Spring of last year one of the local groups I help lead had some issues come up. We lost some of our more politically and socially conservative members due to discussions in person and on our online forum getting too political with a few members forgetting that the freethought movement isn’t an extension of the Democratic Party.
Not too long after that a member suggested protesting a passion play at a local church. A few people jumped on board, but another member and I objected. It’s one thing to protest government endorsement of religion or the use of public property for religious purposes, but to go to their territory to protest is completely different.
The other member who objected left the group over what he saw as a fundamental shift in the nature of the group, from a friendly social meetup, to a militant activist group. Then the organizer and I (co-organizer) agreed to not sanction the protest, but he decided to join in, I did not. Offended by the lack of sanction, the two strongest proponents of the protest went to another local group. In time the other supporter followed suit.
The interesting thing is that by this time all of our active members over 50, offended by us being too liberal or too conservative, too militant or too accommodationalist, were gone. What was left was a handful of people in the 20s and 30s and one in her 40s who acts more like she’s in her 20s.
The nature of our meetups changed greatly. Within a few months we dropped the Sunday coffee shop gab fests and started doing more active things. BBQs, parties, bar crawls, and the shooting range became the norm. Heck, last weekend we went camping.
Just over a year later, our average attendance is larger than it was just before the split, we’ve added more organizers who have brought great new ideas (this is especially helpful since my focus is more on the group I’m the primary organizer for), our “normal” events are far more enjoyable and satisfying, and we have far greater diversity. Out of the 14 people on the camping trip we had a 30+ year age spread (with 24 being the youngest) and even though everyone was white (this is Idaho after all) it was a relatively diverse group with two gay men and 6 women. That’s right, straight males were a minority.
Not only has the split that West Valley Freethinkers went through been a good thing, the number and variety of groups we have in the Treasure Valley makes it so that we have something for everybody. If you want to sit around at a coffee shop, hit the bars, talk science, participate in in your face activism, or just be active, we’ve got it all.