The natural world is coming back to life after a long winter nap. Wow, it's good to see that! And things are going on at the PFA, too. It's time for us to plan out our summer, and see what opportunities for fun and/or work are coming up.
Meeting notes
Our latest meeting was on March 14. At the meeting, we had a visit from a couple of folks from the Western North Carolina Atheists up in Asheville. One was an author of a couple of books, Dr. John Henderson. He gave us a short talk about his experiences and his books. Some of our members bought copies of books he had with him, and he has offered to come back any time to discuss his writings any time. I am enjoying his book, called "Fear, Faith, Fact, Fantasy" at the moment, and I think it might be interesting to invite him back some time later this year.
One other item of interest from the meeting, we agreed to continue our get-togethers over the summer. So we won't be going into hiatus mode after June. Fun, eh?
Outings
Finally, we got together and made it out to the Three Colleges Observatory in Alamance County for a Saturday evening of stargazing. We had about a dozen folks show up, and we had a pretty nice evening, despite some technical problems with the observatory's wiring at the start of the night. That and the high, thin clouds that got thicker as the time moved on. But everyone got to see some very neat things, so it was overall a nice time.
Now is the time to start thinking about getting together for a second annual Summer Solstice picnic. I had hoped to get this set up for June 19, the Saturday before the actual Solstice, in Oka T Hester Park in Greensboro. Unfortunately, I found out that the park will be closed pretty much all of 2004, due to construction of the Urban Loop through the area. Drat. So now, I need some feedback. We could return to the Hagan Stone Park shelter we used last summer, or we could look into some other park in the area. Opinions on this will be welcome. We can decide as a group at our next meeting.
Upcoming meetings.
Our next planned meeting is Sunday, April 11 at 4:00. This is Easter Sunday, so it's possible that some folks will be traveling or otherwise unable to come out for the meeting. Hopefully, the nearly universal holiday won't cut into out attendance too deeply. I have contacted the Unitarian Church, and made arrangements for us to have meetings there every month for the rest of the year. So go ahead and mark your calendars according to the listing of meetings on the group's web calendar.