Last week I placed an advertisement to announce the time and place of our picnic and of the formation of NCCOF. We hand delivered the check and text to the newspaper and were assured we were to be in this Saturday's religion section. We placed posters around town and continued spreading word by mouth. The weather forecasters predicted a beautiful, sunny day and we had several comfirmations for attendance.
Saturday morning there was no sign of our ad. The person who distributed the posters reported their removal from the boards where he put them. Forecasters continued issuing the same forecast, as late as 11pm last night. We woke up to rain. The rain finally quit in time for our picnic meeting. We had no clue if ANYONE would show. Then it started drizzling on and off and a cold wind kept us shivering.
We had a grand total of 9 attendees (3 non-family members and 3 kids...) at the event, including the hired baby-sitter. Of the three one was the prominent local Atheist I have previously mentioned and the other was from Davis, near Sacramento. The third was the sitter. A family of 5 walked by and expressed curiosity. They seemed very interested and may attend later meetings.
Despite the low attendance and unpleasant weather there was some great discussion, we enjoyed ourselves and all involved plan to attend our second meeting on April 4. By then we should (hopefully) have the problem with the newspaper resolved and be better able to spread the word. We would be happy with three or four new members each month for now.