Hello fellow SSA friends,

I am the head administrator for the largest atheist group on Facebook, (currently 9,000 active members) and founder of the Secular Covenant. The large number of the members of the group have come up with an idea for what we have called Athefest.

I'll post Sean Goff's excellent summation of the idea:

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The vision of AtheFest is to give atheist, agnostic, nonreligious, and freethinking college students in general to have an opportunity to network and get to know others who are on the same page as they are. It also offers those of us who are only acquaintances through online forums and blogs or in other medias of debate and discussion an opportunity to put a face to our names and to build a much stronger and personal community, especially in those of us who are at the college level.

The event will last for a full weekend (most likely Friday evening, all day Saturday, and Sunday afternoon), but an exact date has not yet been set in stone yet, as we are still accepting ideas from these various organizations, as well as from those who will be attending the event. There has been a great deal of planning already though, and here are some of the ideas which have been thrown around so far:

- Bands, Live Music, and other forms of live entertainment
- Speakers
- Student Presentations
- Student and Professor Discussion Panels
- Booths for organizations to promote themselves
- Workshops
- Museum Visits
- A dance or other major social event for people to get to know each other better and network
- Open Mic for poetry, songs, etc.
- Catered Dinner Discussions
- Outdoor Barbeque
- And more

If you or your organization is in the Chicago area and would like to help, or if you would simply like to voice your opinion or ask questions regarding the project, contract me at SGLawler@gmail.com
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With the amount of positive feedback online, including the international response we believe the potential to reach and unite the large online community is unparalleled. Right now, we can supply the ever increasing majority of college age and teenage atheists, and we believe between the Center for Inquiry, SSA, and some of the Humanists organizations, we can pull together an enormous response.

This will be our first attempt to organize such an event, with a targeted date in July 2008. Let me know if you folks have any ideas or input.

Thanks,

Dane Andrade

Dandrade@alumni.nd.edu