Our inaugural meeting was held Oct. 15 from 7:30 to almost 11:00. We had 10 people attend, there were approximately five individuals who thought they might make it but were unable to for various reasons. Thankfully several people unexpectedly brought friends and family. This is an excellent starting point. Some people even showed up early.
Someone had asked several questions, about goals, format, etc. so I prepared a rough agenda, on which we covered the several few items.
We did go around the table and introduced ourselves. Several people came out of curiosity. Being concerned about the dynamics of a large group of people who know each other, I have intentionally not been telling many of my friends about the meeting. Of the people I did not know, almost everyone was either someone from meetup.com or their friends or family.
The second most important agenda item (after adult refreshments), was the discussion on skeptics vs. atheists. There were at least two people who are not atheists, so it was good to discus the difference between skepticism and atheism. We do not want the discussion to get bogged down on just religion or to make people with a belief God feel excluded. When the discussion turns to religion all other conversations stop.
We had a long brainstorming session about possible topics, generating way too many topics.
In the end people felt that we should strive for variety (as the discussion list can attest) and contradictorily focus. Most importantly people wanted to learn and T-Shirts.
As we adjourned it was decided to keep the momentum and have our next meeting in two weeks (Oct. 29).
Everyone appeared to have a good time and stayed to the end.
I am a bit concerned that location is a bit hard to find. I added detail to the room location on the web site.
I also collected contact information from everyone. I had trouble reading some email addresses the next day. I should have verified that I could read them that night.
On the technical side.
I posted an announcement message on the skeptics and JREF forums, asked both skepchick.org and the jref to add our next event to their event calendar. After the posts, Google finely picked up the web site.
I am also trying to add the events to the local papers. So far I have missed the weekend community papers deadline.
I added a google calendar for the group.
Posted by theskepticnextdoor 
Subscribe via RSS
Subscribe via Email
This is for grade 6 students, children who are approximately 12. They are not even teenagers yet. Of course the goal of vaccinating is to do so before any likely sexual activity.
The only reason that this vaccine is being withheld is it prevents a sexually transmitted disease. If you want to be cynical, a disease that is potentially fatal, only for women. While sexual activity is the known transmission mechanism, there appears to be growing evidence that this is not the only vector. Mother to child transmission is known to occur. HPV DNA has been found under the finger nails of infected individuals and on seats in humid environments such as showers. While I don’t want to join the “you can get STDs from a toilet seat” brigade. Are the parents who are confident that their children will not engage in intercourse, as confident that they will not be involved in milder sexual activities such as petting and mutual masturbation?
Calgary is one of Canada’s fastest growing cities, but the catholic school board is showing declining enrollment, while the public enrollment is projected to rise. For the students future health, lets hope this trend accelerates.
As for the children, they may eventually be concerned about AIDS, herpes, syphilis, hepatitis, and lice, but the lucky ones will not have to worry about getting warts. That makes sex soooo much less scary.