AOF Activities & Events
It's California Freethought Day, the Nineteenth Annual Freethought Day Festival, a day when the whole community of freethinkers, including AOF, join hands to bring you a celebration of free minds, along with music, speakers, awards and much more.
AOF founded this Festival in 2002 as a rag-tag gathering on the Sacramento Courthouse steps. Since then it has grown and taken wings. Today "CFD" is an annual public jubilee hosted by the independent Freethought Day Committee, a statewide festival of secularism and independent thought, celebrating free speech and thought, civic engagement, enthusiasm for science, social justice, and the separation of church and state. It combines "the fun and festivity of a fair with the education and activism of a conference," as the event chair fondly explains. Meanwhile AOF continues to promote it, because we couldn't be more proud.
The committee is packing the day with events to entertain you and uplift you. Speakers, panelists & entertainers will include political scientist Juhem Navarro-Rivera, organizer Sean Omar Rivera, authors Seth Andrews, Thomas Westbrook and Erin Louis, congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, juggler Andy Swan, and musician Shelley Segal. The Master of Ceremonies will be science journalist Kavin Senapathy. And the lineup is growing as you read this. This year's event theme is: Reason in the Voting Booth.
As ever, attendance is open to all and free. Due to public health concerns, this year's event will occur as streaming videoconference via YouTube. In other words, you can attend from the comfort and safety of your home and the tasty proximity of your pantry. For details how, see http://freethoughtday.org/.
Please sign up now. But, sign up why? It's free, isn't it? Yes, the main event is free to attend, but advance registration (just as free) guarantees you a link to the videostream and entitles you to updates. Meanwhile, to learn more, visit the event website, or see the Facebook Page.
The seed of this festival, of course, is Freethought Day, a secular holiday that technically falls on October 12 (click that little link to learn a bit about it), and one of many celebrations held world-over at about the time.
And by the way, if you'd like to volunteer, sponsor, donate, help promote or help plan - or if you just have ideas - then please do visit the event website now, and contact the chairman (see below). Sooner = better. The team will love to have you, because hands that help ... are beautiful hands.
