group in Winnipeg.

However, we'd still like to see more of our supporters come out and say hello. Especially since we're not exactly sideshow barkers, and our raffle ticket sales have been pretty slow. That's how we're covering the cost of this adventure, so if you could help by buying a raffle ticket or two, it would really mean a lot to us.

Tickets are only $2 each, and you could win a Kobo e-reader, a gift certificate to McNally Robinson, or an XBox 360 with Kinect. We're in the Exhibition Place building, so if you're coming out to the Ex, stop on by and say hello!!

The booth is regularly re-arranged. Here's one. More pics to come tonight when I get the camera!

Setup and Day 1 (June 15, 16 and 17)

And in the beginning, there was the booth.

Gem is setting up the Winnipeg Skeptics side of the booth. The theme is SkeptiCamp.

The booth as seen from the aisle.

The booth as seen from the aisle - with Donna's smilling face in it.

Diana also spent most of the day at the booth. As did I (whose pic was omitted due to "camera error").

Not a whole lot of people came by. It was too nice outside. We are in an air conditioned building, so nice inside too - especially if it gets really hot.

One troll came by, raving about Humanists and the devil causing the Vancouver hockey riots. I wasn't there for it, or I might have claimed that no, we were just there to steal pucks under cover of the riot. Everybody else who came by was curious and polite.

We will evolve the booth over the next few days as Donna wants to try different layouts. Standby for more pics. We'll get every willing volunteer's pic in, along with their stories and comments.

Willing volunteer? In part, we created the booth to create awareness, to answer the "What's a Humanist?" question that so many people ask. And in part because we need to show that we are not to be feared or hated merely for having no religion. The Big Deal is that many humanists and atheists do not want to be outted for fear of job loss, ostracization by family, and possibly even violence. They don't want to be identified, so they are not.

We are all looking for the day when civility overcomes irrational fear and tribal driven want to hate. And as Humanists, working toward that day.

The skeptics have it easier as skepticism is also important to many people with religion. Religous or not, there are many questionable things out there that can rob us of real medical care and delude us with false hope just to grab three easy payments of $29.95. We may disagree whether there is 0, 1 or many gods. But we don't want our health and wellbeing compromised, our bank accounts plundered by scammers, or our governments blowing our taxes on worthless products.