Seattle Atheists

Congratulations to Wendy Britton, Randy Rumley, Sam Mulvey (all returning to the board), Mike Gillis, and Layton Sumpter — our new Members-at-Large! Congratulations, and we look forward to a fun and exciting year with them!

Amanda Election, News Board, Elections 09, Membership Meeting

Who am I? My name is Layton Sumpter and I’m relatively new to the Pacific Northwest. I moved here on July 4, 2008 from Denton, Texas, a college town about 40 miles north of Dallas-Ft.Worth. I graduated from the University of North Texas in July 2008 and moved to Washington immediately thereafter.

I’m also a Navy veteran, having served on a guided-missile frigate homeported in San Diego from 1999-2003. I enjoyed my time in the Navy but found the lifestyle just wasn’t for me and quickly escaped at my soonest opportunity to pursue a higher education.

I was raised in a secular household and religion was rarely, if ever, brought up, and as a result I’ve been pretty much agnostic until my early 20s, when I started to read more books from the Freethinking genre. I’ve become a much more active atheist in recent years, I want to let other, more passive atheists know that they’re not alone.

Why am I running for office? Serving as an elected officer of Seattle Atheists would truly be an honor. When I read about the Seattle Atheist bus ads I was very impressed with amount of coverage and recognition the ads received. I want to contribute to other great ideas that allow atheism to be better understood in the community-at-large.

Amanda Election Elections 09, Members

The Seattle Atheists board and membership will meet on September 20th, 2009 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Greenlake Public Library (7364 E. Green Lake Dr. N., Seattle, WA 98115).

Matt Griscom will be giving a talk entitled ‘Science vs. Religion.’

Membership will vote to choose 5 members-at-large for the coming year, so please update your membership prior to the meeting. We have a pretty big field of new members-at-large this time.

Don’t forget to check out the candidate statements here:

Wendy Britton
Mike Gillis
Randy Rumley
Richard Trimble
Sam Mulvey
Layton Sumpter

Amanda Election, News, Past events Board, Elections 09

Hi.

My name is Sam Mulvey, and I’ve been pleased to serve as a Member-at-Large for the Seattle Atheists Board in the last term. I would love the opportunity to continue on in that position in the next term.

I see myself as a backstage kind of guy. I tend to think in terms of infrastructure (especially network and computer infrastructure), and I feel like I’ve contributed to the board of Seattle Atheists with that thinking in my first term. I’ve been working on a set of tools for SA which began in the last year with the re-launch of the seattleatheists.org website. I think that the next year will bring even greater work than I achieved last year, as I feel that I have a better understanding of how Seattle Atheists works.

Since my larger work occurs behind the scenes, I feel I can bring a higher level of good-natured humor to proceedings when it’s time to present to a wider audience. I’d like to say that I approach public interaction with a wink and a grin, but that conjures associations with Sarah Palin and a pallor of incompetence I’m pretty sure I don’t want to include in my candidate statement. It’s not about being a class clown; it’s about being happy to work at something I enjoy.

I’ve learned that it’s more difficult than I realized to be a group of organized atheists in the wider world around us. I feel that the attitude I bring, as well as the tools I have and will continue to build, will continue to be an asset to the board of Seattle Atheists. And saying all of these things without an offsetting self-deprecating remark is making me a little ill. Still, I would appreciate your vote.

Secretary Election Elections 09, Members