ONTARIO HUMANIST SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
Summer 2010 / Vol. 1, No. 1
Greetings from OHS!!
A year has passed since the original six members of OHS developed a vision for the new organization, and got down to work. In keeping with our chosen definition of humanism, founders envisioned a humanist organization that could focus on provincially based humanist issues with an emphasis on human rights.
The way we see it . . .
Humanism is a non-religious ethical philosophy, a way of life and a way of thinking, that involves adherence to strong ethics, an emphasis on human rights and respect for the Earth and its creatures. A humanist works toward creating a more humane and responsible world, with a commitment to reason and compassion.
And who are we?
We are a group of Ontario-based humanists with a passion for social justice and equity, who felt that there was room for a provincially-based organization to complement the work of Humanist Canada and local groups.
If you are concerned with, or working to promote pro-choice, a One School System, support for gays and lesbians, dying with dignity, the elimination of prayers in municipal councils, perhaps we can help you connect with other volunteers and supporters to work with you.
Please let us know if you’d like to start a new humanist group in your area, or would like information about ‘growing’ your current group. We would like to support you.
As part of fostering a humanist community, we wish to add to the roster of licensed humanist officiants in Ontario, trained to offer meaningful, respectful, non-religious rites of passage to the public. Our aim is to train an OHS officiant for every local association so that humanists across Ontario will be able to access secular weddings, funeral and memorial services and child naming. If you have a member interested in becoming an officiant, we would like to connect with them.
Getting started:
In our first year, members worked diligently to develop a Constitution and By-Laws, apply for and receive our incorporation, design and implement our website, and receive approval from the Registrar General of Ontario to license OHS officiants.
OHS is holding an Officiant Training and Officiant’s Annual General Meeting in early November, and will be organizing an Annual General Meeting for all members for the spring of 2011. We hope to offer both educational workshops and a provocative speaker at the AGM. If you have ideas for speakers you would like to hear, please send them along to us.
Local Group News
In future newsletters, we would like to highlight the work and challenges of each of the local groups. This month, we are featuring news from The Humanist Association of Ottawa.
“The Humanist Association of Ottawa (HAO) is in the process of deciding future directions. The current board of HAO proposes to have HAO become a branch of the Centre for Inquiry, a US- and Canadian-based organization. Impressed with the work of CFI, the HAO board proposal is to wind down HAO as a legal entity after they switch over. The proposal has been met with resistance from some of the longstanding members of HAO who do not wish to see HAO disappear from the Ottawa area. They believe that the association deserves a life of its own.”
We welcome your participation, your way!
We value the ideas and participation of our members because we are a volunteer, grassroots organization. We are open to your comments and ideas. We are always looking for issues relation to humanist ethical action initiatives as well as ideas for promoting OHS and its mission to support organized humanism in Ontario.
_______________________________________________________________
PAST NEWS:
Kathryn Cook, a founding member of the Ontario Humanist Society and a long standing, active Humanist Officiant, died peacefully in her sleep on May 9, 2010, surrounded by her family.
Couples and families desiring a meaningful, non-religious ceremony to mark their rites of passage lost an important figure as Kay was a strong, successful and highly popular officiant for over 40 years. It was not unusual for Kay to perform a wedding ceremony for a couple, and decades later, for that couple’s children. Many restaurants, wedding venues and funeral homes in Toronto knew Kay well, and called her first to perform the wedding and funeral ceremonies they wanted for their clients.
Kay had enormous energy – driving many hours each week between her homes in Toronto and Brockville. She loved driving, especially in the sleek, snazzy cars she favoured. She was able to manage her travels alongside the dozens of ceremonies she performed each month.
A woman of many talents, Kay was a watercolourist, an avid (and daily) swimmer, and a chorister. She was never too tired however, to help with officiant training, sit on a HAT Officiants’ Committee, attend a conference, or a Toronto Humanist monthly meeting. She also published a small book as a reference for creating Humanist rites of passage ceremonies.
All of us who knew Kay will remember her good nature, her smiling face, the warmth of her voice, her energy, her contributions to humanistic practice through mentoring other officiants and her leadership in spreading the word about humanism through her ceremonies.
She will be sorely missed by her devoted family, as well as her many friends and colleagues in the Unitarian and Humanist communities.
(remarks by Terri Hope and Gail McCabe)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Raising the volume on Humanist Action Issues in Ontario
Welcome OHS members, freethinking inquirers and web surfers! As a relatively new association, we are working very hard to develop our web presence and beyond that promoting issues that are significant to Humanists in Ontario and across the globe. Our aim is to reflect Humanist perspectives on social, political and ethical issues; to ensure that Humanists weigh in on the dialogues and debates that arise in our province.
For that purpose, we have added links on leading to Ethical Action and Position Papers. Of course, we have yet to develop all of these positions because no one individual can represent the totality of Humanist perspectives on these issues. Nor have we developed strategies on the many issues that are of significance to Humanists. For us to accomplish those issues, we must gather many Humanist voices to do the writing and add to our knowledge base. We begin with an issue identified by our members as particularly significant in the Province of Ontario – public funding to faith-based schools.
Our position on this key issue is available now at Position Papers. We have begun the process of distributing the statement to a range of groups and individuals, so the Humanist voice can be heard in the debates that will be an inevitable part of the upcoming provincial election in Ontario. For example, on March 12, Kevin Saldanha, an OHS member, President of the Halton Peel Humanist Community and a newly minted director of the Humanist Association of Canada took our statement to an Open Public Hearing addressing the Education Task Force of the Ontario New Democratic Party on the question of religious funding for education in the Province of Ontario at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto. Kevin spoke to the meeting on our behalf representing OHS and Humanists in Ontario. He has also been active on the One School System Network at www.onessn.org. For those of you with an interest in this issue, you can contact Kevin at hphc@humanist.ca.
We ask all of you to get active by writing to your MP and by holding politicians accountable for the misuse of public funds to support what are private and personal concerns. If you want to take our statement further in the public sphere, please acknowledge the authorship of the Ontario Humanist Society. We will be uploading tools to the Action Issue webpage for you to use in order to get the word out.
Stage 2 … Depending on the resources we can muster, we will want to take positions on other Action Issues such as the right to die, human rights for disadvantaged groups and individuals, and reform of the electoral system (proportional representation). For a list of other significant issues that have been identified by us, visit the Action Issues web page.
You, taking action … One of the issues on our list may spark your passions, your interest, your creative energy … if you write, we need writers … if you are a speaker, we need speakers. And we need them throughout the province. Ideally, we want local humanist groups to join us and speak out so that like-minded people will join us at the local, provincial and national level. As one of our members says, one can have many Humanist associations. Yes, you can!
Gail McCabe
President, Ontario Humanist Society
