Beach Guardians! That’s us, HMMS members, and next weekend is our chance to clean our adopted beach!

Topper and I took a run down to Galveston Island State Park on Friday for one final check on our Adopt-A-Beach site. I think the tide was in, because the beach didn’t seem quite so wide. The water was calm and it was quite beautiful there with about 75 pelicans swimming just offshore, in front of our beach only, just waiting for next weekend so they can see our t-shirts!

If you have already indicated interest, please plan to be there! If you only have been thinking about helping, please join us. It really is a beautiful spot that we have been assigned. In any case, if you are planning to come and help, please post your intentions below, or on the thread under Houston Area Happenings at metroplexmini.org, or PM one of the HMMS officers over on metroplexmini.org, so we have a good head count. The supplies the state land office provides to us will undoubtedly be based on the number of volunteers we register with.

Once again here are the details:

Date: Saturday, 26 September (next weekend) RAIN or SHINE.
Time: 9:00 AM til 12:00 Noon
Location: the gulf coast beach fronting Galveston Island State Park (West beach, just past 13 Mile Road). http://www.galveston.com/galvestonislandstatepark/

We will meet in the State Park beach parking lot, where we can distribute our supplies, and from where we can walk to the beach. (There are porta potties and a couple of beach showers, close by.)

When you arrive at the Park beach entrance, go past the ticket booth (probably will be closed) and stop at the small park office building just beyond. Tell them you are there to clean the beach with the Houston MINI Motoring Society Club and they will give you a “receipt” or “pass” of some kind to display on your dashboard so the Park Rangers know you have checked in. (We also have Adopt-A-Beach bumper stickers that can be placed on the dash, too. If you took one at our September meeting, please bring it along.)

When you leave the park office, turn right (east) and drive to the parking lot. We can line up our MINIs in the lot at the far end, so we don’t interfere with paying visitors’ parking. At least one of the club officers will be there to coordinate your arrival.

Another club officer will be registering our group and getting our supplies at the sign-in location. That’s at Menard Park, 27th Street and Seawall Blvd. The person to contact there is our local cleanup coordinator, Gary Schero. Kate Perschau, our initial contact at the Texas General Land Office, may be there, too, to say Hi.

Gary will provide us with trash bags, latex gloves, index cards and pencils (to record types of trash we find). HMMS will provide “pickup sticks”, cold bottled water and event club t-shirts. Volunteers should bring sunscreen, glasses, hat, and probably rain gear just in case.

We are supposed to pickup plastic bottles, bags, cans, paper, etc., butts (not sure how that will go) and presumably glass, if not hazardous. Bags of trash are to be placed in, or left by the barrels along the beach, about every 200 feet (I’d guess). We are not expected to pickup anything, unduly large, heavy or hazardous to us.

When we are done with our clean up, one of the club officers will check us in again at the sign-in location (returning unused supplies and completed index cards, etc.)

We are planning to have lunch afterwards at Mario’s Ristorante 2202 61st Street, a few blocks inland from the seawall, set back from the street on the righthand side on your way to I-45. Italian menu, godfather music, nice décor, plenty of room to dine and to park. http://www.marios-ristorante.com/ (I tried it Friday for lunch.) They should be able to accommodate us easily and are used to serving beach cleaning groups. Bon Apetit!

We hope to have at least 15 volunteers. So, please try to come,… it should be a fun community service experience, and a great learning experience for the kids, plenty of sun, fresh air and exercise.

If you signed up previously, please confirm if you are coming!

We hope to see y'all there!