IT’S BEEN a busy year on many fronts for the Skeptics, with a number of major firsts:
We started the year in the New Age of Technology, with a majority of the committee now on an electronic mailing list that has proved invaluable for discussions, alerts and agreements on a whole host of topics.
We made our first complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority, which was (mostly) successful, and flagged public awareness of the importance of professional standards with our national broadcaster.
We made our first foray into the education area, following suggestions at last year’s AGM that we look at how to encourage critical thinking in the young. We sponsored a page in Starters and Strategies, a well-respected teaching resource publication that goes to 26,000 teachers nation-wide from primary level on up. Heather Mackay led the charge there, and we look to further activity in this area, I hope with support from other like-minded groups.
We undertook our first large book order from Prometheus Books, shipping 42 selected volumes here to boost the bookshelves of the skeptical. In the past we’ve benefited greatly from Jeanne van Gorkom’s hard work with her bookshop and her willingness to lug suitcases of books to the conference.
We made our first-ever public commendation of a politician — a rare thing these days — honouring Nick Smith with a Bravo Award for his public condemnation of psychics getting involved in the hunt for Ben Smart and Olivia Hope.
And for a major second — we now have our second-ever Treasurer, with Clare Simpson taking on the role when Bernard Howard went overseas. Her official term started, appropriately enough, on April 1st. Many thanks to Bernard for his years of stalwart service in keeping an eye on skeptical funds. I should hasten to assure you that our increased spending this year was in no way related to Bernard’s absence….
Our ever-vigilant watch on the media continued as always, and we’ve had a lot of media contact this year. We started the year with Denis Dutton and me making a series of predictions for the Holmes programme. While the programme itself was a disappointment in that you couldn’t tell the skeptics from the psychics (apart from the jewellery), we can announce consistent triumph in the successful prediction stakes.
Ones which we have achieved already include: a plane crash causing loss of life sometime between April 1-15 with red in the plane’s livery (two); a major earthquake in Asia (two; four if you count Turkey as part of Asia); continuing difficulties for the New Zealand Cricket team (enough said). I was disappointed that Jim Mora apparently wasn’t game to use Denis’ best prediction — “that Paul Holmes’ romantic entanglements would continue to provide a source of intense media speculation”…
Gary McCormick dropped by and seemed startled to find how nice skeptics could be. Early in the year North & South ran a very positive profile on Yours Truly, pointing out how much fun skeptics have. So maybe we’re starting to change that image that appalled us at last year’s conference. We’ll need to work on it some more, I suspect.
We’re looking forward to the 50th issue of the Skeptic coming up at the end of the year. There have already been suggestions that we mark the occasion with something special, having missed our 10th anniversary some years back. By all means beam us any ideas you may have.
Your Chair-entity Vicki Hyde
