Meeting 14: Sun 2/11, 5PM, Marston Science Library 1st Floor

ELECTIONS! We'll start the night by asking around who is interested in running for any office. You need no nomination, and no qualifications can be added (e.g. how many meetings you've attended or your time of tenure). Then, once we have a list of officer positions and candidates, we will use secret ballots to conduct the election, as outlined in our constitution, Article VIII. We will have an open count involving at least two officers, and allow the ballots to be viewed afterwards to ensure accuracy. And it's that simple. After the election, we'll have a group discussion for a while before going to socialize.

I've been giving our meetings some thought, and I've decided to try out weekends a few times. I've heard from more than a couple of our members that our scheduled meetings are never convenient for them, and they've asked why we don't meet sometimes on the weekend, when classes aren't an issue and most people have more free time. Their cry has been heard.

First, time: it seems reasonable to move the meeting to a bit earlier in the day on a Sunday, since people will likely not be out on-campus that day, and most will probably want to return home earlier in order to do work.

Second, locale: We could still meet in CLB 414, but on the weekend, my building is locked. Although I have a key, it would be time-consuming and difficult for me to let everyone in, and some people would surely end up getting locked out once the meeting had started.

Thus, I propose we meet at one of the two major libraries -- Library West or Marston Science Library, in an area that allows talking.

According to the website, Library West allows talking on floors 1, 2 and 3, and Marston Science Library has a general discussion / group study area on the 1st floor. The library hours of both Library West and Marston Science are 10am - 1am on Sunday. Being familiar with both libraries, I think it wise for us to meet at Marston Science on the 1st floor; Libary West is much more popular and noisy, and Marston will probably be dead on Sunday.

So it's that simple -- meet at 5PM on Sunday, February 11th in Marston Science Library on the 1st floor (it's like a basement). We'll hold elections first and then have group discussion on the previous week's topics and anything else of interest, then whoever is interested will go out to eat and socialize.

See you there!

"Brother Micah" and "Sister Elizabeth" at UF

Meet "Brother Micah" and "Sister Elizabeth" Armstrong, originally of the Open Air Preaching Ministry of Miami. Micah was born April 20, 1967, and he's been an a$$hole ever since.

Micah and wife descended upon UF to spew forth their fear, ignorance and hatred for about 5 hours on 1/29 and 1/30, from 12-5, in Turlington Plaza. They may be back today. I'm quite unsure. Unfortunately, it looks like they're going to be regulars on the circuit now -- they teamed up with Jed and have already done a lot of touring of Florida campuses. See some Youtube videos of them on-campus at UF today (1/30) and yesterday here. Props to Adam for those.

The most noteworthy thing Micah has accomplished recently is getting an air horn set off right beside his ear by a strip club owner in Tampa last November. You can see the news article and videos here, and see video update (all it confirms is that Micah and Larry didn't press charges). How big of them [eye roll]. He and some Larry Keffer of the "Biblical Research Center" were the ones involved in the incident.

You can view lots of Micah's recent activities here, and this funny note by some rotten heathen that got posted to his site. Although the old webpage of the "ministry" is broken, you can see plenty of cached material via Google if you so desire, including Micah's views on judgment, run-ins with the homeless, run-ins with the Miami PD, and preaching at a Madonna concert last July. And, if you're interested, contact the owner of the domain moami.org -- Vera Berry, or visit the Miami Open Air Mission (or write them snail mail) at:

Miami Open Air Mission
14266 SW 176th Terrace
Miami, FL, 33177-0000
(305) 232-4173

Recently, Micah was assaulted at USF. I can't say I'm surprised. He's quite an asshole. Of course, I don't condone violence, but I am amazed that this man hasn't been beaten more severely already. I'm sure it would feed his martyr complex if it did happen.

While I enjoyed and was entertained by the spectacle of Brother Jed, and had decent rational dialogue with Tom Short, this Micah is just a bastard. (See my review of UF Campus Preachers: Part 1, Part 2) What I now realize is that my interactions with him just augment the crowd, and so I've decided not to stop by for long if I see him out there again. I don't mind having a big crowd when there's a real dialogue -- like with Tom or Jed. This loudmouth ass just uses volume control to drown out refutations, questions and corrections.

He made the UCF paper last semester, and there's a really good Myspace of him at UCF here. So that's USF, FAU, UCF and now UF. FSU, you're next!

