DECEMBER IS A TIME FOR GATHERING TOGETHER AND GIVING
December is a time for gathering with family, friends, co-workers, and many, many more acquaintances to enjoy everyone’s company, catch up with old colleagues, regale about fun-filled events of the year, and, most of all, join and imbue in much merriment. In addition, it is a time of exchanging gifts and giving one another holiday cheers and warm wishes. It is also a time of giving thanks and support to our community and integral organizations.
What better place is there than the Houston Geological Society to celebrate the holiday season? HGS is hosting the Third Annual Holiday Party on December 16, 2024, from 5:30 to 8:00 pm at the Cadillac Bar in Houston, Texas. This is a perfect time to bring your spouse, significant other, and a friend or two or more to celebrate the holiday season and network with fellow geoscientists and their family and friends. Please join me, my husband, the HGS Board Members and their spouses, our geoscience community, and, of course, Santa T-Rex, aka the holiday party decoration dinosaur, for a fun-filled evening!
December is also a time of giving thanks and reflecting on the contributions our communities and organizations have provided us with over the past year. I sincerely thank everyone for their support of HGS over your many years. I ask that you please continue to consider HGS in your thoughts for giving back and supporting HGS in its mission to promote and advance our diverse disciplines in geoscience and to provide networking opportunities for the exchange of informative and innovative technologies and training for our geoscience community. HGS is committed to being our geoscience community's “go-to” resource organization. To accomplish this mission, HGS needs everyone to work together as a team to assist in guiding HGS forward to achieve its mission.
Two fundamental gift-giving opportunities make a significant difference in helping HGS reach its mission goal of being the “go-to” resource organization. These opportunities are volunteer work and financial contributions through sponsorships and donations to HGS’s programs.
Volunteer work for HGS is crucial for organizing and hosting our events and a wonderful opportunity to give back to HGS and our geoscience community. There are three upcoming events/programs that HGS could greatly use your help as a volunteer. The Science and Engineering Fair of Houston (SEFH) will be held on February 15, 2025 at the Fort Bend Epicenter, in Rosenberg, Texas. At the SEFH fair, junior and senior high school students from across the greater Houston area compete in 25 categories of STEM topics. HGS supports the fair in a variety of ways. HGS members volunteer to work as judges for the fair to assist with reviewing the geoscience student projects. Additionally, HGS awards summer internships to three outstanding high school senior students to study at the Houston Museum of Natural Science each year. This is an outstanding opportunity to nurture our budding geoscientists!
A second volunteer opportunity is working with the Continuing Education Committee and teaching courses for our geoscientists. For example, this month, on December 2, 3, 4, 8, and 10, 2024, Angel Callejon will teach an HGS Short Course: “Fundamentals of Basin Modeling in Oil Exploration.” I attended Angel’s course last year, and I can personally say it is an intensive course that teaches geoscientists the fundamentals and procedures for basin modeling.
Finally, the latest volunteer opportunity at HGS is to participate in the newly formed “Mentorship Program.” This program will focus on helping fellow geoscientists at any stage of their career to assist with technical or personal challenges that may arise. Plans are underway to begin the Mentorship Program this spring, so stay tuned for more information!
Sponsorships for HGS’s events, such as conferences, symposiums, and social gatherings, are vital to organizing and hosting these events and programs. This fall, HGS hosted the 2024 Student Expo, the 2024 Africa Conference, the HGS/University of Houston Sheriff’s Lecture Dinner, the GSH/HGS Case Studies Symposium, the HGS Golf Tournament, and the HGS Sporting Clays Tournament. All these events were made possible by generous sponsorships. So, whether you are an employee of a large corporation or an employee or partner in a small independent company, please consider sponsoring one or more of HGS’s events so that we will be able to continue to promote excellence and camaraderie in our geoscience community.
Donations to HGS are also immensely important to us. For example, they help fund HGS’s undergraduate scholarships, which are awarded each February during the HGS Scholarship Dinner, and the HGS high school senior student internships at the HMNS. Finally, donations to HGS help us keep “HGS’s doors open, the lights on, and the computers running” for our day-to-day business.
Your support of the Houston Geological Society matters to us. We sincerely appreciate every hour of volunteer work and every dollar of sponsorship and donation to HGS. To show our appreciation, each month in the HGS Bulletin, we publish a list of sponsorships and donations to recognize everyone’s contributions to HGS’s events and programs.
Your commitment to HGS helps us build and strengthen our geoscience community and brings us closer together.
Looking forward to seeing you at the HGS Holiday Party,
Penny Patterson