Here are some shots Matt grabbed with his phone at the Hexagon bar last night, Saturday, November 7.  See his comment to the last post — sounds like things went great!

As our fave instrumental surf music band, the Twin Cities-based Big Surf Band, says in their promo email about tonight’s event: “10,000 Lakes, Good Surf!”

Join us at the Hexagon Bar (2600 27th Ave S in Mpls) tonight from 9:30 on. These guys are hot — heck, they’ve even opened for Dick Dale and the Deltones!  They go on to say:

“This Saturday, Surf Night at the Hex will have some real Gitche Gumee surf, with music from Duluth’s Fractals (members of the Hoot Owls) and *real, authentic MN surfers* in attendance — members of the MN-Superior chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.”

“We’ll also intiate you into the Mystic Order of Reverb and Twang, with M.O.R.T and their fez surf rock.  DJ Rock the Monkey will make their triumphant return, bringing hot wax treasures and the familiar waves of Big Surf will crash over you.  The door is free, the drinks are cheap, and the surf is rockin’ — so come out to Surf Night at the Hex, Saturday, November 7th!”

This is a recurring monthly event.  Tonight, our own Matt Pensyl will be there, with a table set up to spread the good word about the Surfrider Foundation. Come have some fun, and hear some really great sounds! 

The MN-Superior chapter of Surfrider Foundation is proud to announce we’ve received a $1000 grant from the Patagonia store in St.Paul to use to advance our mission and programs. Several members and their families gathered at the store around midday on Saturday (Halloween!) for the awards ceremony.  (See our previous post for further info about this Patagonia program.)

Chapter chair Stefan Ronchetti (at right in photo) accepted the award, and plans to scan the document so we can post it on our web site. We’ll use the grant to help fund some of our initiatives locally, including helping to advance Surfrider’s “Rise Above Plastics” national initiative.

Here’s a shot of me with Ellen, the manager of Patagonia’s St. Paul store.  We’re really lucky to have a store here in Minnesota! And we want to sincerely thank Ellen and her crew, as well as the entire Patagonia organization, for supporting the mission of environmental organizations like ours. We also have to remember to thank our now-relocated member Dr. Jim Perry  (he just moved to San Diego) for taking the time to apply for this Patagonia grant. He’d been through the process once before, with the Connecticut chapter, where he helped that group get off the ground.  Jim, thank you — we couldn’t have launched our MN-Superior Chapter without you!  And we hope you’re enjoying the great (warm) waves out in North County right now…

And I just can’t end this post without including this great shot of Stefan, Ryan Patin, and Sean McNally after we received our grant. Ryan brought his laptop and showed us some awesome footage of them surfing at Stoney Point in epic wave conditions, about three weeks ago — along with several other of our local and Duluth-area surfing friends. Ryan’s friend Dana shot this extended video, and I’ll be sure to post links to some clips when I get them. Ryan, Stefan, and their ladies are headed out to Southern California later this week, to camp at San Clemente State Park and surf at San Onofre. Have fun, guys!

We’re joining our friends Big Surf Band this Saturday at one of their regular appearances around the Twin Cities. These guys are the biggest name in the local surf music scene (yes, we have lots of such bands in our town!) — check ‘em out on the web at www.bigsurfband.com and www.myspace.com/bigsurf2. Several of our members will be on hand with information about Surfrider Foundation, to help spread the word about our mission and programs to a whole new group of folks.

Everyone is welcome — come hang out, and bring your friends!

This will actually be the first time Big Surf Band has played at this particular venue: it’s JJ’s Dry Dock at 401 N. 3rd St, Minneapolis, MN (map), and Happy Hour is 5:00 to 9:00 pm. JJ’s is a music destination, a post-Dome game destination, and a food destination, and Big Surf Band tells us they’re doing up a special “surf menu” with Surf N Turf and Fish Tacos in honor of the band’s first appearance there — and their first one with the Surfrider Foundation MN-Superior Chapter in attendance, too!

Big Surf Band would like to show JJ’s the great surf scene we have going here in Minnesota, so come out for a surf supper and the soothing sounds of Big Surf!  We look forward to a good time, and meeting lots of new people….

Here’s the news release, just out.  Check out the great new video on that page that was produced about Surfrider for use in this campaign.