You can see lots of their other Youtube videos here, most of them from FAU. My favorite part in that former (UCF) vid was when the girl told him, "Your preaching makes me so horny..." and put her tongue between her fingers. I about died laughing when he told her she was trying to seduce him. I wish I could embed it, but Myspace won't let you. Check it out here.

The second best of the Youtubes is prolly this one at FAU, which even got Digged. A young professor of literature there at FAU, Brian Spears, wrote this and this about Micah on FAU campus.

Here's my favorite video of Micah from UF -- the "It's not okay to be gay" song:

I saved the best one from the other campuses as a Youtube below:

Micah has now joined the "hall of shame" in my review of UF Campus Preachers: Part 1, Part 2.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Campus preacher

Videos of "Brother Jed" at UF

Brother Jed (see more on Jed) visited UF again recently -- giving us loads of entertainment as he banters on breasts, demonstrates the pedarasty of Michael Jackson with electrical extension cords, warns girls that they may end up "old hags" if they don't get some "marriage prospects" soon...and on and on. He was quite entertaining, to say the least. I look forward to his return to campus, as watching him was fun. See all 12 of these videos here.


Props to DracoTheVampyre for this (and 11 more here)!
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Technorati tags: God, Religion

Godless Bowling -- Thurs 2/1/07 8PM - ?

Meet your fellow heathen at the spring's first social event -- Godless Bowling at Alley Katz. We'll start around 8 PM, but we'll be there for a few hours, I'm sure, for any late-comers straggling in. Thursdays are quarter nights -- you pay $10 to get in, and then renting shoes, beer, food, etc., are all $0.25!

Here's a mapquest map to the locale, for those unawares:
Map of AMF Alley Katz Corner:352-373-3833 3705 SW 42nd Ave # 1 Gainesville, FL 32608, US

The discussion board post on this activity can be found here.
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Technorati tags: AAFSA

SOF &c.

The harvest from the SOF today was quite good. We had a great table, and got a lot of interest in the group. We added about 30 names to the LISTSERV, and gave our business card to at least 20 more (only to those who already showed interest -- if we'd wanted, we could've pushed 200 on people easily like those damned coupon people). This group also helped our name be made more familiar to dozens more people, which is important.

We got to interact with Brother Jed Smock out in Turlington (he'll be out tomorrow too, 12-5 or so...see webcam), and this garnered the huge majority of the names and interest.

I really want to thank the following people for making today successful:

Ryan Heuser
Holly Stillman
Adam Christ
Andrew Silverman

Ryan and Holly put together a banner for us to hang on the table well into the wee hours, and Ryan and Adam put in quite a few hours today manning the table and getting names. Andrew came by and helped out at the table for a few hours as well. I really appreciate them. I know some of you couldn't make it out, and that's okay too.

I'll see you Tuesday night, default place and time -- CLB 414, 7PM, at meeting 1. Always see meeting info here. I also hope to enjoy some godless bowling, godless billiards, or general godless socializing with you some time next week.
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Technorati tags: AAFSA

UF Campus Preachers -- A Review

You can read all articles on campus preachers HERE.

Check 'em out:

• UF Campus Preachers -- Part 1 of 2


• UF Campus Preachers -- Part 2 of 2

UF Campus Preachers: A Review - Part 2

Read all articles on UF's campus preachers here. I have lots of relevant images here.

Since the first installment of this review, replete with a picture index and the emails and webpages of five of our infamous UF campus preachers, I have had phone interviews with Brother Jed and Ruben Israel, and compiled more information to report.

Ruben Israel and Bro. Jed accepted, while Tom Short, Frank Zaccaro** and Mike Siemer declined, phone interviews. (RI, BJ, TS, FW and MS, respectively) FW was even witty enough to reply to my email with a blank email, except for a signature at the bottom: "Sincerely, Frank". I responded and alerted him to the missing body of the email, which turned out to be intentional:

Daniel,
There was nothing in the message because that is all that the Bible has to say to Atheists. If God is not good enough for you then I certainly am not. The only warm regards you'll get from God is your butt burning in hell unless you snap out of it and trust in Jesus.
Saved by grace,
Frank

Hilarious. The "warm regards" he mentioned is from my own email signature: "With warm regards, Daniel".

I will summarize the phone interviews in as concise and interesting a format as possible.

Worst Beating/Heckling:

BJ -- "I had my ankle broken at the U of Wisconsin, my arm at Western Kentucky U." He said he received the ankle injury when, "someone pushed me off a bench," and, "[they] never found out who it was, and the police didn't do anything." He thinks that this was back in 1985. In telling me about the young man responsible for the broken arm, Jed said, "he was charged, given a plea bargain -- had to pay restitution...back in 1998."

