The Moon Society Forum

The Houston Chapter's reorganizational meeting was held at the Park Place Regional Branch Library on January 28, 2008. The next regular meeting of the Chapter was held at the same location on Monday, March 24, 2008. The most recent meeting was held at the Freeman Memorial Branch Library in Clear Lake on May 19, 2008.

The next meeting of the Houston Chapter is scheduled for Monday, July 28, 2008 at the Freeman Branch Library meeting room. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. During the meeting we expect to hear back from (at least) two of our members who will be attending ISDC 2008 in Washington and who have promised to give us a full report of the conference. Everyone is welcome, so feel free to stop on by!

ETA: The latest meeting info and directions to the meeting location can be found on the Chapter Website.

The Houston Chapter held a meeting at the Freeman Branch Library in Clear Lake on Monday evening, July 28 2008. The major topic of discussion was a presentation from member Meagan Crawford on ISDC 2008 in Washington, DC, which she attended.

Our next meeting is scheduled to be held at the Freeman Branch Library meeting room on Monday, September 22, 2008. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. Details and directions will be posted on the Chapter Web Site in a few days. We hope to see you there!

Due to the impact of Hurricane Ike in the Houston area, the regular chapter meeting scheduled for September 22 has been cancelled. We will attempt to reschedule another meeting in early November after the area has had a chance to recover from the storm damage. We hope that our members and their friends and families are all well and I encourage everyone to check in on the forum. Thanks.

The Houston Chapter will host a regular meeting at the Park Place Regional Library at 8145 Park Place, just east of the Gulf Freeway at the Broadway/Park Place exit, at 7:00 p.m. on Monday evening, December 1, 2008. Please note this temporary change in location as our regular meeting place at the Freeman library in Clear Lake is booked up; I hope to have us back in Clear Lake for the next regular meeting in January. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the meeting will conclude by 8:45.

I would like to see if we could make this meeting into an end of year/Christmas party with some light refreshments, so any members who are certain they will be attending and who might be willing to bring a little something please email me at eric at streamlinerschedules dot com so that I can coordinate efforts.

The Houston Chapter held a meeting at the Park Place Regional Library on Monday, December 1, 2008. Topics of discussion included a possible new location for chapter meetings at Coffee Oasis in Seabrook; if inspection shows the venue to be suitable we may host a trial meeting there in March. Our treasurer Ken Sweeney gave a very comprehensive presentation on the requirements for the Houston Chapter to seek 501(c)3 status and what impact that status may have on the future direction of and possibilities open to the chapter.

Our next meeting will be held at the Freeman Branch Library in Clear Lake on Monday evening, January 26, 2009. Doors open at 6:30; meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. The meeting agenda will include election of officers for 2009. In addition to the two officer positions required by the bylaws of the Moon Society, with the approval of the chapter members we will also elect a board of directors to satisfy statutory requirements for seeking official status as a nonprofit corporation. I strongly encourage all chapter members and interested guests to attend.

The Houston Chapter will host its next meeting in the meeting room at Coffee Oasis in Seabrook (4650 Nasa 1 at Kirby) on Monday, March 30, 2009. The room is booked beginning at 6:30 p.m.; meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. and will conclude by 9:00 p.m. All members, guests, and interested visitors are welcome to attend. As a certain party who shall remain nameless missed the last meeting, our annual business and election of officers will be conducted at this meeting.

This is a new meeting location for us and is intended as a trial; if the membership approves we may make it our regular meeting location. They are not charging us for the room, but it is expected that we will purchase refreshments from them before or during the meeting. In addition to coffee and drinks they have a good selection of sandwiches and desserts, so come prepared for a good time. Once again, the meeting info is posted on the chapter web site as well. See you there (and I mean it this time)!

The Houston Chapter of the Moon Society continues to make steady progress. At our last meeting on March 30, Eric Bowen was reelected as chapter chair and Ken Sweeney II was elected to take over the treasurer position. The chapter voted to actively pursue incorporation as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; we believe that this will open additional doors to allow us to support the Moon Society's programs and goals. Ken Sweeney Sr. has volunteered to be our point man in this project and he has our full support. We plan to file our initial paperwork with the state in a few weeks and plan to have a rough draft of our forms to be submitted to the IRS by our next meeting. Chapter members who may have missed this last meeting are encouraged to contact Ken or Eric with their suggestions for mission and goals proposals; any such suggestions sent to eric at streamlinerschedules dot com will be forwarded to the right place.

In hopes of providing support for a larger mission, the Chapter voted to establish dues for chapter membership. Membership in the Houston chapter for those who are also Moon Society members will now be $15 per year or $10 for students and seniors. Membership for those who are not Moon Society members but who wish to participate as non-voting chapter members as permitted by the chapter rules of the Moon Society will be $20 per year or $15 per year for students and seniors. The proposal was accepted and passed unanimously. However, there are no plans to "close our shop"; we intend to keep our meetings and activities open for all who are interested, members and guests alike.

We also discussed what we as a chapter could do in support of the Apollo Moon Party proposal. As we are currently a small chapter in a very big space city, we decided that the most effective move we could make would be to find another organization(s) to partner with and co-sponsor a joint activity. Our members will be contacting other space enthusiasts as well as professional organizations to see what kinds of joint venture may be possible.

We concluded the meeting with a capsule discussion by Larry Friesen of the 40th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, which he recently attended. Our next regular meeting is scheduled to be held in the Coffee Oasis meeting room at 4650 NASA Road 1 in Seabrook at 7 p.m. on May 18; we hope to see you there!

