But, they follow the rules. To the letter and spirit of the law. You see, CLAR holds their meetings in Judge Louie Ditta’s courtroom at the Harris County Annex in Clear Lake. And CLAR is technically a PAC (political action committee for those of you in Pasadena). There are laws against PAC’s receiving money in government facilities. So, when I tried to hand in my check to club Secretary David Janda, he recoiled and told me, no, no, no! What the heck? So, I had to go online this morning and do it the new fashioned way. Now, I’m an official member. I think. Who knows?
Back to the meeting. Club President Richard Risinger started the meeting promptly at…13 minutes after 7 pm. Um, hum. Promptly. At. 7:13 pm. Versus promptly on time at 7:00 pm. Just ribbing Richard a bit because when I saw him at Sheri Y. Dean’s Birthday Party, he made it a point tell me that one of the things he has improved at was, you guessed it, starting meetings promptly at 7:00 pm. Ha. He also told the attendees (about 35) that he was dressed “casual” because this was a working meeting. Casual? Dude, I was casual. You? Not so much.
The meeting started with typical club stuff. An invocation (prayer, for those of you…) was said, then the pledges to both the U.S. flag and the Texas flag. Then approval of the minutes from the previous meeting, etc. Then it was on to the topics of the evening.
“Proud to be an American” Event on October 9th
This is going to be an awesome event. Club Treasurer Daniel McCool is in charge of it and gave a brief update on the activities he’s scheduled thus far. Ladies, get ready! He’s having a Sadie Hawkins type of dance with a major twist to it. The men have to wear a card around their necks and if a lady asks them to dance, the men have to pay $5. That’s right, not only do I get to crush a woman’s foot, I have to pay for the privilege! Does that sound right to you? Of course, first someone would have to actually ask me to dance, so I think I’m fairly safe.
Daniel has the party scheduled to last from 6 – 11 pm, five full hours of fun. He has four speakers lined up, Jim Pruett, Ted Poe, Apostle Claver, and Michael Berry. There will also be a buffet style dinner, a live auction, a private VIP social complete with autographed picture, and the aforementioned dancing. Plus other stuff that he said but I didn’t write down. I had to laugh when he said that Pruett, Poe and Claver would be given 10 minutes, and Michael Berry 45. He’s obviously never heard Claver speak – it takes him 10 minutes just to say his name!
It is going to be a major, awesome fun fundraiser. Click here to sign up – if you are a politician on the November ballot, you’d better be there!
New Website
I had noticed a change in the club’s website over the past few months. Change for the better in this case. Turns out that the changes came from the club’s new Director of Public Information, Sandi Paulus. She gave a complete update on the website, going through the various new functions and outlining a vision of the future. She even asked for input, although she did note that the club was a Republican democracy, meaning she was still in charge. I enjoyed her presentation – how do you think I knew to head over there to join?
How to be an Effective Volunteer
Andy Mann was up next and gave a good overview of what it means to be a volunteer, what you should expect, and what you shouldn’t expect. I thought the “what you shouldn’t expect” segment was particularly informative, especially when he recounted his own inflated expectations when working with the Olson campaign, and how he felt when those expectations were deflated. It isn’t often that you hear about that side of the volunteer coin but that is probably the rule, not the exception. And the fact that he is still a huge Pete Olson fan and that Olson helped him later should remind us all that sometimes rewards are not immediate.
Precinct Development
The CLAR Club’s members are mostly in Senate District 11, Mike Jackon’s district. As with every Senate district, there are two members that are elected to serve on the State Republican Executive Committee, one man and one woman. SD-11’s male representative is Dennis Paul and he gave a presentation, overview, on building up precincts. He basically described the Republican party from the national level down to the street level and did a good, thorough job of it, even explaining why county chairmen and precinct chairs have to be elected. So basic that even I could understand it.
Getting Ready for November
Not a lot of politico’s attended this one. Judge Lynn Bradshaw-Hull was the only one, although Sheri Y. Dean sent a representative. It seems that Ms. Dean would rather celebrate her 36th anniversary to Lance than to visit with a bunch of Republicans. Hmm. There was also a council member from one of the local cities but I missed his name. Judge Bradshaw-Hull focused on the Lt. Gov.’s race, noting that 70{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the donations that came in for the Democratic candidate were from unions and PAC’s outside of the state. She stated that while Lt. Gov. Dewhurst could match the money, what it really means is that there are going to be “boots on the ground”, which went nicely with the theme of the evening being volunteer work.
So get your boots shined up and get ready to get out there and help put Republicans back in charge, of not control, of this country.
Website: ClearLakeAreaRepublicans.com