RI -- On one of the most memorable backlashes from the audience: "I've been whipped with rosary beads." However, his worst beating was, "Not on college campus, it was with Jews...every May...your large city [sic] has a large 4th of July thing (that's when Israel won its independence [May])...Westwood, 3rd largest Jewish population -- that's where you go if you want to reach Jews...as we were going in, we knew it was going to be hostile. They got me as I was walking back to my car -- I was walking by some Jewish guys and they started to beat on me; if not for one Jewish guy who shielded me, cause they were pounding on me, it would've been pretty bad..."

Comment on success:

BJ -- "Salvations have remained about the same -- typically people who get saved through my ministry don't get saved on the spot...read my letters on the website." Jed thinks that only about 10% of Christians agree with him, because they have been taught friendship evangelism: find an unbeliever, introduce yourself, make yourself friendly, find some common ground, etc. "Initially you don't even say anything about your faith...gradually introduce your faith to them...I find the main approach to evangelism biblically is preaching publicly out where the sinners are and preaching against sin -- [it comes with] different rules for preaching than one-on-one..."

RI -- Despite the obvious lack of support from the audiences, Ruben assures me, "it is growing incredible". He continued, "Many churches will say, 'I disagree with what they're doing,' but behind closed scenes, they pat us on the back...We were just in Georgia, and now there are 5-6 Bible studies from what we did there...we look at this as fruit...we're not just a hatemongering group." He told me that people don't know how large their network is -- Bible Believers has 40 chapters nationwide -- in Atlanta, PA, Columbia. He bragged a bit about their legal support and legal successes in cases where campus preachers have been challenged.

Comment on interacting with our generation [Next]:

BJ -- "I still virtually wherever I go gather good sized crowds...back into the 70s and well into the 80s my crowds were generally larger...I have made some adjustments in my ministry -- I'm probably less provocative than I was in my earlier years...I don't think it is necessarily the hearts of the students...more distractions for the students -- the two main ones are the internet and cell phones. So often now...they're talking to someone over the cell phone...they're more distractions that you have to compete with...sometimes the new technology works in your favor -- for example a cell phone caller telling a friend [that BJ is out there preaching]. I don't think the changes over the years and the reactions of the students are significantly different...same questions, inane comments, not much has changed in 32 years; they think they're coming up with these original brilliant comments or questions, I've heard it literally thousands of times..."

RI -- "We have what I would call a microwave generation...I would say 20 years ago you could actually debate on a college campus for 2 hours, and actually have the students involved in the debate for two hours. Now you only have a quick time with this student before he gets bored...if you're not a little bit provocative and shocking, you're going to lose this student...satellite TV, 300 channels, but they put the remote down and say, 'there's nothing on TV'...you have to be shocking. [Student] attention spans used to be hours, now it's just 20 minutes, if that...we are a little bit entertainers...our motive is to try to make that student stop, miss class, ask questions..."

I asked Ruben how he thought the atmosphere was today versus 20 or 30 years ago: "I think they're a little bit more mellow...Berkeley was radical...professional mockers would wait for guys with a black book with their hand; nowadays it's nothing, usually a younger preacher will call me and say, 'This happened...' and I'll say, 'That's nothing!'"

On finances:

BJ -- On his finances, Jed said, "most of my support is from individuals, not churches, about 15% from churches...from individuals that I have met from speaking in churches...and then there will be a percentage that are people who were influenced during their college years by my ministry...probably about 10% supporters." "We live comfortably, we have a 5BR, 3BA home in a nice subdivision in Columbia MO...when I travel I stay in homes with people or have a nice motel room...the Lord has provided well for us over the years...with my oratorical skills I probably could have made more money in some other type work than I do..."

RI -- Ruben is a businessman out of LA, and his painting business must be doing fairly well -- he reports that he finances his own preaching, spending around $20-25K a year on travel. That is certainly something I respect of him: that he solicits no donations. Of course, you could argue that he is unlikely to receive much from his typical audiences: NOW marchers (he calls them "rebellious women"), Mardi Gras partiers, atheists...even football fans!

Next planned visit:

BJ -- he told me the second week of classes this spring, and his schedule here says the 18th-19th of January.

RI -- no clear date, but he said sometime in February or March.