The Houston Chapter held a meeting on May 18, 2009, where we committed ourselves to participation in not one but two major activities in support of the Society’s Apollo Moon Party project! Our members are going to sponsor and man a booth at “Fly Me To the Moon”, a community celebration of the first lunar landing to be held at Alumni Plaza/Liberty Park at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, from 6 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, July 18, 2009. Event website: http://www.uhcl.edu/flymetothemoon Admission, including an old fashioned family-style picnic supper, is FREE! This is a great chance for all of our Houston-area members to stop by and participate. We are trying to put together some Moon Society activities for both adults and kids. Your suggestions are welcome; send them to eric at streamlinerschedules dot com and we’ll see that they get sent to where they can do the most good.

Our regular chapter meetings are generally held the third Monday evening of odd-numbered months. Guess what that means? That’s right, our next regularly scheduled chapter meeting will be the evening of July 20, 2009—the 40th anniversary of the landing itself! We will meet at 6:30 p.m. at Coffee Oasis for a purely social meeting; no business will be discussed. We plan to have snacks and refreshments, and through special arrangement with HBO films we will be showing two hours’ worth of the outstanding documentary, From The Earth To The Moon. Once again, we hope that all of our current (and even not-so-current) members will take the time to show up and relax with us. Spouses and friends are welcome too! There will be no charge for the event itself, although donations to help cover the cost of refreshments are welcome. Coffee Oasis, again, is located at 4650 NASA Road 1 in Seabrook; we hope to see you there!

To prepare for our July meeting and party and for our participation in the Fly Me to the Moon event on July 18 we will be holding a planning meeting at Coffee Oasis on Monday evening, June 15, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. All of our members are strongly urged to attend, especially those who have volunteered to help with these projects. If we finish early, we will open the floor for discussion of our draft bylaws with the hope that we can have them ready to present to the membership at our next regular business meeting in September. See you there!

As usual, the meeting info for both meetings is available on the Chapter Web Site.

The Houston Chapter celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing with a party at Coffee Oasis on the evening of Monday, July 20. Thanks to all who came by and to the staff of Coffee Oasis for their work preparing the food and refreshments. We watched segments of From the Earth to the Moon, courtesy of HBO, and had a chance to meet a lot of new faces and strike up some good conversation.

Our next regular meeting will be back at Coffee Oasis on Monday, September 21, 2009. As usual the room is booked from 6:30 on and the meeting will begin at 7 p.m. No set agenda at this point, but we will want to see about filling the current vacancy in our position of treasurer. All members and interested guests are welcome to come on by and participate.

The Houston Chapter members met at Coffee Oasis on Sept. 21. Our major agenda item was the filling of our vacant position of Treasurer; Ken Sweeney, Sr. volunteered to step back in to this position for the remainder of the unexpired term and was confirmed by a unanimous vote. We also passed a resolution to send a note of thanks to the organizers of the Fly Me To the Moon event this past July for a job well done.

We also discussed the forthcoming exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which runs from September 27 through January 10, 2010. Craig Beasley volunteered to canvass our local Moon Society members and contacts to see if there is interest in organizing a group tour of the exhibit. Anyone interested in joining us for a group tour (dates still open) may email me at eric@streamlinerschedules.com and I will see that your information gets forwarded to Craig.

The Houston Chapter's next regular meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 16 at Coffee Oasis at 4650 NASA Road 1 in Seabrook; we hope to see you there!

The November meeting did not have a quorum to conduct business, but our next scheduled meeting is our annual business meeting and election of officers to be held at Coffee Oasis on Monday, January 18 at 7:00 p.m. (Martin Luther King day). See you there!

The Houston Chapter held its annual business meeting on Monday, January 18, 2010 at Coffee Oasis. Yours truly was reelected as chapter president for 2010 and Kenneth Bowen volunteered and was confirmed as the new chapter treasurer.

In addition to our regular members, we were joined by Murray Clark and Marianne Dyson of the local NSS chapter, who floated an interesting proposal. It seems that the local NSS chapter has been in a state of "suspended animation" for some time, with little or nothing in the way of meetings or activities. However, they do have a good-sized membership list, a modest treasury, and a steady income from a portion of membership dues rebated by NSS. Our local Moon Society chapter is light on financial resources, but we do have a nucleus of active members and hold regular bimonthly meetings. Murray and Marianne's proposal was that we consider merging the local NSS and Moon Society chapters to form a collaborating NSS chapter which would work with both national organizations. Our members in attendance received the idea enthusiastically and encouraged the NSS representatives to continue work along those lines. For the present we agreed to hold joint meetings beginning with our next regularly scheduled meeting in March. I encourage our Moon Society members who might want to take an active role in a merged chapter to sign up for membership with NSS, which would be a requirement to serve as an officer or director.

Of course, anyone is welcome to come and just show up at the meeting. Our next regular Houston Chapter meeting will be in the first floor meeting room at the Freeman Library in Clear Lake City at 7 p.m. on the evening of Monday, March 15, 2010. Please note the temporary change of location due to our regular meeting place at Coffee Oasis having already been booked. You should also note that another group has the room booked until 7 p.m., so please don't try to enter until you are sure that they are finished. Details and directions are available on the Chapter Web Site. See you there!

The Houston Chapter will host its next regular meeting in the Conference Room of the Bay Area Community Center in Clear Lake Park on Monday, July 19. This will be our new regular meeting location. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m.; please note that there is a prior event in that same room until 7 so please wait outside until you are sure that the previous meeting has let out. The meeting will conclude by 9 p.m. (absolutely no later than 9:30; the park gates are locked at 10 p.m.!) See you there!

The Bay Area Community Center, operated by Harris County Precinct 2, is located within Clear Lake Park north of NASA Road 1 in Seabrook. The physical address is 5002 NASA Road 1, Seabrook, Texas 77586. View Map. The conference room is located at the east end of the building; from the east parking lot enter the side door and take the first right turn in the hallway.