North Carolina Secular Association

Comment

Comment by Darrell on August 18, 2011 at 5:08am

Fourth Annual

Regional Atheists Picnic

Saturday September 17, 2011

at Lake Julian Park in Asheville, NC

The event this year will be catered by Jen Lovejoy, with both meats and vegan options available.

Cost per person will be $8.00 for those 12 and up, 12 and under eat free.

We have an alcohol permit this year, however alcoholic beverages will not be provided.

We ask that you please RSVP if you are planning to attend. If at all possible, advanced payment for the meal would be appreciated by September 10,

2011.

The WNCAtheists Forum and can be accessed directly here:

target="_blank">Regional Collaboration
(This list is only accessible through the direct link above,unless you are logged-in as a registered user, so use the link above if you are not registered.)


82.53808&sspn=0.033618,0.053215&ie=UTF8&source=embed&a...


Directions:

From North of Asheville, take I-26 East to exit 37 (Long Shoals Rd.) Turn Left on Long Shoals Rd.

From South of Asheville, take I-26 West to exit 37 (Long Shoals Rd.) Turn Right on Long Shoals Rd.

From East of Asheville, take I-40 West to exit 46A (I-26 East). Follow I-26 to exit 37 (Long Shoals Rd.) Turn Left on Long Shoals Rd.

From West of Asheville, take I-40 East to exit 46A (I-26 East). Follow I-26 to exit 37 (Long Shoals Rd.) Turn Left on Long Shoals Rd.

The entrance to the park is @1.3 miles down on the right across from Overlook Rd.


We Plan to meet @12:00 at Picnic shelter #3 near the playground and we've got the place until 7:30 PM.

Comment by Jennifer Lovejoy on July 20, 2010 at 3:37pm

Here is the link to the ABC World News with Diane Sawyer about the billoards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8blj6tfzy4c

Comment by Joseph McDaniel Stewart on July 12, 2010 at 7:15pm

The reason it has been awhile since the last update is because we've been so busy with the overwhelming response.

When the six billboards in the six NC cities first went up we received coverage across the country with attention coming from as far away as Canada and the UK. All the local papers in each area had something about it as well as all the local television stations (with front page coverage in Charlotte and Greensboro, for example). It was on MSNBC and the CNN Belief Blog, and it got picked up by UPI and AP, which cause it to appear in media outlets across the country. Some of the local news videos got put on YouTube, and the Richard Dawkins site posted one of them with text from our site which brought in attention from the UK.

When the Charlotte billboard was vandalized by someone inserting "under God" on it, we got all the same coverage we got before and then some (including the Washington Times and Washington Post). The coverage of the vandalism went around the world. I think that was due to the fact it was a featured story on the Yahoo! home page for at least 18 hours. We thought we were getting a lot of emails after the first round of coverage, but it was nothing compared to this. At the height of it, I started to answer one email and 14 more came in before I had written two sentences, and one of the media reps was averaging approx. 100 calls per day. We were getting emails from places like the UK, Germany, Australia, and the Philippines.

When the billboard was replaced (before the 4th, btw), we received local coverage, but that was as far as it went. Some people suggested that we do another press release for that, but some of us were too exhausted from the first two rounds of coverage to deal with a another big round right then, so we didn't.

After that, there seemed to be a little more related coverage, here and there, with things like an op ed in the Durham paper, a Charlotte public radio discussion about the separation of church and state, a radio talk show interview with our media rep in Winston-Salem, and other online commentaries, which seemed like a reaction inspired by the billboards, but it looked like things were calming down overall.

Then there started to be coverage of some new billboards from some religious group that said: "One Nation Under God," and a new story of the "dueling billboards" was born.

This seems to be leading to to a 3rd or 4th round of coverage (depending on how you count them) that may only be state-wide. Some of the media reps are getting interviewed all over again for our response to the new billboard, with new coverage from the local papers and television stations (with some of them having it as the "Top Story" on their sites).

We've twice been covered by the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) and someone told me there was something about it on the 700 Club.

The Charlotte free weekly entertainment magazine Creative Loafing had the billboard on the cover as the featured story, and it was on news stands all over Charlotte for a week.

