I apologize to Brian for not allowing him to sit in reserved seating for Friends of the Center. He did not sign up to be a Friend of the Center to take advantage of sitting in this reserved space. We had ushers to monitor seating.
There was no place for a line in the building. There is no hall or indoor space in the synagogue. Unfortunately, all 900 (a number that was greatly unexpected) people had to wait outside in the heat. There was no way around this due to the way the venue was set up. We literally received hundreds of thanks for how well run the event was. Mr. Hitchens was well aware of the long line, as we had to start 20 minutes late due to the unexpected amount of unregistered guests. Mr. Hitchens was overwhelmingly pleased with CFI DC. We did our best and I stand by that. I am sure that Mr. Hitchens will as well.
http://unqualified.org Brian
Melody, since this is my blog, the first thing I have to say to you is to go fuck yourself. I wouldn’t have had a problem with reserved seating had it been CLEARLY marked as such.
Your best simply wasn’t good enough. You clearly have no idea how to run an event, and how to facilitate the little details that make the logistical challenges of such an event possible.
Melody Hensley
I happen to be one the best organizer out there and have a reputation for it. As I said, we literally received hundreds of thanks for a well run event, including from Mr. Hitchens. One loud mouth shouldn’t ruin a successful event. I will no longer respond to any more comments. I’m sure you’ll have the last word on this. Just know that you are missing out on a close-knit community devoted to the mission of secularism and skepticism. I know we have mutual friends and they can vouch for that.
Roni
Brian,
It took us 4 hours on I95N to get to the event, and neither were we happy with standing in the long line in the blistering heat, but I kept my eyes on the bigger prize..a rare opportunity just to be in the same room as Mr. Hitchens and soak up the bountiful food for thought he imparts. I believe they “gave up” on the Friends/Reserved seating at some point, because I managed a great seat within earshot distance of Mr. Hitchens. Clearly, CFI was not prepared – in more ways that one – for an event of this magnitude, but I’m betting they’ve already developed and are poring over their list of lessons learned.
While this is your blog and I respect that, your vulgar reply to Ms Hensley demonstrates that you have a ways to go in your constructive writing career. Keep your day job, young man.
http://unqualified.org Brian
Roni, thank you for the comments. And my response to Ms. Hensley comes in light of the fact that she banned me from the CFI-DC Facebook Group & deleted my comments on their fan page complaining about the event. I see that inquiry & discourse are important, except where the performance (or lack thereof) of CFI staff are involved. I believe many more people were unhappy or unsatisfied with the way the Center for Inquiry handled the event, but were either too timid or too awash in Mr. Hitchens’ brilliance to step up & complain.
I honestly do not believe that the Center for Inquiry is even aware how unprepared they were for this event, and that they are doing no such post-mortem.
This isn’t in any way an attempt to launch a constructive writing career, if you haven’t figured that out. This is me railing, much as Howard Beale did in Network, against things that make me “mad as hell”.
Roni
Brian, thanks for being kind in your response.
The news that you’d been deleted/banned is worthy of expansion in your blog..Howard Beale would have done so.
…but I’m still willing to bet the post-mortem has been written so that mistakes aren’t repeated.
Melody Hensley
I banned Brian, because this is a CFI DC fan group. Brian said he wanted nothing to do with CFI so I made it so. I would happily allow Brian to rejoin the group if he would have a civil conversation with me. As I told Brian, I don’t know if he identifies with the secular humanist label, but let’s act like it. I would like to meet with Brian and see if he’s not actually as nasty of a person as he sounds on this blog and elsewhere and so he can hear my explanation of the things that were beyond our control during the event and that I’m not an evil monster.
