Think Week: 22nd - 28th February

Richy Thompson talks about an event taking place this month from 22nd - 28th. Think Week is being run by Oxford University students and local townspeople.

Hi, I'm Richy Thompson, a fourth year undergraduate at Oxford University and also coordinator of Oxford Think Week, a series of 15 high profile events occurring from the 22nd to the 28th February. There are 5 non-theistic societies in Oxford (which for a city this size, must be some kind of record!) - these are the Oxford Atheist Society, Oxford Secular Society, Oxford Humanists, Oxford Sea of Faith and Oxford Skeptics in the Pub. The first two of these are University societies, and the last three are town societies. Think Week has been organised jointly by these 5 societies, and the events are free for everyone to come along to. There'll be something happening every lunch and evening, with events being largely speaker-oriented; guests include the philosopher Stephen Law, the scientist Peter Atkins, BHA CEO Andrew Copson, anti-Sharia campaigner Maryam Namazie, philosopher Julian Baggini, Camp Quest UK Director Samantha Stein and secular MP Evan Harris. Full details of all happenings can be seen on the Events page of the website.

Additionally, as if we weren't organising enough already, the annual conference of the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) will be occurring on the 27th, bringing together students from societies across the UK. Last year's conference in London also served as the press launch of the AHS, receiving widespread coverage. This year will be a more internal affair, and lots of training meetings will be happening, but there will be public bits, tying into Think Week; a sort of irreligious fair will take place at lunch (stalls confirmed so far are Camp Quest UK, New Humanist Magazine, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, British Humanist Association, an AHS campaigns stall and an AHS regional stall), and the day will conclude with a performance from the BHA Choir!

The idea for the week started with the Oxford Atheist Society, and was inspired by similar weeks that have been put on by other student societies up and down the country (typically under the names Awareness Week or Rationalist Week). We feel that this is a bit different though, firstly in terms of being more speaker-focussed, and secondly, it is not just being organised by one student group, but is being organised by 5 different groups, with the goal being to bring in an audience from the wider area, not just from the University. We're also promoting the week heavily in Oxford's other University, Oxford Brookes. We feel that this means what we're doing is without precedent.

The aim of the week will be to expose the type of discussion and debate that the various participating societies offer to a wider audience and hence raise the profile of the issues involved. This sets it apart from the annual Oxford Inter-Collegiate CU week (and similar weeks at other Universities, no doubt), which is explicitly a proselytizing event, and we won't be covering base questions like "Does God exist?" but instead be providing events in a similar vein to those we provide during the rest of the year ("so we think God doesn't exist... now what?"). The events will be intended to make people think about things they probably haven't thought about before - hence the name.

One big gain from the week that has occurred already. Levels of cooperation now happening between the different societies in Oxford is massive. Beforehand we had 5 societies who promoted each other's events but didn't really interact a whole lot more than that. Now we all know each other really well, with a wider community being established in the place of a number of smaller ones. Hopefully many more joint events will follow on from the week. It'd be great if similar steps could be taken in other University towns, should the right societies exist! The more united our local groups are, the more enthusiastic our audience becomes for what we are offering.

Organising this week has been a huge undertaking (I know my degree is suffering a bit!), but equally it has been great fun. Time will tell as to whether we still feel it's worth it after we come out the other side!

To reiterate, Think Week will be taking place from the 22nd to 28th February. If anybody reading this wants to come along to the week, please do so! We look forward to seeing you there.