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July 9, 2025  -   HCC Membership Meeting 

 

DELAYED  with Zoom Connectivity Issues - met between 7:12 and  8:39.

 

How many members attended ?  Around 18 or so. 

We had : Christi, Fran, Alice, Natalie, Bob,Joe, Tom, Frank, Karl and Linda K., and 2 visitors (12). All officers were present (5) and three of us were on zoom;, Tracy, Dutch, Harmon and Kent (1).

 

Bruce starts off the meeting discussing some zoom technicalities 

 

Dutch narrates last board meeting minutes and a few highlights.

 

Tyrone covers some membership details. This months visitors are Whitney Branning and Eric Lieb. Renewing members are David Barrett, Tyrone White and Bruce Bodson. Thanks guys!

 

New members are Whitney Branning, Graham Knopp, David Sobotka. Welcome Aboard ! 

 

HCC Facebook members have increased to 1057 followers.

 

Whitney Branning described her recent experiences in paddling and offers to streamline our technical video-conferencing set up. Woohoo !

 

Tracy delivers the pursers report for the club. There was little activity in the month of June but we have a balance of $ 6078.35. 

 

Harmon gets the newsletter off the ground with a story about the Arkansas School of River Paddling - a training event that was flooded out due to heavy rains and bad weather. Thanks to all of you who are supplying the editor with more newsletter news, stories and experiences put in story form in your own words. 

 

Tom Douglas brings his Conservation report consisting of several topics.

 

1.)Galveston Far East Cleanup with last month’s speaker : David Zambrano

2.)The next scheduled Galveston Island starts at Fort San Jacinto Historic Point Cleanup Saturday July 19th 2025.

3.)Fences go up at Rio Vista Park, San Marcos on the San Marcos river part of the Phase 2 “Can Ban” initiative. 

4.)Bacteria Implementation Group - Bob Naeger 

5.)H.C.F.C.D. public meeting - https://www.hcfd.org/Community/Community -

6.)Greens Bayou Coalition 2025 Regatta - Saturday October 4th. 2025.  A new 7.7 mile paddling course, 

 

HCC Fleet captain report by Christy L.  On recent paddling trips on the Colorado. Also a Caddo river trip led by Kent who lives in Arkansas. Don’t scare our new guests with hazardous take out reports Bruce! ie. Like the Beason to Alair paddle on the Colorado.  Natalie reports a pleasant trip out on Armand Bayou last Saturday. Club mileages tracked. Including 5 trips this last month. 1500 miles traveled by the members so far. 

 

Speaker Program : GCBO Celeste Silling is the Education and Outreach Director for the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory in Lake Jackson, shows us the activities of the Observatory and their SPLASH trash mitigation program. Her email is csilling@gcbo.org. An interesting half hour.

 

 

 

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July 2, 2025  -  HCC Board Meeting. 

 

DELAYED  with Zoom Connectivity Issues -  7:16 to 7:48. 

 

Christy our fearless Fleet Captain is absent this time.

 

Brent starts the meeting- 

 

Tyrone :    3 brand new members with 3 more renewing. Now we are 126 active with Facebook followers at 1057.

 

Tracy’s Purser Report : Cash flow is a little low - but she feels like we’ll be accruing more deposits for the rest of the year. 

 

Harmon Newsletter and Safety reports - TheTic situation is worsening because more variety of tics are spreading this Alpha Gal syndrome  -   says Kent reported a river paddling training session but had to evacuate and end the event due to overnight thunderstorms and rising river was overwhelmed with extreme flooding with log jams and impassable sloughs near the swinging bridge. One of our clubs founders Wayne Wall passed away recently who was very active in water sports in our area way back when.  

 

We had a pretty full newsletter of content this month he is happy to report. 

 

Dutch Recorders Report - Going back to the basics - skipping the AI efforts - highlights of last board meeting ?? Not sure.

 

Tom shows us his conservation topics for this month

1.) East End Galveston Beach Cleanup with David Zambrano June 21 with another one scheduled for July 19th  from 9 to noon. 

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2.) Rio Vista Park has instituted new park rules, new parking fees 15.00 for a full day and 25 for holiday weekend days including Texas State special events, and lots of chain link fencing. 

3.) Bacteria Implementation Group recreational chair position headed by our own past HCC officer Bob Naeger. 

 

Bruce presents future club meeting topics - 

Celeste education director - Galveston Ornithological Society

Chuck Faulk - Emergency Communications 

Sea Turtles

Clinton Robertson TX Parks WD - Mussels Biology Report

 

Bruce needs assistance initializing the Zoom link for the General Membership Meeting - Authentication will be reassigned by Brent.

 

Fleet Captains Report. 

 

Bruce has the venue location picked out for us - the Pachyderms GOP-ers keep taking the annex room ahead of us - so we will be back in our original room.

Recorder, Dutch Becker