Start Your Own Club

Henry Christopher
August 2010

From left: gold, diamond and semi-precious stone ring found in lake. Men's gold, 15-diamond ring found in the ocean at Virginia Beach, VA. Child's gold heart ring with diamonds found at lake. Bottom, three silver, Catholic medals worn by former Christian Brothers students at UTS found on the baseball field.

Henry Christopher is the Unification Theological Seminary (UTS) Public Relations Director. He has initiated a number of projects and activities with the goal of developing more friendly and trusting relationships with the people in the small hamlet of Barrytown, and in the larger Town of Red Hook, and to get UTS more involved as a contributing member of the community.

There's no better way to maintain one's overall health than to find a hobby and to participate in a club, or even start your own club involving your hobby.

Being a member or leader of a club gives one the unique opportunity to put into practice True Father's favorite motto: "Live for the sake of others," and at the same time have fun, meet new people, and get involved in something you really love to do.

I guess I'm club crazy. Over the past few years I joined or started a variety of clubs and have been enjoying myself immensely, while trying my best to be of service to our club members and the community.

Joining existing clubs, and creating new clubs is like belonging to an extended family and a small, intimate village all at the same time. You make friends with everyone: kids, teens, and adults of all ages. You get to interact with them in interesting activities where you can learn a lot about people, yourself, and useful skills which can entertain you, and be of valuable service to others.

A few years ago I began the Barrytown Nature Club. Neighbors from Barrytown joined, as well as staff and students from the Unification Theological Seminary (UTS). Sandy Lydon, a neighbor on Barrytown Rd., was an art teacher and she taught us how to make many fun things. We made birdhouses out of old wood scraps and painted them; we took pine cones, tied a string to them, plastered them with peanut butter and covered them with bird seeds to hang outside for the birds to eat.

For Halloween, we organized a Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest for the local kids, and UTS staff kids. Some club members helped the children take the seeds and pulp out of the pumpkins, draw the faces, and carve the pumpkins. When all the pumpkins were carved, we had the contest. Everyone had a great time. In the spring, the club organizes kite flying at UTS.

Every spring our Nature Club organized a cleanup of the Barrytown roads and Hudson riverfront. After the cleanup, we meet at Sandy's house for cookies and tea. Four years ago our Nature Club decided to start a community garden on the grounds of UTS. We started with 12 plots, each 21 ft. X 21 ft. and two years later expanded to 20 plots as more and more people in the community wanted to participate. The fun part is not only in growing great organic veggies and flowers, but in helping each other, sharing garden secrets and collectively, watching the garden grow and become something of beauty and mystery as the season progresses.

In the winter, we go out on the South Tivoli Bay and get rides on ice boats from the historic Hudson River Ice Yacht Club. It is awesome!

Another hobby I love is metal detecting. While working at The Washington Times for 20 years as a graphic artist, one of my jobs was to layout and make maps for our Saturday Civil War page. It got me interested in the Civil War, and all the local Civil War history in the Washington, D.C. area.

While living out in West Virginia, I got a metal detector and joined the local metal detecting club. That gave me the most extraordinary privilege of gaining access to the Civil War battlefield at Antietam, Maryland -- the site of the bloodiest one-day battle of the entire war. Two brothers owned a farm on the battlefield and let us metal detect on the fields alongside their cows!

I found some great relics there, including bullets, buttons and artillery shells.

The club had some real interesting and wonderful people. Old-timers who had made incredible finds over the years such as coveted Confederate belt buckles, swords, and very rare personal IDs made out of silver which the soldiers wore on chains around their necks before the army made "dog tags".

The members not only loved to "treasure hunt" for these war artifacts, but they were also deeply interested in the history of the war, and loved to put their finds on display during local fairs and go to schools and give talks and bring in the relics for the kids to look at and even touch.

I also used my detector for treasure hunting precious jewelry at lakes and in the ocean. I can take the detector in the water and I have found numerous gold and diamond rings, chains and other treasure.

When I go out on the beach to hunt, often people come up to me to ask if I can find something they lost, like a ring, or chain or watch. Once, an old fellow asked me to find his false teeth. I said I couldn't find plastic, unless there was some gold in those teeth!

Treasure hunting one day in knee-deep water at Virginia Beach, I found a man's gold ring with 15 diamonds. It's so big I call it my Mafia ring, thinking a Mafia man lost it!

Once I took my family to a state park near our house in West Virginia to go swimming. I brought my metal detector and asked my 6-year-old daughter, "Enryka, what do you want me to find for you?"

She immediately said, "Papa, find me a heart ring!" Well, amazingly, I go in the water up to my knees, and the first thing I find, while she is standing on the beach watching, is a gold ring with two hearts and a diamond in each heart! Unbelievable!

This spring I met some local carpenters, Lewis and Joe, who also metal detect. I said, "Let's start a club." And we did. They live at "Rokeby," one of the historic Livingston/ Astor estates on the river in Barrytown. Lewis has found some incredible stuff there, including a souvenir button from George Washington's first inauguration in 1789. It is worth thousands.

At UTS, we often find beautiful silver Catholic medals that the former Christian Brothers students lost while playing on the soccer field.

Another club I belong to is the Catskill Mountains Beekeepers Club. I keep a few bee hives on the UTS campus and have had loads of fun and learned a lot from the old-timers in the bee club.

Practicing love, patience and self-control in the environment of club activities isn't all that hard to do.

For instance, as a club leader, you are responsible for working with the members to set certain club rules, and remind members sometimes when they break the rules.

In our UTS community garden, that means making sure the gardeners mow the paths between plots when their turn comes up; not leaving garden tools in the paths; removing plant debris and weeds to the compost pile and not leaving them in the garden; turning off the water, etc., etc.

Sure, it can sometimes be frustrating when dealing with certain people who do not follow the rules. But with love and patience, and a focus on the common joy each member has for the club activities, you learn to be calm and understanding, and to enjoy helping others to become the best gardener or treasure hunter, etc. that they can be.

So if you want to have some fun, meet some new friends, learn a hobby or skill, and develop your character and personality through real interactions with others, I suggest to you: find a hobby and join or start a club!