Sunday, February 1, Iowa City:  Informational meeting at 7:00pm for Camp Quest in 2009.  Camp Quest is a secular summer camp for kids age 8-15 and counselors in training ages 16 and 17.  This meeting is intended to provide information and answer questions for interested campers, their parents, and volunteers.  Please contact Jaime Sabel at jsabel[at]iowasecularists[dot]org to RSVP and get directions.

Friday February 6. Cedar Rapids. First Friday Social at 7:00pm at Dana’s house.

Saturday, February 7, Des Moines.  Quarterly IS Board Meeting.

Saturday, February 7. Des Moines. Iowa Secularists Winter Solstice Soiree at the Drake Municipal Observatory (rescheduled from December).  Registration is still open; the deadline is February 4th.  Please see the post further down the page for more information about the event and how to join us for this great event!

Monday-Thursday, February 9-12, Cedar Falls-Waterloo.  Darwin Week activities sponsored by the University of Northern Iowa Freethinkers and Inquirers (UNIFI) and the Iowa Secularists.   All events are in the Maucker Student Union at UNI unless otherwise noted.  Keynote addresses include:

Wednesday, February 11, 7:00pm:  Hector Avalos, Ph.D., Prof. of Religious Studies, Iowa State University: “Intelligent Design: Why it is religion and not science.”

Thursday, February 12, 7:00pm:  Mr. D.J. Grothe, Vice President and Director of Outreach Programs, The Center for Inquiry Transnational: ”Darwin made me do it: Secular and religious ethics.”  Also will be done February 13th at ISU (see below).

Click the Cedar Falls/Waterloo link below for a day-by-day list of these and other activities, or go to www.darwinweek.com.

Wednesday-Friday, February 11-13, Iowa City.  Darwin Week activities with keynote addresses by biologist, researcher, theorist, naturalist, and author, E. O. Wilson.  Professor Wilson is Pellegrino University Research Professor in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.  He is a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.  His talks will be:

Wednesday, February 11 at 7:30pm: “Why Biodiversity Matters” at the Iowa Memorial Union Main Ballroom on the UI campus, and

Thursday February 12 at 9:00am: “Why Biodiversity Matters” in the Old Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol on the UI campus.

For a complete listing of Darwin Week activities in Iowa City and at the University of Iowa, please visit http://icdarwinday.org/default.aspx for more information.

Thursday, February 12. Iowa City. Old Chicago meetup. 7:00pm.

Thursday-Friday, February 12-13, ISU campus.  Darwin Day activities sponsored by the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society and the Iowa Secularists.  Keynote events include:

Thursday, February 12, ISU campus.  “Darwin and Me” panel discussion, 7:00pm, Cardinal room of the Memorial Union.

Friday, February 13, ISU campus.  Mr. D.J. Grothe, Vice President and Director of Outreach Programs, The Center for Inquiry Transnational: ”Darwin made me do it: Secular and religious ethics”, Campanile Room of the Memorial Union, 7:00pm.  Can people be good without being religious? What does Darwin’s theory of evolution tell us about morality? Can a secular ethics – based firmly in the sciences – hold the answers to the world’s greatest problems?

Saturday, February 14, Des Moines.  Saturday morning coffee meetup at Cup O’Kryptonite , 10:00am.

Saturday, February 14, Cedar Rapids.  Cedar Rapids Clean-Up/Rebuilding effort, 9:00am.

Sunday, February 15, Waterloo.  Sunday Coffee meetup at Panera Bread, 11:00am.

Wednesday, February 18, Cedar Rapids. Game Night at Battlezone, 7:00pm. 

Thursday, February 19. Cedar Rapids.  Cedar Rapids Area Dinner. 7:00pm at Leonardo’s Pizza.

Thursday, February 19, Des Moines.  IS meetup, Firkin and Fox, 7:00pm

Thursday, February 26, Waterloo-Cedar Falls.  IS Dinner (location to be determined), 7:00pm

Saturday, February 28, Iowa City. Capanna Coffee meetup in downtown Iowa City, 10:00am. 

