A Great Way for Students to Experience the 2012 Global Atheist Convention

August 29, 2011 By 12 Comments

The annual Global Atheist Convention will take place in Melbourne, Australia next year from April 13th – 15th. The roster of speakers is fantastic. (In fact, I’m sitting in the fetal position as we speak awaiting my invitation and plane tickets.)

For the general public, the tickets are a few hundred dollars apiece. That would effectively stop anyone under 20 from attending the event (and even many people older than that).

But the Atheist Foundation of Australia and the Freethought University Alliance are doing something wonderful to fix that problem: They’re offering 20 free three-day passes to students.

The initiative will be split up by contributing 10 free tickets to interstate Freethought University groups, and 10 free tickets to secondary school students.

…

The 10 free tickets to interstate groups will help guarantee that a wide cross-section of University student leaders benefit from the convention. The allocation of tickets will be made at the discretion of each individual student committee.

The remaining 10 free tickets will be available for any secondary school student. Applications will be judged on the basis of a 500 word (or less) account of why they wish to attend next year’s Convention.

More information is here. If they can get more donations, they can offer more scholarships.

Meanwhile, everyone else can start buying tickets on September 1st — better get them fast because, with this lineup, tickets are pretty much guaranteed to sell out quickly.

Filed Under: General, Secular Student Alliance 12 Comments
About Hemant Mehta

Hemant Mehta is the chair of Foundation Beyond Belief and a high school math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He began writing the Friendly Atheist blog in 2006. His latest book is called The Young Atheist's Survival Guide.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=593675787 Glenn Davey

    Why does Melbourne get it again? I mean, I enjoyed going, but if I lived in any other country I’d be pissed if I saw it scheduled back here again on this random continent way out in the ocean…

    • http://godless.biz Andrew Skegg

      Why Melbourne?  Because it’s organised by the Atheist Foundation of Australia who operate out of Melbourne.  Pragmatically it’s a little difficult to organise a convention of this magnitude in another city, let alone another country.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=593675787 Glenn Davey

        So the “Global” part is kind of redundant.

        It’s really the 2012 Melbourne Atheist Convention _and_ it will host people from all over the globe. But they’re Melbourne conventions. Always Melbourne. Every time Melbourne.

        Not global.

        ANY convention is global, because anyone from anywhere can go.

        But there’s nothing more global about this atheist convention than any of the other conventions that the Four Horseman appear at.

  • Anonymous

    Unless you have a large Australian readership Hemant, I see this offer as not applying to any students within North America and Europe.

    Forget the attendance fees. Do you know how much it costs to fly to friggen Australia?! It’s on the other side of the bloody planet for everyone not in New Zealand. Beyond that, you have to house yourself, and the convention recommendations don’t feature much below $150.

    If you include plane fare and accomodations, the trip is totally out of the question for all but the most priviledged students outside Australia/New Zealand.

    • Lucy Mayne

      Hemant does actually have some Australian readers, me for one, so thanks Hemant for giving us Aussies a little coverage. It is really great to see some coverage of an Australian event, especially because I read so much about US conferences that I have no hope of attending. I am incredibly excited and have already been able to purchase my
      tickets (yay!). Having said that, another Australian city would have been good.

  • http://diaryofamessylady.wordpress.com/ Lauren

    I wish they weren’t all so far away. Next conference in Seattle, here I come!

  • Anonymous

    I knew there was a good reason I moved to Melbourne! I’ll be there in all my Angry glory.

    And I’ll try not to chat up anyone in elevators this time…

  • Anonymous

    I kind of feel like local action in your own community does a heck of a lot more than any world convention. All we are doing here is patting ourselves on the back. We need to get out and teach others.

    • http://godless.biz Andrew Skegg

      You don’t think attracting this incredible line up for a world class event has any effect on the local movement?  As a direct result of last year’s convention I stepped up my activism and now know many of the activists personally.  On top of that I was privileged to hear many terrific speakers and shoot the breeze with hundreds of wonderful people. What could be more beneficial than that?

      • http://thingsfindothinks.com AndrewF

        As a direct result of last year’s convention I stepped up my activism

        I bet a lot of folks say that after a Hillsong convention too :P

        • http://godless.biz Andrew Skegg

          Ha!  Almost certainly they do.
          It would be good if you could make it to the convention.  I am sure we could have some interesting discussions.

  • GuyinKyoto

    A better question is; why not Sydney.