Danish Club of Houston

President’s Report, 2000 — 2001

Dear Members

Welcome to the 5^th Annual Meeting in the Danish Club of Houston, and the 4^th Meeting here at Nottingham Forest Club. Is it already five years? Well, not quite, but counting the Inaugural meeting in October 97, this is our fifth Annual Meeting.

Prior to the October 97 meeting in Memorial Park we had a few "unofficial" meetings, starting with a picnic in Pasadena in April 97, and a Constitution Day Party in June 97 at our home, so let us just conclude that the Danish Club is approximately four years old. With four years "in the bag" we are past the pioneer stage, things are becoming a routine… or said in a more positive way: We are building traditions.

Traditions do not just mean old-fashioned steady habits. For our club we believe it also means creating some events that members like to attend and therefore become marks in busy weekend calendars every year. Traditions are important for a club like ours, as long as traditions do not become a reason for not renewing the club and it’s activities.

Our membership runs at about 90-100 families, - It has become a tradition that we can’t get passed 100 without begging people to sign up. So be it — life is too short to beg for members. But it would still be nice to represent all Danes and Danish-Americans in Houston… Our Christmas Church Service and Christmas Party has become traditions - drawing good attendance, same goes for this Annual Meeting. That’s about it, however, most other arrangements draw a very limited crowd, very often the same 10 families. With the Board often being more than 50 % of the crowd.

Does that mean that we should just limit the activities to 3-4 events per year? I don’t believe so. We shall drop the events that nobody cares for, try something new whenever new ideas pop up, because some of these ideas may become traditions in our next five years. And traditions are a must for the Danish Club’s long time survival.

The past season was not quite as active as last year, but let us take a look back: We started out in September with a bike / roller blade workout, a total of three families showed up. That was impressing…

October was busy, starting with the third Viking Cup tournament for soccer teams. We had mustered a good team, and was very close to beating the unbeatable Norwegians in the final, but a last minute goal left the trophy with the Norsemen for another year. Our cooking-team The Danish Deep Friars was busy cooking all night and morning and placed second in grilled brisket, maybe the most important of all the competition categories.

At the Church Service in Pasadena, we also said goodbye to pastor Audun Haga, who has returned to Norway after eight years in Houston. Audun was a good friend of the Danes and always interesting in making the church a meeting place for all Scandinavians in Houston. We look forward to carry on the relationship with his successor Jan Roenningen, who has already been in Houston for a couple of years as chaplain.

Later in October we were all invited to Cherry and consul Ray Daugbjerg’s beautiful country place west of Brenham. The event drew a real big crowd, and we had a great time with food and drinks, although some heavy rain showers put a limit to some of the planned sports activities. Thanks to the Daugbjerg’s, and sorry for all the mud on your floor tiles..

In November we arranged a guided tour at the Ocean Star Drilling Rig Museum in Galveston. About twenty members took the Sunday afternoon drive to the Island and enjoyed the interesting exhibition.

December is always busy — that is another tradition — and we started early with the Holiday Party at Cohen Faculty Club at Rice University. A beautiful place and a very nice party, but the eighty participants could not really fill up the place. The Holiday committee did a great job, also with securing gifts for auction and raffle, so we managed to raise some funds for the club, although participation was a little lower than the previous year. We were also able to support Lise LeSec’s Childrens Fund with monies raised at the auction.

We have decided to go "back to the roots" for next year’s party, and have rented the old fire station at the Heights. We will try to make the food more Danish-style, and we are looking for some good live music. Hopefully that will be a lot of fun.

We do not intend to change anything about the Christmas Service, though. Pastor Torben Poulsen has extended his contract in New York, and we have already booked him for December 2001 in Pasadena. We enjoy Torben’s visits and the church is filled to capacity for the busy service, which also this year included christening of two new members. Also the children’s Christmas tree and Santa Johnny’s visit has now become one of our valuable traditions.

Weather was beautiful in February for the Fastelavns-Party in the Sugarland / New Territory area. We had rented a Moon-walk for the young kids, and as usual we had prices for the Cat King and Queen, and for the best dressed kids.

End of March we tried something new — a family camping trip. The trip was scheduled for Brazos Bend National Park, where we would add a Sunday picnic for non-campers, but the park was booked solid, and we had to move further away from Houston, and therefore drop the picnic. The camping trip was a lot of fun for the participating families, and I believe Family Camping may become a new tradition down the road.

April was busy, starting out with Five-a-side soccer with the Norwegians and Swedes, where our teams got beaten, followed by the Queen’s Birthday celebration in Danevang, and finally our Spring Church Service with Confirmation and Baptizing. The Service took place in Christ the King Lutheran Church, and Torben Poulsen came to Houston two weekends in a row, to work with the youngsters and prepare for Confirmation and to conduct the Service. The Danish organist Ulrik Damm played at the Service, and the Club arranged a small reception after the service. We are very thankful for Torben Poulsen and Ulrik Damm’s support, and also for being allowed to use the Church with it’s full-size organ and nice facilities.

We had planned to launch the first Danish Club Invitational Golf Tournament in May, but that did not happen. We tried back in 1999, but had to cancel, and with only approx. 20-24 sign-ups we decided to cancel again. Needless to say, a golf tournament is not likely to become a tradition.

The Danish Heritage Preservation Society in Danevang has been working very hard to build the Heritage Museum. Groundbreaking took place in the spring of last year, and already in June this year did the society call for inauguration. The museum is a very nice barn building, and it is truly amazing that the dedicated Danevang group has made this dream come true. The Danish Club presented our gift to the museum in Danevang, but we would also like to take this opportunity to present our gift to Al Jensen, who has been the key driver behind the Museum. We congratulate you with the Museum and we would like to again express our support for the Society.

We have received regards from Gurli and John Moyell, who regret they cannot participate at the Annual Meeting. John is writing: "We will be there in spirit while lounging at the beach. It has been a year and a half since we left Houston, but we haven't forgotten you and we hope we soon can join you at one of the Club

activities. It is very gratifying to see how the Club continue to prosper and we really miss the comradeship we so much enjoyed. Keep up the good work and remember the Club is only as good as you, the members, wish it to be. "

We are pleased to present our new logo merchandise today, and we hope all our members will support the club and flag our logo. Our logo contest earlier in the year was won by Hannes Hofer, with Devorah Drews Jensen as a very creative runner-up. We hope to expand with more logo-articles, as we see the interest develop among the members.

Houston is under Federal Emergency Declaration today, major areas of the city is flooded, and people have lost their homes. We hope our members have managed to stay dry on high grounds, and we want to express our sympathy with all our fellow Houstonians who have lost valuable property. Houston is hurt right now — with more than 30 inches of rain in a couple of days, unfortunately these storms are also a tradition here in Houston. Let us also pay tribute to all the emergency crews working around the clock to bring things back to normal.

We wish you all a nice summer and look forward to see you again in September in The Danish Club of Houston! Thank you for coming out today, in spite of the weather conditions.

Niels H. Kastrup

President