Yesterday I attended the Annual General Meeting of the British Humanist Association, a charitable organisation which promotes the interests of Humanism.   As a member of the BHA I have to be honest, I was expecting a very dry meeting with a lot of old people reading in a monotone way the activities of the association for the last year, and how wrong I was.

To start with I registered for the AGM, and wandered around looking at some of the leaflets and re-looking at the annual accounts.  very dry reading indeed.  The Conway Hall itself is quite a dated venue and was built in 1929.  Above the stage area in the main hall was the saying, “To Thine Own Self Be True” and never truer words from a humanist perspective.  Shakespeare has always been inspiring to me personally, and I love his work, so to see him quoted in such a way really set the scene for me.

I hadn’t intended to sit through all the forums because I had this pre-conception that they’d all be very boring accounts.  However I was very much mistaken, as I discovered when I went into the campaign forum.  Andrew Copson, led the discussion and it was a really passionate presentation about how far we’d come in campaigning against faith schools, and the census question.

The questioning in the forum was very bullish, and forthright.  People had no problem standing up and speaking out, giving specific examples where religious privilege was rife in their communities.  It was clear that other Humanists at the meeting feel very passionate about equality the environment and there was a very clear sense of personal accountability.  There were so many people standing up and saying, “This is what I am doing”, or “Where I live here are the issues”.   Equally as positive the BHA were taking up some of the issues raised, to explore them further and offer assistance.

The AGM itself was quite lively, and Hanne Stinson gave a very good account of the activities in the last year.  People we not shy about questioning her either, and she was challenged on a number of issues.   There was a particular question about the national anthem, and if we should campaign to get it changed, so we had a show of hands to see if members thought this was worth investing any resource in.

One rather grumpy old member wanted to press on and cover the accounts, which was slightly dry, and to be fair they kept it quite short.  Many questions were raised, and well responded to around this topic.  Hanne is also trying to raise an extra £100,000 for which she has agreed to have the BHA logo tattooed on her shoulder.  Depending on how much money is raised depends on how big the tattoo will be.   As the collection box came around I almost felt like I was in church, but everyone put some cash in the box as it was passed long.

The final part of the AGM was an address by Poly Toynbee, which was greeted with rapturous applause.  Poly was an extremely engaging speaker and I sat and wondered why this wasn’t being videoed for publication.  She covered all the issues from Scouts, to Lords reform, and ended by highlighting the very important work done in promoting a humanist lifestyle through ceremonies work.

I even got to meet Poly after the meeting, and it felt a bit like I was meeting a celebrity, but she was relaxed to talk to, and equally as engaging on an individual level.  I spoke to other key players in the BHA such as Andrew Copson, and Hanne Stinson, and they were equally glad to chat and hear about not only my work with Berkshire Humanists, but also my personal experiences.  What amazed me the most is that people knew my name.  Of the thousands of members, they recognised my name from postings in the forum, from facebook, and from my work with the local group.

I came away from the meeting feeling really excited and positive about the BHA and the work they do and am more determined to renew my membership year on year.