Last week, my new friend from the ‘motherland’, Sarah, (who I’ll undoubtedly be blogging lots about in the future) mentioned an expat group here in Houston that I hadn’t heard of before.  It’s a group called ‘International connections of Houston‘, (ICH) is a non-profit organisation that through regular meetings, informative programs, fun activities and lively discussion groups aims to help and connect expatriates arriving in Houston.

The annual membership fee is $40.  This includes:

• Informative and interesting speakers at the monthly meetings
• A monthly newsletter sent via email, it’s also available on the members section of the website
• Tours around the Houston area
• Participation in activities which include book club, bridge group, craft groups community volunteering, walking and cycling groups, tennis and more!
• Develop friendships with people who understand what it’s like to live in another country

Having a husband who works for a huge, global oil and gas company, with a rather large ‘wives’ group, I never really had a ‘need’ to go searching for an ‘external’ expat group.  It was pretty much inbuilt into our transfer, we moved to a busy, transient hub, where the spouses total over 500 strong.  For the last few years, since we got here really, I had everything I needed, and, due to my volunteering, I have been kept pretty busy – plus, I didn’t know anything ‘public’ existed, so I had no real curiosity either.

Lately, however, with so many gals transferring out of our circle here in Houston, with a bunch of moves on the horizon and after hearing about the organization and reading in to it a little, it definitely piqued my interest.  What actually happened, was that Sarah mentioned an outing ICH had organised (will blog about that soon enough), that sounded totally up my alley and I wanted to go.  In order to go, I needed to join the group, and once I read the description and learned what they were about, I stuck my cheque in the mail and emailed the lady responsible for the outing I wanted to go on.  In spite of the fact that I was a few weeks after the deadline to sign up, they made room for me and allowed me to tag along.

I’m very excited about being a member of this group.  In spite of the fact that I have been in Houston for over 3 years now, I am keen to get to know some new people and experience some new things.  Especially if my first outing with them is anything to go by – as always, I’ll keep you posted!