HUMANIST RESOURCE CENTRE

Located in Central Milton Keynes, the Humanists Meeting House and Resource Centre offers daytime, evening and weekend, hire. The building is fully equipped with audio-visual facilities and free wi-fi access. A kitchen adjacent to the main teaching space allows for refreshments to be served throughout the day. Our shop provides a relaxing area where you can browse books whilst enjoying a coffee, or serve drinks to your guests before an event. The auditorium can comfortably hold up to 20 people for a meeting, and up to 150 for a party or exhibition.

Well, that's the dream ... we have some way to go before we get there!

MK Humanists is a relatively young group and we know our limits — so we’re starting with a Virtual Centre. Please come in!

A Virtual Centre

Through our Virtual Centre, we hope to get members thinking seriously about the possibilities and opportunities:

• what would a Humanist Centre look like and how would it operate?
• where might it be located and what services would it provide?
• what would it cost and how might it be financed?

Currently, we know of only two Humanist Centres in the UK. So ours can be the third… And there is a real need for more: we share Richard Dawkin’s concern that “the Enlightenment is under threat” and that we should be devoting “our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organized ignorance."

The Real Thing

Once our Virtual Centre is up and running, the next step will be a temporary home, a single room will do, somewhere central, which will become a focus for Humanist activities in the City. It will be staffed by volunteers and equipped with a small library of books and magazines, leaflets and posters, with a computer and internet access.

This will be a place for Humanists and other non-religious people to meet, and a base for planning and co-ordinating outreach activities in the City. Our aim will be to make the Centre such a vibrant and interesting place that people will be queuing to get in!

Perhaps you know somewhere that's likely to become available sometime in the future — or even better, someone willing to put up the money!

We will then look to find somewhere more permanent — a disused church, community centre, shop or hall would be ideal — where celebrants can hold their ceremonies, and we can organise meetings and put on events, perhaps invite free-thinkers to give thought-provoking sermons… This will be somewhere where we Humanists can make our own special secular contribution to the development of our City.

But for now…

Here are some of the services we are planning for our Centre:

• how to find a celebrant;
• a talks service for schools and groups;
• a Humanist Book Club;
• information that can help people deal with difficult social issues/situations — an example might be: how non-faith parents might best deal with a young person who becomes highly religious; or how young people who reject faith can cope with growing up in a deeply religious family; and
• information about non-believers and non-religious events in our City.

So watch this space…

Cartoon by Dorsi Germann