More information on Ruben:

Ruben Israel Chavez learned much under the tutelage of "Bible Jim" Webber, whose Vegas antics are renowned, as he preaches frequently at the Bellagio Hotel. Now involved in open-air preaching for almost 3 decades, Ruben heads up the Official Street Preachers website, and is an Asst. Director of Street Preachers Fellowship. He tells me he has been doing open-air preaching and has been affiliated with the activity for the past 27 years. His infamy has even landed him a mention on the Glenn Beck website and show.

You can watch video of Ruben preaching in various venues on his media page. Thus, he is an authoritative voice in the arena of street-preaching (or, as they call it, "open air preaching") as administrator, organizer and participant. Ruben told me that Bible Believers, with its 40 chapters nationwide, acts as a sort of umbrella for himself, BJ and other independent ministers.

Part of this organization's major effort is directed at defending the right to conduct their open-air preaching in the "free speech zones" on university campuses. He claimed that recently, at UNO, a campus preacher was kicked off campus, even with a permit. He said he brought in 13 other campus preachers in his organization, returned, and that they got into a small altercation with the university police, which then went all the way up to the dean.

Ruben said there were 12 different teams that traveled the country doing this that he knew of -- all affiliated in some way one of the organizations he's connected to. He said that, "We've had many people who have decided it's not for them; [it's] counting the cost, not for everyone -- confrontational evangelism. Your younger Christian will say, 'this is horrible' but they don't understand...we're all the body, different parts..." While RI believes that some Catholics are saved, he is, "Against religion in general; religion is the worst thing that mankind can make...when the pope comes to town we try to send guys out there with banners: don't pray to Mary; there's no purgatory; we don't find the word 'Pope' in the bible..."

Finally, remarking on the disruptive character of what they do, Ruben called on the Constitution: "Freedom of religion surpasses freedom of speech; not even the laws can surpass you...we have a lot more rights than some guy just walking to class...If I offend the whole campus, I'm not going to miss one meal...I just don't want to offend God."

More information on Bro. Jed:

Jed's campus preaching started in Indiana 32 years ago. He has been on college campuses virtually 5 days a week, from around 12 PM - 5 PM during class days, ever since.

**UPDATE (1/29/07): See 12 videos of BJ at UF here**

I hate to rehash when much has been written about the man already: see the Wikipedia article, Who Will Rise Up? (autobiography which details his life and ministry), and his FAQ from an alt.usenet group. A lot of our phone call involved Radical Bill, longtime friend and somewhat an alter-ego of BJ; Bill and BJ were almost in collusion in the way they would stage their dialogue and debates here at UF, and then Jed would ask Bill to go out and buy dinner for him. I wrote more about Bill about in part 1, and he recently appeared in this recent Alligator article, which features a picture of Radical Bill sitting out in the Plaza of the Americas like the Buddha, debating a campus preacher.

In learning more, it seems Bill stretched the truth about Jed's wife -- Jed claims she never got involved in the drug or alcohol scene, just disco dancing. Some of the most interesting stuff I found was when I located, scanned and uploaded the six page Rolling Stone article on BJ. You can visit the index to download them or right-click and save each page. It's definitely worth your read. If the following links are broken, see here.

--index-- --page 1-- --page 2-- --page 3-- --page 4-- --page 5-- --page 6--

BJ's comments on the article: "I did not think it to be too bad an article," although Jed believed that it had a "particular slant you would expect...the quotes were accurate, but sometimes taken out of the context in which I said these things..."

Jed told me he also was followed a little by Bill O'Reilly back when Bill was still with ABC News, around 1986, Jed believes. "[A] NPR radio interview [was] probably about the best thing I've had the national media do on me 2003-4, when the interviewer asked me the media coverage I got -- I never noticed Bill being so confrontational and aggressive as he is now, [interviewer said] 'maybe you influenced O'Reilly...I see the value of your confrontational-aggressive approach, I'm reconsidering my style.'"

Jed told me that he did not actually train Tom Short, as Radical Bill informed me, but he did influence Tom's career: TS and Jed are "good friends," but "Tom never really traveled with me...I first met Tom in about '78..." Tom was a student in Ohio at the time, when BJ came to preach, and as a Christian, Tom "...questioned my approach and methods," but Jed turned the tables on him, after asking Tom what he did as a Christian to spread the gospel: after affirming that Tom wasn't very active in ministry, Jed retorted, "I like the way I'm doing it wrong better than the way you're not doing anything at all!" Within a year, Jed said Tom was preaching.

Another interesting little intersection [it's a small world, after all...] is that David Miller, dad of Christine, is often Jed's host when Jed is traveling here to preach at UF. For more on that story, see footnote [2] of part 1.

