One way to get involved at the local level is by joining one of the regional sloop clubs. Scroll down for contact details and locations.
The Sloop Club Congress is comprised of local sloop clubs formed by Clearwater members in support of Clearwater’s mission. Each sloop club has its unique character and hosts member activities in support of the larger organization. Join your local sloop club today for fun and camaraderie and support Clearwater.
Early Sloop Club Congress meetings were meetings called by Pete Seeger inviting local Clearwater associations to a potluck informational gathering. People met along the Hudson River, New York Harbor, Long Island Sound, and New Jersey. Wherever he went, he encouraged others to act. He reported on projects and listened to reports from the sloop clubs and whoever else showed up. Some sloop clubs chartered with Clearwater, and others were completely independent, and remain so today.
NOTE: If you have memorabilia/history about Clearwater, Sloop Clubs, or Hudson River Sloop Singers that you wish to share, contact info@clearwater.org.
Sloop Clubs
Beacon Sloop Club
PO Box 527, Beacon, NY 12508
www.beaconsloop.org
Sloop: Woody Guthrie
President: Robert May, robertmay2394@gmail.com
The Beacon Sloop Club, formed in 1969, serves the mid-Hudson Valley and meets the first Friday of each month at its clubhouse on the Beacon waterfront adjacent to the train station. Join us at 6:30pm for a potluck, business meeting, and music. Our mission is to protect, preserve, and celebrate the environs of the Hudson River through education, advocacy, and sailing.
Dues are $25 per household per calendar year. We have about 300 members, of whom 200 are active. About 30% of our members also belong to Clearwater.
Our newsletter “The Broadside,” is available online. We maintain the Ferry Sloop Woody Guthrie. Our all-volunteer captains and crews take over 1,200 guests on free sails on the river each weeknight from June through October.
We present a series of environmental and historical lectures at the clubhouse each winter and hold sailing classes for the public in the spring. We also have three waterfront festivals from June to October to raise public awareness of the river and raise money for our programs. We provide free sails at other festivals as well (including Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival).
We maintain the mooring field and docks in Beacon, sponsor a cooperative harbor mooring program, and hold local environmental events in Beacon to clean up the waterfront and raise awareness. We work with Clearwater, Fishkill Ridge Caretakers, Scenic Hudson, Rivers and Estuaries, and other environmental groups in the region.
Brooklyn Sloop Club
Marcia Kaplan-Mann, (718) 941-9835
Brooklyn Sloop Club was formed in 1977. Our mission is to promote Clearwater and to formulate and implement techniques that grows awareness of environmental surroundings, both man-made and natural.
We do not charge club dues because we expect 2 things from our members: we expect everyone to be Clearwater members and to put in a minimum of 20 hours of sweat equity as club dues. We have about 70 members of whom 40 are active.
Our newsletter is “Environmental Quest”. We work as committees, and the full club meets when needed at NYU or Flatbush Tompkins Church.
We currently have whitewalls and run a rowing-sailing course. We recently ran a major conference on the Asian Long-horned Beetle and a major conference for intermediate school children on Green Jobs. We work closely with several governmental agencies, many environmental organizations, and scouting.
New Jersey Friends of Clearwater (All NJ counties)
PO Box 303, Red Bank, NJ 07701
www.njclearwater.org
Email: info@njclearwater.org
Monthly newsletter: “NJFC Solutions eNewsletter”
Boat: 26’ Tuckerton Garvey, Adam Hyler
New Jersey Friends of Clearwater (NJFC) educates the public about, and advocates for the estuaries of the Raritan, Hudson, Delaware, and other NJ Rivers, the Jersey Shore coastline and its inland waterways. Our credo reflects our values: It is the aim of New Jersey Friends of Clearwater that each member in their own way touch the people immediately surrounding them and in their community, and by word or deed convey the importance of conservation and reparation of the earth.
Our monthly General Membership meetings are at 6pm on the 4th Monday of every month at Brookdale Community College, in Lincroft, NJ. Our monthly Environmental Meeting and Circle of Song are held on the first Sunday of every month at the Turnstile Coffee Bar, 1607 Highway 71, Belmar, NJ 07719, Sunday at 12 noon and 1:30-3:30 PM, respectively.
Events are listed in the Newsletter, website, Meetup, and Facebook pages. Events include the annual NJ Friends of Clearwater Festival at Long Branch NJ and Ocean, river, creek, and open space cleanups. We mentor high school Environmental Clubs through our Student Advocates Program. The oldest land-based experiential learning program is called the Traveling Environmental Festival, whose portable classroom reaches thousands of schoolchildren and youth organizations each year.
Ongoing environmental advocacy/action campaigns include proper remediation of the severely contaminated Fort Monmouth property and full disclosure of status to inclusive/surrounding towns and prospective buyers; fracking and post-processing of fracking contaminated wastewater in NJ; education re: post-Superstorm Sandy cleanup hazards; Anti-Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) floating processing and shipping platforms in the NJ/NY Bight ocean and bay waters; Environmental Justice education and advocacy; and, adopting a local Whale Pond Brook Watershed for cleanup, remediation, and restoration of its fish spawning capability.
We have long-time partnerships with the NJ Environmental Federation, Sierra Club, New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance (NJEJA), Bayshore Discovery Project, Urban Environmental [Justice] Institute (UEI), Coastal Urban Institute, Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ); local Monmouth County Environmental Commissions; and many others.
