Hey all, we’re currently raising funds for this year’s NYC Secular Solstice. As in previous years, this will be coinciding with the East Coast Rationalist Megameetup, which will be a mass sleepover and gathering in NYC spanning an entire weekend from December 8th to 10th.

The Solstice itself is on December 9th from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm, followed by an afterparty. This year’s theme is “Generations” - the passing down of culture and knowledge from teacher to student, from master to apprentice, from parent to child. The stories we tell will investigate the methods by which this knowledge has been preserved, and how we can continue to do so for future generations.

Sounds great. How can I help?

In previous years, Solstice has been mostly underwritten by a few generous individuals; we’re trying to produce a more sustainable base of donations for this year’s event. Right now, our sustainable ticket price is about $30, which we’ve found seems steep to newcomers. Our long-term path to sustainability at a lower price point involves getting more yearly attendance, so we want to continue to provide discounted access for the general public and people with tight finances. So. Our hope is for you to donate this year the amount that you'd be happy to donate each year, to ensure the NYC Solstice continues to thrive.

• $15 - Newcomer / Affordable option: If you're new, or you're not sure how much Solstice is worth to you, or finances are tight, you're welcome to come with a donation of $15.

• $35 - Sponsorship option: You attend Solstice, and you contribute a bit towards subsidizing others using the newcomer/affordable option.

• $25 Volunteering Option - If you're willing to put in roughly 3 hours of work (enough to do a shopping-spree for the afterparty, or show up early to set up, or help run the ticketstand, help clean up, etc)

• $50 and higher - Higher levels of sponsorship for those who are able.

Donate at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1939801081/nyc-secular-solstice-2017-generations

Wait, I’m new to this. What is Secular Solstice?

Secular Solstice is a rationalist tradition, and one of the few public facing rationalist held events. It’s what it says on the tin: a nonreligious winter solstice holiday. We sing, we tell stories about scientific progress and humanist values, we light candles. Usually, we get about 150 people in NYC. For more info, or if you’re curious about how to hold your own, check out www.secularsolstice.com.

I’m interested in snuggling rationalists. What’s this sleepover thing?

Since we’ll have a whole bunch of people from the rationalist community all in town for the same weekend, it’d be awesome if we could spend that weekend hanging out together, learning from each other and doing ingroup things. Because many of us will need a place to stay anyway, we can rent a big house on Airbnb together and use that as the central gathering place, like at Highgarden in 2014. This way we’ll have more flexibility to do things than if we all have to wander around looking for a public space.

Besides Solstice and the afterparty, the big activity will be an unconference on Saturday afternoon. We’ll also have a ritual lab, games, meals together, and whatever other activities you want to run! There'll also be plenty of room for unstructured socializing, of course.

This is all going to cost up to $100 per person for the Airbnb rental, plus $25 per person for food (including at least Saturday lunch and dinner and Sunday breakfast) and other expenses. (The exact Airbnb location hasn’t been determined determined yet, because we don’t know how many participants there’ll be, but $100 per person will be the upper limit on price.)

To gauge interest, registration is open from now until October 30. You’ll be asked to authorize a PayPal payment of $125. It works like Kickstarter; you won’t be charged until October 30, and only if there’s enough interest to move forward. You’ll also only be charged your share of what the rental actually ends up costing, plus the additional $25. For this, you’ll get to sleep in the Airbnb house Friday through Sunday nights (or whatever subset of those you can make it), have three meals with us, and hang out with a bunch of nice/cool/awesome ingroup people throughout the weekend. (Solstice tickets are not part of this deal; those are sold separately through the Solstice Kickstarter.)

If this sounds like a good thing that you want to see happen and be part of, then register before October 30!

Register and/or see further details at www.rationalistmegameetup.com. Taymon Beal is organizing.

Anything else I should know?

If you have other questions, please feel free to post them in the comments or contact me at rachel@rachelshu.com.

Hope to see you in NYC this December!