I'll close out the information on BJ by quoting some of his views on politics. I asked him these questions to see if his views had much changed in the 20-odd years since the Rolling Stone article, when he answered these same questions:

On poverty in the US: "Virtually no one is starving in America...perhaps suffering from malnutrition...I haven't heard of people starving, and I don't see a reason they should have to with all the church programs..."
On disenfranchisement: "If you're on welfare, and not really contributing to the system, then you ought not be allowed to vote."
On welfare: "Robbing from the more productive members of society to redistribute ... I believe in charity...but I don't think they ought to be required by law to help the poor."
On the rise of the Religious Right: "I don't think the religious right has been at all able to implement its agenda in the political realm to any great significance."
On political theory: "My 3 principles of good civil government are based on limited civil government, individual responsibility and private property...Democrats and socialists want to victimize everybody...they fail to make distinctions between public and private property...I oppose anti-smoking legislation in public places...these restaurants and hotels are open to the public but they are privately owned."
On education policy: "I don't believe the state ought to be in the business of handing out scholarships...it should be privately done."
On slavery: "In these tribal societies, the members of the tribe were virtually slaves of the tribal chiefs...I think they often had more freedom in the slave system in America than they did back in Africa...cannibalism was prominent...various tribes found out they could, instead of cannibalizing their POWs, they could sell them to slave traders."

Some UF incidents:

Although both Bro. Jed and Ruben agreed that college campus atmospheres are much less violent in their reactions to them, there is always a little drama, and both admitted to trying to entertain a bit and engage in theatrics in order to procure an audience. Two incidents I witnessed recently include an angry student getting in Tom Short's face and some backlash from Catholics who Michael Siemer condemned.

The most dramatic point I have personally witnessed was during my 3 days interacting with Tom Short when a young man, a skeptic, got in Tom's face and yelled at him not to malign science. He literally screamed right in his face. This was during Tom's tortured attempt to try to argue that science is bad because it doesn't say "God might've done it." The young man was very angry, and I strongly disagreed with his outburst. It actually had me worried for a moment that the young man was going to assault Tom. I booed at him. He looked like a fanatic loon, as if Tom had insulted his mother, rather than stumbling and fumbling his way through a pitiful refutation of science. The young man screamed something along the lines of, "LEAVE SCIENCE ALONE!!!" or "DON'T EVEN TALK ABOUT SCIENCE!!!"

Some of the flak comes from other Christians. Michael Siemer, for example, was recently beset by Catholics who surrounded him and were angry that he included them on his giant "surefire goin' to hell list". They began to chant the "Holy Mary, Mother of God..." thing, which Mike later told me was a sort of demonic chant [snicker]. There were probably about four of them, and they continued to pray, with Mike saying, "They're praying to a false god, man."

Conclusion:

Like, love or hate campus/open-air preachers, they aren't going away anytime soon. In part 1 I suggested some methods to use to counter their more offensive and outrageous antics, but I think that rational discourse will always win over dogma and fanaticism. I'll certainly be out in Turlington [see webcam] each time I am able when one of them is out there, and part of my effort here is directed towards the hope that others will join me. We come to a university to broaden our horizons, and these sorts of people present us with another opportunity to do just that -- to learn; and it is always healthy to question what we, and others, take for granted.

• UF Campus Preachers -- Part 1 of 2
• UF Campus Preachers -- Part 2 of 2

**It turns out that Frank Zaccaro is the correct name, not Frank Warner. "frankwarner" was his email, but he told me he meant "warner" as in "to warn".

Read all articles on UF's campus preachers here. I have lots of relevant images here.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Philosophy

Meeting 13: Tue, 1/23, 7 PM, CLB 414

We'll have the first meeting the Tuesday following the IDEAL Student Org. Fair. -- Jan 23, at 7 PM, in the Chemistry Lab Building room 414 (default location of meetings). We'll just discuss the group and the upcoming elections.

We're going to be out there (Reitz Colonnade) at the SOF on Thursday, Jan 18th, from 10 AM - 3 PM...or for as long as people are available. Basically, I'll just have a table with our poster, literary materials and business card-sized handouts, and we'll hang out there and tell people more about the group if they're interested. Last year, they stuck us on the West end of the Colonnade, and we got a least a few new members from the effort, and lots of exposure. For more info, see my post on last fall's SOF.

The next meeting (the first one in February) will include the elections (more here, fifth point). Please consider running for an officer position [including President], if you feel so moved. You will not have to be nominated to run, and you can go for it even if this would be your very first meeting. All you have to do is attend (to be scheduled here soon), and signify your interest.