Great news! Our chapter is one of three local local environmental groups that have been chosen to be part of the St. Paul Patagonia Store’s “Voice Your Choice” program. Please stop in — 1648 Grand Avenue, just off Snelling near the Macalester campus — and vote for us! If we get the most votes, we will be awarded $2500 by Patagonia to go toward our chapter programs and events.

What’s “Voice Your Choice” all about? Here’s how our local store describes it on their Facebook page:

“Put Patagonia’s money where your mouth is! Cast your ballot in our second annual ‘Voice Your Choice’ campaign and help Patagonia St. Paul decide how we should distribute $5000 in grant money to three local environmental organizations.

By the way, you can “fan” that Facebook page here. And you can also follow them on Twitter at @PatagoniaStPaul.

We were honored to be invited by our local store to be part of this program!  It gives us the opportunity to win one of three possible grants: $2500, $1500, and $1000. Our part of the program entails committing to manning a display table in the St. Paul store on two days during September-October to distribute information, and encouraging as many votes as possible by talking to customers and inviting our friends to stop by the store. So, please drop into the store and vote, as many times as you can ! (One vote per visit.)

Some of our members manned our table in the store today — Saturday, September 26 — and they will be again on October 17. All MN-Superior Chapter members and interested volunteers are invited to come and join some of our chapter officers that day, check out our display, and stay as long as you like!   Also, please tell all your friends to visit the store anytime over the next few weeks (not just on October 17), explore this really great Patagonia store, and vote for Surfrider MN-Superior!

Well, we sure hope some of our members and supporters got a chance to see the amazing movie “The Cove” while it played at the Edina 4 Theater at 50th & France in Edina, MN over the past couple weeks. Unfortunately, I was a little late to do a blog post announcing it — just realized today it’s ended its run here! But maybe it will be back. Meantime, at least our friends in central and northern Minnesota can get a chance to see it, if they’re in and around Wadena, MN, where it starts appearing September 11.

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, The Cove (website: www.thecovemovie.com) is an astounding piece of investigative journalism with the heart of an action thriller. Led by Louie Psihoyos, co-founder of the Ocean Preservation Society, and Richard O’Barry, an internationally recognized authority on dolphin training who is best known for his work on the 1960s TV show “Flipper,” the film follows a high-tech dive team on a mission to discover the truth about the international dolphin capture trade as practiced in Taji, Japan. Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide.

The Cove is also directed by Louie Psihoyos, who brings confidence and precision to his insider’s account of this life-or-death covert operation.  A celebrated photographer who has created images for National Geographic for 18 years, Psihoyos captures the magnificence of the dolphins themselves and the ocean that surrounds them.

“Thirty years ago, Jaws gave us a terrifying new vision of the ocean,” said Eric d’Arbeloff, co-president of Roadside Attractions. “I think The Cove will do the same for a new generation, but now it’s the humans who are terrifying.”

“The Cove brings us some of the most magnificent creatures on the planet and shows us why their peril is our peril,” said Lionsgate Vice Chairman Michael Burns.

“This film will have every opportunity to be seen all over the world and not only entertain but have a tremendous impact on the way people see the oceans and creatures that live in it,” said producer Fisher Stevens.

Added Carl Clifton of The Works International, “The Cove is one of the most extraordinarily powerful, engaging (and engaged) films I’ve seen in a very long time.  The audience I saw it with in Sundance literally erupted.”

“The Cove provides a powerful and emotional story about the devastating impact that can occur when commercial interests are placed ahead of humane behavior…the film is a vehicle to raise the visibility of this issue with the public,” said John Schreiber, EVP Social Action and Advocacy for Participant Media.

Surfrider chapters around the country have been helping to promote attendance at the film, and we wanted to do our part as well. For more information, visit the web site for SaveJapanDolphins.org, which has the organization’s latest news and a plea for donations.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=the-suburban-lawn-enemy-of-lakes-oc-2009-08-19

From Surfrider HQ:

The US House of Representatives has passed the Clean Coastal
Environment and Public Health Act. Urge our senators to do the
same. A new beach bill is long overdue!

You can take action on this alert via the web at:
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/pass_beachbill/ww88w83zyj7xm6wx?

Had a nice lake paddle today on Harriet and taught 4 kids, around 5-7 yrs old, to stand up on the board, paddle and give a shaka goodbye.

nurturing the Surfriders of tomorrow, right here in Minnesota…