Berkshire HumanistWEB-SITE WINS ‘BEST- WEBSITE’ UK AWARD

Nov 17, 2008 08:54:35 GMT Share

At the Annual Representatives Meeting of the British Humanist Association in Holborn, London on Sat 15th  Nov, Berkshire Humanists were awarded an accolade of the best website award for 2008.This is an annual award for the 95 groups, both local and special interest of the Humanist community who run BHA affiliated websites in the UK

It was awarded for

Providing a positive, attractive, useful web-site for the local Humanist
community- and providing a local presence for Humanism in general.

Accepting the award on behalf of the team who produced the website, David McKnight, General and Education Secretary, said

“This is particularly pleasing because we did not get a mention last year and the team set out to win it this year. The most important contribution was the technical expertise and rigorous care of Robert Ede of Blackwater. Thanks are also due to Robert Ager of Twyford and all the posters and general public individuals who sent comments in and made this a really interactive and informative facility for all interested in what Humanism has to say.”

There are some 186,000 people in Berkshire and according to independent research there will be 17% of these (31,000) will actually think in the way that we do. A very large proportion of these do not know that they are Humanists or that we exist. It is our mission to inform and represent their views. This completely new web-site will be a major tool in seeing that the Human Rights of the non-religious will be protected, and that we recruit enough volunteers to act on a multitude of committees. Another major aim will be to ensure that we will have enough members to join Inter-faith groups and smaller satellite discussion groups throughout the county and in the further education establishment in Berkshire. It is really great that the technical ‘know how’ of the Thames (silicon) Valley will be used to such humanitarian ends. The web-site has a local bias, but information on national and global items of interest is brought to your attention also.

The 2011 census: Is it 14% or 65% for the ‘No Religion’?

Jul 09, 2008 21:35:10 GMT

The BHA are lobbying the Office of National Statistics to change the religion and belief question in the 2011 census as we believe that the 2001 question led to deeply flawed results (see below for discussion of this). The Office of National Statistics has written to the BHA telling them that they have done some testing of the question and that their results show that the 2001 question should be used again. BHA believe that this is a highly irresponsible decision, in light of how the 2001 data has been misused and the part it has played in advancing an unrepresentative agenda of religion-based work in so many areas. In order to strengthen our case, evidence is needed to show the difficulties created by the 2001 census question.

Therefore, the BHA would be very grateful if you could look out for information in your locality which justifies ‘faith-based’ practices by public bodies based on census results. Examples of this may include making funding decisions using this data or changes in service delivery; it may also include any use of the data which is unqualified e.g. in official documents which may say ‘70% of local residents are Christian’ rather than ‘70% of local residents responded “Christian” when asked “What is your religion” in the 2001 census’.

If you have any pertinent examples, please let them know so that they can build up evidence showing the misuse of the questionable 2001 data. All information should be sent to Naomi Phillips, Public Affairs Officer, naomi@humanism.org.uk

The 2011 census

The objective is to ensure that the question or questions about religion in the 2011 census give an accurate picture of religious affiliation in the UK. The single question in the 2001 census used in England and Wales gave a far higher figure for ‘Christian’ than all other surveys: 71.74% in England and 71.90% in Wales, while the Scottish figures, where respondents were asked about the religion they were brought up in, as well as their current religion, showed significantly lower religious affiliation: 65.08%, in spite of far higher figures for Church attendance for example in Scotland. The corresponding figures for ‘no religion’ were: England 14.60%, Wales 18.63% and Scotland 27.55%. The figures were probably also distorted by the fact that the question appeared immediately after a series of questions on ethnicity, which may well have encouraged people to respond more on the basis of culture than actual beliefs or religious affiliation.

Other surveys tend to give around 30 – 40% non-religious, rising to 60 – 65% for young people.

The census figures are, of course, used throughout Government as the basis for planning, resource allocation, etc, so it really is very important to make sure that the figures they produce next time are a true reflection of the situation in the UK.

JOIN US FOR A CHAT - Starts Monday, June 09, 20:30

from Berkshire Humanists by Robert Ede

As an experiment in bringing humanists together we are going to try an online Skypecast to see what sort of response we get to a public skypecast.

At 20:30 on Monday 9th June we will open up a voice chat on the internet using Skype. Participants will have 15 minutes to join the session. This initial session will probably last about 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on how things go.

Berkshire Humanists Skypecasts

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Berkshire Humanists

Hosted by: robert.ede

Starts June 09, 20:30

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Bring internet conversations to life in calls with up to 100 people who share your interests. Find out more.

HUMANISM in the school curiculum

June 1, 2008

In 2005 Berkshire Humanists were invited by the Reading SACRE to submit an appendix covering Humanism to be included with the relaunch of the Agreed Syllabus covering all Berkshire schools.

The download shows the syllabus that was the last to be submitted before it was rejected for unknown reasons.

Submission by Berkshire Humanists of a syllabus to be an appendix to the Agreed Syllabus for all Berkshire schools.