Report by David Savage
Farnham Humanists celebrated their 20th anniversary at the Farnham Museum Gardens in Surrey on Sunday 1st September. Civic guests included the Mayor and Mayoress of Waverley, Councillor John and Mrs Gillian Ward, the Mayor of Farnham, Councillor Brodie Mauluka, and the MP for Farnham and Bordon, Mr Gregory Stafford. Revd. David Uffindell, Rector of St Andrew’s Church, and Nabeel Nasir from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community were also welcomed as guests from local religious organisations. Farnham Humanists seek to promote a better understanding between people of different religious and philosophical beliefs and they have worked with both of these communities on joint events.
Major Neil Weddell of Defence Humanists and Catriona McLellan Humanists UK represented our wider humanist community. Neil has played a significant role in successfully encouraging our armed forces to recruit non-religious pastoral carers to work alongside religious chaplains. Catriona has supported the provision of humanist ceremonies, our school speakers’ network, and Faith to Faithless, which was set up to raise awareness of apostasy and support those who struggle leaving religion. Members of Farnham Humanists have been active in all these areas of community support. Celebrations included cake, bubbly and some wonderful and enjoyable Ukrainian dancing. We were also delighted to welcome Alec Leggatt, a 96-year-old founder of the group, who gave a short speech but we were very saddened to hear of his subsequent death on 18th September from an aneurysm. (See obituary in this issue.)
Further information
Watch Farnham Humanists’ video showing a founder member, David Savage, talking to Belinda Schwehr about the group’s origins and achievements over the past two decades. Link is here.
Humanistically Speaking sends warm congratulations to Farnham Humanists on reaching this milestone.
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