At The Amazing Meeting 8, we worked with the James Randi Educational Foundation to put on a workshop about grassroots skeptical organizing. During the session on planning skeptical events, SkeptiCamp creator Reed Esau gave a talk explaining the utility and benefits of this open conference model, and how to use it to spread critical thinking. His presentation is available to download here.
TAM Workshop: Promoting & Expanding Your Group With Technology
At The Amazing Meeting 8, we worked with the James Randi Educational Foundation to put on a workshop about grassroots skeptical organizing. During the session on planning skeptical events, Boston Skeptics tech guru Maggie McFee gave a talk about leveraging technology to promote a skeptical group, and making skeptical events more engaging. Her presentation is available to download here.
TAM Workshop: Pick Your A-Team
At The Amazing Meeting 8, we worked with the James Randi Educational Foundation to put on a workshop about grassroots skeptical organizing. During the session on planning skeptical events, Atlanta Skeptics organizer and Skepchick blogger Maria Walters gave a talk about the importance of making your event planning a collaborative effort. Her presentation is available to download here.
TAM Workshop Materials (coming soon)
After far too long, we’re finally going to be posting a selection of the materials that were presented during our Grassroots Organizing workshop at The Amazing Meeting 8. The presenters in our second session, on planning skeptical events, have graciously allowed us to post their slide presentations. We’ll be posting each of them, along with short description of their content, early next week. So check back starting Monday for lots of useful tips about planning and running a skeptical event for your group.
TAM Grassroots Workshop Lineup
The Amaz!ng Meeting 8 kicks off on July 8th, and we’ve been busily working out the details of our workshop on Grassroots Skeptical Organizing.
The workshop starts at 2 pm on Sunday, July 11. We’ve got two hour-long sessions planned, featuring a fantastic lineup of local skeptical organizers and activists. They’ll share short presentations, and answer audience questions, in order to arm you with plenty of practical advice for starting a local skeptics group, attracting new members, and planning great events.
The first session will focus on founding and growing a local skeptics group. The presenters are:
Travis Roy, co-founder and president of Granite State Skeptics
Chip Denman, co-founder of National Capital Area Skeptics
Michael Feldman, co-founder of New York City Skeptics
Robynn “Swoopy” McCarthy, co-host of Skepticality and co-director of Skeptrack at Dragon*Con
This session will be moderated by Michael Blanford, Director of Education at the James Randi Educational Foundation.
Session two is all about planning and running events for local groups. The presenters are:
Maria Walters, member and event organizer for Atlanta Skeptics
Maggie McFee, tech wizard for the Boston Skeptics
Naomi Baker, founder of the Houston Skeptic Society
Reed Esau, creator of the SkeptiCamp open conference model
This session will be moderated by Desiree Schell, host of the Skeptically Speaking radio show and podcast.
We’re really excited about this event, and we hope to see you there. You can register for TAM and get more scheduling info at the JREF’s website, randi.org.