*More events will be added as they are scheduled.

For more information and to RSVP to Iowa Secularists Meetup events:
Cedar Falls/Waterloo
Corridor (Cedar Rapids, Iowa City)
Des Moines

For a complete list of events of the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society, click here: ISU AAS

For a complete list of events or information about UNIFI, click here: UNIFI.

For the full combined calendar of these and other events for the month of February, check out the ‘Calendar’ page (note: you must be logged in to see the events on the calendar).

If you have tried to email anyone at an [at]iowasecularst[dot]org email address in the past few days, the intended recipient did not receive the email because of the problems with the previous website. Now that we have the new website up and running, mail to bsabel and jsabel have been restored at the new address of [at]iowasecularists[dot]org (please note that iowasecularists is now plural for these addresses). However, other email addresses are not yet working. We hope to have this all resolved in the next few days. If you have an [at]iowasecularist[dot]org address and have not heard from Jaime, please email me at jsabel[at]iowasecularists[dot]org so that I can get your email working again. Also, if you have tried to join the group and have not heard back, this is also because the email notifications were not working. Please try again or email me with questions! Thank you all for your patience while we get everything running smoothly again!

Kind of. I have restored much of the functionality of the old iowasecularist.org website. But as you can see, we’re not out of the woods yet. I am working on restoring the Forum which (not surprisingly) is a tedious task but is coming along fine. Stay tuned for more updates!

On Saturday, February 7th, we will try again for the Iowa Secularists Winter Solstice Soiree at the Drake Municipal Observatory! We won’t be able to view the solstice sky, but will still enjoy the Observatory, the company of other Iowa Secularists, and hopefully view the February 7th sky! For those who have already registered, your reservation is still in place. If you will not be able to attend at the rescheduled date, please let me know so we can refund your tickets. For those who would not have been able to attend on December 20th, we are reopening the registration so you can still join us! Please see below for information on how to reserve a ticket!

We will begin at 7pm with hors d’oervres followed by a tour of the observatory and a presentation. We will then have the opportunity to view the night’s sky at about 8:30pm, weather permitting.

This event is semi-formal and will require a ticket for admittance.

Please note that the telescope must be kept at cool temperatures, so the observation portion of the evening will be as cold as it is outside on February 7th.

For more information on the Observatory, please visit the website here. This website also includes a page with directions to the Observatory which is located at the Waveland Park Golf Course in Des Moines.

Tickets are $30 per person. To purchase a ticket, please use the PayPal link below or send a check to Iowa Secularists, P.O. Box 883, Iowa City, IA 52244. Please have all tickets purchased or arrangements made by February 4th so that we may plan accordingly.

Please email jsabel[at]iowasecularists[dot]org with questions!

Friday January 2. Cedar Rapids. First Friday Social at 7pm at the home of Niles and Carol Ross.

Thursday, January 8. Coralville. Iowa City/Coralville meeting 7pm Old Chicago Pizza.

Saturday, January 10. Des Moines. A new, second Des Moines time and place! 10am Cup O Kryptonite, 4521 Fleur Dr. Suite F, Des Moines.

Thursday, January 15. West Des Moines. Des Moines meeting. 7pm, Firkin and Fox.

Thursday, January 15. Marion. Cedar Rapids Meetup. 7pm. Naso’s, 453 7th Ave, Marion.

Tuesday, January 20. Cedar Rapids. Inauguration Party 6pm at the home of Niles and Carol Ross. Please bring snacks.

Saturday, January 24. Iowa City. Capanna Coffee meeting. Capanna Coffee Co. 136 S. Dubuque St., downtown Iowa City. 10:00am.

*More events will be added as they are scheduled.

For more information and to RSVP to Iowa Secularists Meetup events:
Cedar Falls/Waterloo
Corridor (Cedar Rapids, Iowa City)
Des Moines