September 2010 Equinox
Let’s tell you some of what BC has been doing, and continues to do, on a regular basis:
- We send monthly bulletins of news reported from Brights to all who choose to be active bulletin subscribers (about 38,000 Brights)
- We maintain the website as an educational entity, adding material as resources permit (videos, other explanatory or downloadable materials) that we believe will be helpful to Brights or advance the overall Brights’ civic endeavor
- We host an improved international communications forum which is staffed by volunteer activists who favor the aims and principles of the stated movement, and is becoming known for its comparative civility
- We process and respond to all new registrants (about 500 a month), and have available a protocol that enables those interested to meet other brights in their locale who would also like to meet them, thereby enable the forming of a local constituency of Brights.
- We respond to individual Brights who are experiencing a problem.
- We help spread news of the movement via social networking (e.g., 5,900 Brights on Facebook)
- We send “regional BrightenOps” to areas when we learn of something that seems to deserve notice and possibly action by Brights (such as the Texas textbook revision, or a Brights-focused special event), always respecting the right of any Bright to ignore or act as they please, based on individual inclinations
- The Brights maintains contact with US freethought organizations through informal activities.
Okay, you don’t want to keep reading what we at Brights Central do on a regular basis, to say nothing of what we do periodically. But would you believe that we are all only part-time employees of The Brights’ Net here? – all of us, that is, except for Paul Geisert who is, and has always been, 100% volunteer day in and day out, and Mynga who adds on some volunteering, too.
And there are so many other volunteers outside the central hub (individuals in locations from Malaysia to Argentina to France and the UK and US and more places than we can mention) who give their time and energies totally free to support roles in growing the Brights endeavor (the constituency now has 53,000 reg istrants worldwide), translating languages, establishing individual sites, and creating projects or support materials of likely shared value to all.
The moderators of the online Forum, the UK Brights coordinator, the Brights who volunteer to participants in sporadic activities announced in the Brights bulletins, the volunteers in the “Reality about Morality” project, as well as the latest new project that begins in October and involves Brights in supporting the teaching of evolution in high school science classrooms (for a sneak peek, read your October Bulletin!).
We hope you are catching on to these realities:
The Brights' Net is way more than a website. It is now over 53,000 individuals, many of them activists, who have come to an understanding that more and more people who have a naturalistic worldview must "come out” and “step up” to openly participate in society.
The Brights' Net is unique. This is not a traditional freethought organization; it is a constituency of individuals. There is no dogma here. There isn’t even a clear religion/nonreligion divide. We can each proudly claim we have “a naturalistic worldview,” and that’s that. What we are being urged toward is doing what we can to “enbrighten” in the broader community.
The Brights’ Net is actively connecting constituents. In one of its most important contributions, Brights Central links together Brights, even in communities where they thought themselves totally alone in their outlook. (They are able to learn that others really are nearby.) The international forum offers online communication, and the website leads Brights to activities and activists.
The Brights’ Net is educational. It offers consciousness raising and confidence building and enables online or in-person community for mounting numbers of constituents. It motivates participants to be open with others about their worldview, and more visible and active in their spheres of influence.
The Brights' Net offers an alternative framework. Each Bright can choose to step away from the divisive back and forth of beliefs-burdened activity that so characterizes the religion realm. The brights/supers contrast offers “having a naturalistic worldview” (or a supernatural one) as an optional means to breaking out of stereotypes and obtaining increased societal acceptance.
With its lean central hub, The Brights’ Net is a bargain! There are no "frills” in The Brights Net - it is all hard work by Mynga, Paul, Mike, Kelly, Carolyn, Joel, Quentin, and Ruban, forum facilitators, translators, and more. We are all part-timers or volunteers.
The point is, we want you to recognize that The Brights’ Net is a genuine resource for people who have a naturalistic worldview. And that’s why, at the equinox, Brights Central is once again asking you to support The Brights Net.