There is now even an "editorial" cartoon someone did about the billboard vandalism.

The reporter that covered the story for the Charlotte Observer came to our last social meeting to talk to some of us for another story he is planning for the paper.

So, this keeps going on and on (for 3 weeks now), and it isn't over yet. I know of a more coverage yet to come, but it seems I'm still getting new stuff unexpectedly every day.

I've literally been buried with emails, and I'm just one of the ones getting them (all the media reps have been getting them, as well as the individual groups involved). The Charlotte group added over 200 new members in the first week and everyone there seems to be very pleased with the response, and the last monthly social was a record-breaker for attendance.

So that is a very brief overview of the positive reaction.

Considering the response here and elsewhere, as well as all the people sending emails of thanks and asking about getting the billboard placed in their area (or how they could help), I think it was a big success.

If anyone wants to see some of the original coverage (not the duplicated coverage from outside media markets just copying the news from others), you can visit the page at the site covering it here: http://ncsecular.org/coverage.html

I'm sorry this was so long, but I've really only covered a fraction of what has happened resulting from this.

Comment by Jennifer Lovejoy on June 25, 2010 at 7:41pm

I've been reading the interviews that everyone has been doing and WOW!! Y'all are doing an awesome job! Thank you to everyone, especially Joseph, for all the work. Makes me an even prouder atheist. =)

Comment by Joseph McDaniel Stewart on June 25, 2010 at 12:26am

The AP has done two stories on it now and McClatchy Newspapers has picked it up as has UPI, so it is appearing all across the country. It's on CNN, MSNBC, on the local news channels and newspapers in the cities where they are located, it was on the front page of the Charlotte Observer today, CBN covered it....

I hear that the local Charlotte group got 50 new members in 2 days.

I'm getting a lot of nasty emails and a lot of them thanking us.

Below are some of the best links of the dozens I had received as of about this time last night (I haven't had time to see what happened today besides the Charlotte Observer front page story).

The link at the bottom is to some news I just heard about last night (evidently a group in FL put up almost the same billboard at the same time in 5 locations in one city there). What are the odds of that?

www.foxcharlotte.com/news/local/96947074.html (Local FOX News video, Charlotte, includes an interview with our media rep Will)

www.wcnc.com/news/local/Godless-billboard-appears-on-Billy-Graham-P... (Local news video, Charlotte)

www.wlos.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wlos_vid_2470.shtml... (Local news coverage video, Asheville, includes an interview with Jen our media rep there)

www.wwaytv3.com/video/godless_billboard_stirs_controversy_sparks_de... (Local news coverage video, Wilmington, with a statement by Mike our media rep there)

religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/23/billboard-campaign-refutes-one-nation-under-god/?iref=allsearch (CNN)

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37853768 (MSNBC Coverage)

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37853768/ns/local_news-local_news/ (MSNBC Coverage, same as above)

www.citizen-times.com/article/20100624/NEWS/306240032/NC-atheists-p... (New AP story)

www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/06/24/1521498/nc-atheists-put-billbo... (Charlotte Observer story)

www.newsobserver.com/2010/06/23/547677/nc-billboards-say-non-believ... (Raleigh News and Observer story)

friendlyatheist.com/2010/06/22/a-strategically-placed-atheist-billboard/

www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/polk/atheist-billboards-stir-d... (Another "One Nation Indivisible" billboard in FL)

Comment by Jennifer Lovejoy on June 23, 2010 at 11:45am

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/23/billboard-campaign-refutes...

I found the CNN link.

Comment by Jennifer Lovejoy on June 23, 2010 at 9:59am

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NC_GODLESS_BILLBOARDS_NCOL-?...

Asheville Citizen Times article about the Charlotte billboard.

Comment by Will Warren on June 22, 2010 at 7:28pm

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/22/god-missing-nc-secularist-bill...

Comment by Will Warren on June 22, 2010 at 7:25pm

http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12689408

Comment by Will Warren on June 22, 2010 at 7:24pm

I have done quite a few interviews today. Stuff should be posting soon.

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