Les Oeufs Pochés

Mark Honeychurch - 8 July 2024

We’re currently looking at streamlining this newsletter, and one promising option we’re looking at is to move its creation to Wordpress, our current website CMS (Content Management System). The only obvious difference this would make to you would be that our newsletter emails would no longer contain the full text of our articles - instead there would be an excerpt, along with a link to the full article online. I’d love to hear from anyone for whom that would be an issue, where it might make it harder for you to access our newsletter (just email me at newsletter@skeptics.nz). Ideally I may be able to figure out a way to include the full text of our articles still, but so far a workable solution has eluded me.

On the weekend Bronwyn and I drove out to Eastbourne to meet with long-time member Gordon Hewitt. Gordon had hoped to join us recently in our visit to a Creationist talk, but this idea was scuppered when he caught a cold. So we decided to go to him instead, and we had a very enjoyable morning in a French cafe (I had poached eggs) chatting about the history of the Society, some of his skeptical exploits, and more. We’re hoping that there’ll be another event soon that Gordon can join us in visiting, and we wondered whether Share International might be a good group to join. Not only is the organisation fascinating to skeptics, with their UFOs, Ascended Masters, and whatnot, but they also seem to attract a lot of older members - and both Gordon and myself will fit right in!

Speaking of long-standing members, I received a sad but not unexpected call the other day informing me that member Jim Ring had died last year. You can read a little about his life, and the articles he wrote for us, below.

Craig has a busy personal life for the next few weeks, so we’re down a regular contributor to both the newsletter and podcast. Not only is this a good time to remind you all that articles from you would be warmly welcomed, but I’ve also used this as an opportunity to remind our committee members that they are also encouraged to submit articles for inclusion in the newsletter. And, thankfully, both Brad and Hamish have graciously stepped up and provided articles this week. First Brad tried to write an article about horses, but somehow it ended up being about the placebo effect - hopefully we’ll see the horse article soon. Hamish has been on two field trips recently, both visiting a Spiritual Expo and returning to a Spiritualist church. Hopefully we can get both of them to join Bronwyn and myself on the podcast this week.

I’ve added a small update about the YouTube video we had removed recently, and used the opportunity to rant about another Social Media Platform. Bronwyn has rounded off her three part series about the weird and captivating life of Colin Amery. And, finally, following Craig’s story of some unusual claims at a Matariki celebration, I’ve written about my own odd experience - a small, disappointing event in an otherwise enjoyable celebration.