I hope to see as many of you as possible Thursday the 18th at Reitz. Even if you can only come by for a few minutes, come out and meet the people of GF, anytime between 10 and 3. Looking forward to it!

Banner!

A big thanks to Brandon for retouching the AAFSA banner, and to Davy for the original design. Air your opinions -- leave comments on it (please).

I'm going to be printing this out as a canvas to display at our tabling events.
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Technorati tags: AAFSA

Gator Freethought -- Spring Semester

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break, and is ready to get back to the "daily grind". I had a few important things to go over with respect to our student organization.

Presentation Materials:

It is a high priority of mine to get the business cards and banner finished. The newest version of the banner (v.1.4) will include making the empty set symbol small and in the bottom corner (like in the other handouts), and removing the spear from the hand of homo sapiens sapiens. This has dragged on for a while partly due to lack of SG funds and partly due to my own indolence. Both will be remedied this semester.

IDEAL SOF:

We did this once in September. Now, IDEAL is offering another Student Org. Fair, Jan 17-18th. I need some people willing to tell me, "I'll be there one of those days for at least 30 mins," before I sign us up. For one thing, I need to know which day works best for people. Therefore, please signify this in the comments section.

Money (Article VI):

Although the SG has the old GF group -- AASA, listed as a recipient of funds, we have not yet begun the process of receiving monies from them (since March 06). That process was interrupted in part by their transition from the old SAC to the new CSI, in which they lost our old registration. I am going to initiate the process to get us money both regularly, as a budget for our student organization, and via "special allocations" in the meanwhile, in order to host campus-wide events.

Campus-wide Events:

I am presently working with the CFI to bring Eddie Tabash to campus some time during the week of March 17-24. He will be in the state of Florida on other CFI-related business, visiting the new regional centers of the CFI-Florida. He has a great overview of church-state separation, especially relevant given the recent developments in nearby Dixie County.

There are two main options, with a few subsequents:
1) Lecture:
(1a) - "Why There Really Is No God" -- a pretty self-explanatory lecture title
(1b) - "Separation of Church and State" -- ditto
(1c) - OTHER -- he has many titles in his oratory archives
2) Debate:
(2a) - Involve the Campus Crusade, or some other theistic campus organization, to attempt to get a debate challenger
(2b) - GF will try to find and set up arrangements for a debate opponent
(2c) - Put the burden on the CFI/Eddie to find one and arrange it

I'll keep you posted on developments as they occur. I prefer the debate, mainly because of the crowd draw and community impact.

Elections (Articles VII, VIII)/Succession:

According to our constitution, it is time to start looking at the leadership of AAFSA. We will hold our first election during the first regular meeting of February. We do not yet have a solid schedule for the spring semester, but this should occur during the first or second weeks. Please consider running for an officer position. There is very little responsibility, but much that one can do if they are willing and have the time. For myself, I plan to be involved in GF for a while to come (until I graduate). However, I feel that I do the officer position of President a disservice due to my somewhat unrelenting schedule as a married graduate student with my own home and bills to pay. I am not going to resign the position, but I strongly encourage others to consider taking it on. I took the time to set up this website, the LISTSERV, even a succession guide, and thus those persons who take the reins will have an easier job than I did. Please consider running for an office with AAFSA. And, those of you who were involved during the early part of fall, but found yourselves swamped with work or other concerns, please consider your ability and desire to be involved this semester in order to decide whether or not you should run for reelection.

Spring Stuff to Do:

The standard fare of --

1. Student Org. Fair Jan 17-18 (see above)
2. Tabling (for at least a few weeks at the start of the semester)
3. Hand out business cards and flyers
4. Posting flyers and use sidewalk chalk (check out rules)
5. Contacting newspapers and doing promotion for campus-wide events
   
6. Spread the word generally, invite friends to meetings
7. Join the blog as a contributor, and write posts to pass along news and events of interest to our group
8. Consider becoming an administrator/officer
9. Joining our Facebook group and/or Myspace group
10. Subscribing to the blog via RSS, and/or receiving new posts via email (see the function in the sidebar)
11. Joining the LISTSERV
12. Meetings!

One major thing to keep in mind is the CFI Leadership Conference, which 5 of us attended last July. This opportunity is well worth the effort, and the officers, especially, will gain a lot from it.

That's all I have for now. Again, please comment as to when you can get involved with respect to the SOF on Jan. 17 - 18th.

Looking forward to GF's growth and developments this new year!