Surfrider on Austin Public Access Community Television
Check your cable channel 10 listings to catch Austin News Real, a local program highlighting issues relevant to the Austin community. Chapter Chair Rick Thomsen and Vice Chairman Jamie Mitchell visited recently and talked with program host Pam Thompson about the Surfrider mission and issues on our Texas coast. Included in this episode are the Surfrider film “Sea to Summit” and the “Shifting Baselines’ film clip. Under the program listings look for Austin News Real with the date 12-13-06. (http://www.pactaustin.org/programming/channel10.php)
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Donation Request
We are looking for certain items for use by our chapter and if you have something to donate we’d like to have it and also provide you with a tax-deductible receipt. We did very well last year with our fundraisers, but also had our share of expenses with the new wave we built, buying of promotional material, and other things. One of our best fundraising activities in the past has been taking pictures of people on our wave for a modest fee. We’ve used a Polaroid camera but the film alone costs about a dollar a shot. We would like to bring ourselves into the new millennium and start using a digital camera. We will either post pictures online or use a stand alone photo printer along with it. If you have a pictbridge compatible digital camera and/or printer or a tripod to donate we would love to have them.
UPDATE: We would like to thank Randy Martin of ZEM surfboards for donating a new camera tripod and DVD player. Thanks to Doug Garwood of Accord Construction and Drywall who has come through and
donated a new flat screen monitor. Rather than show the VCR tape edition of the Sea to Summit video on a regular compact TV, as we’ve done in the past we can now present a crisp, digital version. One more thing we could use would be any surf movies on dvd. We have found that for some reason when we set up our information table and show surfing footage, people inexplicably are attracted. If you have any to donate we can sure use them.
Please help us make our hard earned dollars go farther by making a donation. If you can help, please contact Rick Thomsen at rickthomsen@yahoo.com.
Pictbridge compatible camera
Pictbridge compatible printer
Full size camera tripod (Already donated)
Flat screen monitor (Already donated)
DVD player (Already donated)
Surf movies on DVD
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Winner Of Our Surfboard Raffle
Rick Thomsen, Samantha Silver, Randy Martin, and Jourdan Adler of Wahoo's
We had a successful conclusion to our raffle of the ZEM surfboard at the November monthly meeting. Samantha Silver was the lucky winner of the 8-8 board and bag and had bought the lucky ticket while attending our fundraising movie in September.
We would like to thank Randy Martin, owner of ZEM Surfboards and the shaper of the board. Give him a call if you would like a custom new board or need ding repairs. We would also like to thank everyone else who participated in this fundraiser for the Central Texas Chapter of Surfrider. Thanks again to Wahoo’s Fish Taco for their help. We hope to see everyone again for next year’s raffle.
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Surfrider At The State Parks and Wildlife Expo
 
In October our chapter worked again at the Parks and Wildlife Expo, their annual statewide event held at Park headquarters in Austin. For the second year we set up in the Texas Waterways: Ranches to Reefs tent, a simulated journey through a watershed with interactive displays along the way. We set up our artificial wave, took pictures of kids (and adults) surfing and talked with people about Surfrider. In addition we displayed a computer simulated virtual flyover of the entire Texas coast, courtesy of the University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology. Our activity is a perennial favorite and approximately 2200 people stopped by and we snapped pictures of over 1200 people surfing.
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Surfrider Does Austin City Limits Festival
 
Above photo source Austin City Limits
In September the Central Texas Chapter was chosen as one of four Austin non-profit organizations to set up an information table at the 5th annual Austin City Limits Festival. Attendance this year was over 180,000 people. The Good For Austin* area provides an opportunity for groups representative of the Austin community to talk with people and spread their messages. At the time we were collecting signatures for non-citizens of Corpus Christi to express their desire to keep open the stretch of beach closed down by the city council. We acquired people’s signatures from Canada to Brazil and the petition was presented by members of the Surfrider Coastal Bend Chapter and the Beach Access Coalition to General Land Office Commissioner Jerry Patterson.
In addition to talking to people about Surfrider our volunteers had a great time watching the more than 150 bands in the lineup. Check out the non-profit line up at the ACL site here.
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Recent Beach Access Victory In Corpus Christi
We would like to congratulate the Surfrider Coastal Bend Chapter and the Beach Access Coalition for their success in the November vote on the proposed city charter amendments. No. 1 was defeated, which would have eliminated vehicle traffic on 7,200 feet of beach from Packery Channel south. Amendment No. 2 passed, which now requires a public vote on any future proposed access restrictions. For more information read the Corpus Christi Caller-Times article from November 8th, or at the Coastal Bend Chapter’s site.
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Central Texas Chapter's Official Statement on Beach Access
The Surfrider Central Texas Chapter is
committed to free and unrestricted access for all people to all
Texas beaches in accordance with the Texas Open Beaches Act. Surfrider
maintains that vehicle access is the key to beaches remaining accessible
and not becoming effectively private beaches. In certain cases the
Surfrider Coastal Bend Chapter supports the creation of pedestrian
areas as long as vehicle access and parking are maintained on the
beach itself as is the case in the IB Magee Park in Corpus Christi
and the Port Aransas Beach Parks.
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Isla Blanca Beach Park at
South Padre Island Preserved
July 13 2006
Public pressure has influenced the Cameron
county commissioners to take action today to keep Isla Blanca Park
at South Padre Island available to the public and not be decimated
by a marina resort project. The resort will still be built east
of Schlitterbahn but will not be built on Isla Blanca Park. Later
phases of this resort complex would have involved a casino and marina
with the potential to severely restrict access to one of Texas'
best beach areas, destroy the surf break at the Cove, and eliminate
the RV park and public parking next to the jetties.
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Moratorium Ends For Illegal Houses On Texas Beaches
New GLO Plan Announced
In 2004 the Texas General Land Office announced a two year moratorium
on the removal of houses from beaches on the upper Texas coast.
At that time due to naturally occurring beach erosion from tropical
storms, over one hundred houses became illegally located on the
seaward side of the retreating vegetation line. The purpose of the
moratorium was stated as to allow time to see if the beaches restored
themselves and the houses would become located on the shoreward
side of any newly created dune and vegetation line. These houses
are located on historically documented eroding beaches and there
has been no significant sand accretion in any of the locations.
Recently Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson announced a new plan to deal with these houses. This plan seems to be a shift
in the GLO's attention away from "property rights" for owners of
illegal structures, back to the right of all Texans to have unencumbered
access to and use of our public beaches. One of the strongest beach
access laws in the U.S., the Texas Open Beaches Act guarantees free
use of every mile of beach in Texas to the public. Surfrider and
other advocates for public use of Texas beaches are cautiously optimistic
in hearing the Commissioner encourage people to move their houses
off the public beach.
This is the just the latest round in a fight for access in which
the public has lost the first few rounds. The next few months will
be critical in protecting the beaches for generations to come.
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