In David Almandsmith's article in this issue of the newsletter, he questioned why October the 13th is International Skeptics Day, and announced that International Skeptics Day 2027 (October the 13th again) will be the date for the next event. Now, I have strong feelings about this (something that won't be much of a surprise for those of you who know me well!).
I was originally approached by a television producer in January who wanted someone from the NZ Skeptics to talk about Friday 13th and superstitions. It's been a cavalcade of mutual missed phone calls and messages since then, and I decided that if the powers-that-be don't think I'm ready for primetime or the big screen (or that I just have a face for radio), then you, dear skeptic, have the bad luck of benefiting from my research.
Our annual conference starts on Friday, and for those of you who plan to come but haven't bought a ticket yet, you'd better be quick. I spent yesterday afternoon with Bronwyn and Daniel, running through a sound check at the venue, testing that the technology works as expected, finalising our catering and trying out our Friday night "entertainment” (we also had enough time to grab a quick beer at the Welsh Dragon bar, our venue for Friday evening's event).
This Friday, Bronwyn and I will be setting off on a road trip to Hamilton to visit the Mormon temple there, as it's recently been renovated and is currently open to visitors for the first time in 64 years. I'm really looking forward to getting to see the lavish interior before it's “dedicated” and becomes inaccessible to us heathens again. Given that we'll be near Auckland, Craig has organised a Skeptics in the Pub event for this Friday night. Details are below, and we'd love to see you there!
It's been a while since the Auckland skeptics met for an evening of socialising, but at long last there's an event happening this Friday. As Bronwyn and myself are hoping to be in Auckland on Friday after our visit, with Craig, to the Mormon temple in Hamilton, we figured it'd be good to meet in a pub afterwards and decompress over a beer or two.
Matthew Willey finds Skeptics in the Pub hasn't been as much fun lately
Hamilton is a progressive place where the difficult issues are tackled. Rather than being a cow town (we're not! we're not!), we sit around of a Friday evening and debate the Big Questions.