Did you know that the SSA website has a set of discussion forums?  You might not have, but SSA Board Member Becky Robinson shows us what a great resource these forums can be.   
 

 

The Secular Student Alliance/New Humanism Conference at Harvard last month gave secular students a chance to discuss ideas, to troubleshoot, and to work out effective solutions with one another.  While we were in person, the conversation never waned.  The free-flow of ideas brought to light a great void that exists in communication when we all return to our little corners of the country.  Great conversations were started that were not able to be finished. Creative ideas and problem-solving technique discussions were truncated as we bustled from one event to another.  Fortunately, the SSA can provide a place where we can all continue talking with and learning from one another!

 

For a while, the SSA has had discussion forums already set up on our website.   These were much more active months and months ago.  But then we got busy:  we moved into a new office building, we began adding many famous secularists to our speakers bureau and arranging campus speaking events for our affiliates, and we started planning for our conference at  Harvard.  Throughout all of that, these forums become mothballed.

 

It’s time for that to change.  It’s time to dust off these discussion forums and bring secular students from around the world together.  Do you want to get more information on starting up a campus group from those who have already done it?  There is a place for your questions in the Group Starting Troubleshooting forum.  Did you find a cool video on Youtube that you want to share?  Post it in the Media forum.  Did your group have an awesome event that you want to talk about?  Tell us about it in the Event Organizing forum.  

 

We shouldn’t be waiting for in-person conferences to communicate and help each other, and we don’t have to!  We have a year-round, ongoing activist training session right at our fingertips.  I encourage all of you to check out the forums.  Start a new topic or comment on another.  This is an opportunity for us to open up a dialogue to share, learn, and teach.  Starting, running, and participating in a campus group can be a daunting task, yet we can make it easier by communicating.  Let us know what has worked and what has not, so that we can learn from others’ mistakes and especially successes! 

 

We are a community of activists, the only thing missing are the connections.  We no longer have to be disconnected.  Reach out to your fellow comrades!  The SSA discussion forums are a great place to start.

 

 

 

 

This article originally appeared in the SSA eMpirical No. 19 - After the Conference.