Name: 🎉 Speak Up & Have Fun – Gatwick Communicators Meetup in Crawley
Start: 2026-12-07T19:30:00.000Z
Location: 📍 Location: St Barnabas Church Hall, Worth Road, Crawley, RH10 7DY

**Can a machine ever truly be aware, or will AI just become the ultimate "philosophical zombie"—perfectly mimicking human thought without a single spark of inner life?**

As large language models and artificial minds advance at a breakneck pace, the ancient question of what makes us conscious has suddenly become the most urgent debate of our time. Join us online via **Google Meet** as we dive into Torin Alter and Robert J. Howell’s *A Dialogue on Consciousness* to build the philosophical framework we desperately need to navigate this AI revolution. Through an accessible five-night debate between two graduate students, this text strips away the dense academic jargon to tackle the "hard problem" of experience, asking whether consciousness is a biological privilege or just an algorithmic inevitability. If you want to understand the future of artificial minds, you need to understand the boundaries of your own.

To ensure a deep, lively, and highly collaborative debate, it is **strongly advised** that all attendees read the book ahead of time. It is a quick, engaging read, and second-hand copies are widely available online for around **£10**. Whether you are a tech professional, a philosophy enthusiast, or simply curious about where humanity ends and machine intelligence begins, pull up a screen and join the conversation.

Reimagined Intellectual Salon - Meetup Group

Gabi

mcheetham08

August book club | A dialogue on consciousness

Online event

We're delighted to announce our first in person event at The Seven Stars in Leigh, owned and run by the lovely Eve. We are hoping to make this a regular event, a chance to meet other local woman in Surrey building businesses (or planning to).

Solo entrepreneurship can be a lonely business (pun intended), , and often the only colleague you can vent to is the dog. He's supportive, but his business advice is terrible. So, dinner.

**Here's the plan:**
🕕 **6pm** — drinks and actual conversation. No name badges, no pitch circles, nobody asking about your five-year plan.
🍽️ **7pm** — two-course dinner with your new favourite people.
**£25** covers your two courses — and **£5 from every ticket goes to Renewed Hope**, a brilliant local charity supporting people experiencing homelessness and hardship in East Surrey.

Eat, laugh, network\* — and do a good thing before pudding.
\**not the stuffy kind. We checked.*

**Who's it for?** Women in and around Surrey who are building a business, freelancing, side-hustling — or still at the scribbling-ideas-at-11pm stage. If you've ever muttered the *other* FFS at your laptop, you're exactly who we mean.

Come alone (that's rather the point). Leave with your people. Seats are limited because it's a dinner table, not a conference — grab yours now.

Female Founders Surrey Meetup Group

Dinner and social for women building businesses in Surrey

The Seven Stars

How did the technology that once loomed as a cold, dehumanising bureaucratic tool in the 1960s somehow become marketed as the ultimate vehicle for personal liberation, community, and the future of artificial intelligence?

Join us online via Google Meet as we explore Fred Turner’s classic book, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. We will dissect how a specific, anti-political wing of the 1960s commune movement actively went on to shape modern Silicon Valley tech culture. This history provides a crucial lens for today's AI era: by examining why we mistakenly treat technological systems as inherently democratic or "living," we can better understand the corporate storytelling, data mining, and institutional structures hiding behind today's "smart" machines.

To ensure a deep, lively, and highly collaborative debate, it is strongly advised that all attendees read the book ahead of time. Second-hand copies are widely available online for under £10. If you want a great head start or a companion overview, attendees are also highly encouraged to listen to this excellent YouTube interview with the author, Fred Turner, on The Dig podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42XtL2NRFp4.

Pull up a screen, grab your copy, and join the conversation!

September book club | From Silicon Valley Hippies to the AI Era

🎤 Welcome to Gatwick Communicators - Toastmasters in Crawley! 🎤

Want to speak with confidence, lead with impact, and maybe even enjoy giving presentations? You’re in the right place.

We’re a diverse, down-to-earth group of professionals, creatives, and curious minds who meet twice a month to practice public speaking and grow our leadership skills - all in a fun, encouraging environment.

Whether you're terrified of public speaking or just want to polish your pitch, Gatwick Communicators will help you:
✅ Build confidence
✅ Improve communication skills
✅ Get comfortable in front of a crowd (yes, even you)
✅ Receive constructive feedback that actually helps
✅ Meet friendly, motivated people who cheer you on

No experience needed. No pressure to be perfect. Just come as you are - and get ready to grow.

🗓️ We meet every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month at 19:30
📍 St Barnabas Church Hall, Worth Road, Crawley, RH10 7DY
📬 Questions? Drop us a line: [gatwickcommunicators@gmail.com](mailto:gatwickcommunicators@gmail.com)
🔗 Find us on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/gatwick-communicators-toastmaster-club/)
🌐 [Gatwick Communicators Club Website](https://gatwickcommunicators.org/)

Gatwick Communicators - Learn to Speak with Confidence

Gatwick Communicators

🎉 Speak Up & Have Fun – Gatwick Communicators Meetup in Crawley

📍 Location: St Barnabas Church Hall, Worth Road, Crawley, RH10 7DY

Gabi Berkelmann

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Gabi Berkelmann

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