North River Friends of Clearwater
https://www.facebook.com/groups/263911063764064/
PO Box 3842, Albany, NY 12203
President: Stephen Smith, ssmith32@gmail.com
Our small-in-number, but large-in-territory sloop club was formed in the early ’70s. Our mission is to educate citizens about watershed ecology and the availability of the Hudson River as a natural and recreational resource. We are concerned with the preservation and protection of the Hudson River and its tributaries, including the Mohawk River. We serve the Capital District to Kingston, east to Massachusetts, west to the Utica region, and the territory south of the Canadian border to Albany. The Hudson River doesn’t just start at the Federal Dam in Troy, so we seek to educate downriver “Clearwater-ites” about the northern watershed catchment area, too.
We have approximately 35 members and an active core group of about 15. Membership is $15 for an individual, $20 for a family. Our newsletter is called the COMPASS and is available electronically. We meet the first Wednesday of every month at 6:30 PM at various locations including libraries, parks, and sometimes at member’s homes. We fundraise to purchase scholarship educational sails on the HRS Clearwater. We also support local environmental festivals, attend public events in the greater Capital area, and provide support for the sloop when it is in town. While we are not fortunate enough to own and operate our own NRFC sloop, we do promote the use of wind and human-powered small boats including canoes, guide boats, and kayaks. We work with the Capital District Greens, Local Sierra Club, ADK, Save the Pine Bush, and others, on our often common goals.
NYC Friends of Clearwater
PO Box 20381, Park West Station, New York, NY, 10128
facebook.com/nycfriendsofclearwater
Email: nycsloopclub@gmail.com
President: Donna Stein – (718) 854-8545
NYC Friends of Clearwater, aka “NYC Sloop Club,” is a chartered sloop club of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. Members got together in 1969 and formed a sloop club by the early ’70s. We have no original members, so that is the best estimate.
NYC Friends of Clearwater has approximately 50 members and over 700 friends on our mailing list. NYCFC supports Clearwater by teaching to protect the Hudson River and related waterways and shores, through education, advocacy, and celebration. We focus on educating people about the most pressing environmental issues of our time – stopping hydrofracking, fossil fuel infrastructure and the Indian Point nuclear plant, promoting renewable energy, protecting our waterways.
We meet on the third Friday of each month in Manhattan. We offer dynamic speakers and presentations of interest to environmentalists and always in the spirit of Clearwater it is also a songfest and potluck dinner. Dues are $25 individual, $35 family and $10 for limited income. Please join us!
Riverlovers
PO Box 285, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520
www.riverlovers.org
Email: info@riverlovers.org
President: Warren Lindholm
The first meeting of Riverlovers was coordinated by Pete and Toshi Seeger at the home of Terry Arnold on June 6, 1988, for the purpose of initiating “a new, long-lasting, local Sloop Club in the Northern Westchester/Putnam area.” Riverlovers was incorporated and chartered in 1989.
As written in our by-laws, our purpose is to promote and encourage sound ecological practices, research, and increased public awareness on issues affecting the Hudson River and its environs. We act as a local affiliate of the Clearwater organization and assist in carrying out its purposes in our geographic area. We organize associated activities such as potluck dinners, picnics, musical performances, festivals, educational activities, and other events that will support a knowledge and love of the river. Our yearly dues are $25 for individual members and $35 for a family.
We currently have a small active volunteer core, and more than half of our members also are members of Clearwater. Our monthly newsletter is the “Riverlovers Currents“, which is now in its 26th year of publication.
We meet almost every month for a potluck dinner and a special event, such as an educational environmental talk or film discussion, usually at the Croton Point Park Nature Center. We also meet for other seasonal activities like hikes and canoe trips at various places.
In years past, we organized a ShadFest every May at Croton Point Park in conjunction with the Westchester County Department of Parks and the Hudson River Foundation. We also had a Riverwatch program which sampled and tested waters from local rivers. We hold river education outings for the public and participate in Croton Point Park Cleanup Days and Croton Earth Day. In the past, we have also organized concerts, arts weekends, and symposia.
We seek new members in our Sloop Club area who are interested in participating in activities related to Clearwater’s and Riverlovers’ mission to preserve and protect our Hudson River, and we invite you to join us.
Walkabout Clearwater Sloop Club
197 First Street, Buchanan, NY 10511
walkaboutchorus.org
Sloop: The Walkabout, a scale model of the sloop Clearwater
Coordinator: Norma Moshman, walkaboutclearwaterchorus@gmail.com
What is Walkabout? This is a question that was answered first at our founding in 1984-85 and then throughout the ensuing years of our existence. For most people, their first encounter with us is either at one of our performances – the Clearwater Revival or an Earth Day or other celebratory event – or at our Coffeehouse. But the fact is that when Pete Seeger founded Walkabout, and throughout the thirty years he was with us, he stipulated that our mission was one of social and political activism. We were to carry the message of environmental justice, peace, and equality through our music – just as Pete himself had done unstintingly for three-quarters of a century.
This, then, is what makes Walkabout not just a chorus, not only a singing group (there are plenty of those) but a group that is first and foremost activist in the tradition of our founder. It is with this in mind that we have participated in marches, rallies, and street protests both large and small, local and far away. We have appeared, officially and unofficially, at events protesting nuclear arms and power, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, in support of women’s rights, the Black Lives Matter movement, immigrant rights, the Peoples’ Climate March, and more. In addition, we perform regularly in schools throughout the New York City metropolitan area.
Today, in these extremely dangerous times, when our democracy is under relentless and devastating attack, we devote ourselves to supporting the ideals of our founder: true democracy – equal rights and justice for all; a healthy, livable environment; an end to economic and political exploitation; and a world at peace. Therefore, in order to faithfully fulfill our mission and honor Pete’s legacy, it is expected that Walkabout members will participate whenever they can, not only in our stage performances but in our activist events as well. As Pete wrote, “If only music could bring peace, I’d only be a musician.”