6/4/24 TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT:  EXPLORE!

>>:  The webinar will be starting soon.  
>>:  All right.  We are ready to begin.  
(Recording in progress.)
>>:  Hello, everyone.  Thank you for joining us this afternoon at the Governor's Committee on People with Disabilities.  We are the accessibility and disability policy webinar series being presented today.  We have wonderful presenters from Texas parks and wildlife.  They are here to join us.  I'm excited for them to present the accessibility parks and wildlife.  My coworker social security going to present this.  Go ahead, Jessica.  
>>:  About the GCPD, the GCPD has a mission to further opportunities for persons with disabilities to enjoy full and equal access to lives of independence, productivity, and self‑determination.  GCPD recommends changes in the areas of accessibility, communication, criminal justice, education, emergency preparedness, employment, health, housing, transportation, and veterans.  The committee also supports a network of committees, issues awards to promote awareness and promotes compliance with disability‑related laws.  
>>:  Thank you.  Next, answering questions will be done.  The chat has been disabled.  We're not going to be able to use that function.  You can ask questions through the Q and A button on the Zoom screen.  Click that and type your question.  We will either answer it live or directly by chatting with you.  We will also have recording and materials that will be posted on our website at a later date.  We are ready to have Jessica begin and Todd, go ahead.  Thank you.  
>>:  Hello, everybody.  Thank you, guys, for joining us here today.  We are Jessica and Todd from Texas parks and wildlife.  We're going to talk to you today about how you, too, can get out and explore.  So I'll do a couple of quick introductions here.  That's me on the left.  I'm there standing at the lake, one of my favorite hikes in all of Texas.  That's before we saw a big cat track in the sand further down.  I love to get outside.  I love parks wildlife, and so it's an easy fit for me to be here in this role.  I'm a recreational therapist.  I also have taught at Texas state university.  I've been in this role here for two years.  I love what I do every single day.  I'm glad to be joined today by Todd.  Good afternoon, everybody.  I serve as the chief of programs for Texas state parks.  I've been with the department for about 24 years.  I have been very blessed to have worked in a variety of roles from park interpreter, police officer, the park superintendent, regional director and now in my current role.  My passion is anything out doors, as reflected there in that photo on the right.  When I'm not here in Austin headquarters supporting our parks folks, I love to go fishing down along the coast.  That was ‑‑ I was fortunate to catch that red fish along the middle Texas coast.  I love doing anything outside.  Whether that's hunting or hiking or just walking outside.  Very blessed to be here this afternoon and share a lot of what we do and what we offer and continue to grow with your Texas state parks.  
>>:  When I talk to people about parks and wildlife, I get different responses.  People have different ideas and a lot of different memories or experiences associated with it.  We're going to get into that today.  What do you think comes to mind when you talk about Texas parks and wildlife?  
>>:  Perhaps you're thinking of breathtaking landscapes, like along the banks of the river or the vastness of the ranch state park or maybe it's iconic wildlife, the white‑tailed deer that you can find statewide or the painted bunting.  You might think about Texas game wardens, state park police as they're out protecting our wildlife and ensuring public safety across the states, and educating our visitors.  Once in a lifetime outdoor venture, whether that's canoeing amongst the trees, which is our only reservoir in Texas.  It is the only nonmade lake in the state or staring off in the distance at the state park as well.  
>>:  Whatever you think about with Texas parks and wildlife, it all leads back to one place.  Our mission is to manage and conserve the natural resources of Texas for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations and that's really where accessibility fits in here as we talk about the people and that's who we are, the present and future generations.  It takes a lot of people to make parks wildlife run.  So it's a lot more than just biologists, like we have here on the left, a biologist holding a flounder.  We're more than 3500 employees.  We operate in every state ‑‑ every county in the state.  We have jobs from communications, marketing, IT, legal.  This is our customer call center.  Lots of jobs available.  In here at parks and wildlife, it's everyone's job and everyone, I believe, is on board with that, so we've got on our left side a picture from staff training.  We're talking to park staff.  This is a superintendent training.  We're teaching them about identifying ADA barriers in the variety.  Those are pictures of training.  On the other side, it's our director executive who is a huge advocate for accessibility here standing at the podium promoting the work that we do.  Over the last six years or so, TPWD has made a huge effort to increase accessible.  There are lots of features at our parks, but we are engaged in upgrading those, but also in the collective accessibility of parks and wildlife.  In the last six years, we've had a creation of an ADA office.  That's the office I'm with.  A full‑time ADA coordinator role.  It was kind of a part‑time role.  With three additional staff.  So three in the ADA office and one with state parks.  We have our accessibility advisory committee.  We have a comprehensive huge ‑‑ it was a major project.  Agency spent over a million dollars making sure we had a transition plan.  Identified every barrier in the agency and now we have a phased plan to upgrade that.  Much larger presence on social media.  Just continually growing.  Last week, Todd guided me over to the state parks teams and talk to them about accessibility and lots of people that are interested and excited about it.  On the left, the top picture is the states park conference from February.  My copresenter there is Shelby who is on our advisory committee.  In the middle, there's staff working on the wheelchairs.  Then on the bottom, open invite to anybody at the headquarters to go to the wonder land camp and check out the outdoor recreation facility.  
>>:  We've been ‑‑ the photo there with Shelby, we host a conference every two years.  We focus in on education and how we can improve with accessibility.  It's been a driving theme for both of those.  We've had several guest speakers that have really opened the eyes and the minds of a lot of employees on what they have always felt as barriers with providing improved accessibility.  Having the guest speakers come and be integrated in our management approach to sharing this vision has been very helpful for us.  
>>:  I'll tell you more about our office.  If you want to log off, I want to make sure you get this information.  This is it right here.  We are available to you.  Accessibility at TPWD, this is our e‑mail address.  That will get you to our office.  We're welcome to call us.  We'll give you some phone numbers.  Look us up on the website and I'll share how to find our website.  The number one thing is contract us.  If you have questions or need more information.  Our office is the title 2 office.  We ‑‑ anything public facing that the agency does, we keep an eye on that.  We support ‑‑ within our office, we assist with customer modification requests.  You can ask for whatever type of request you need.  If it's an ASL interpreter for an education class that's you're taking, if it's for a weekend becoming an outdoor woman event.  We can support all kinds of different programs throughout the agency.  We're here for resources for decision‑making.  If you're not sure what program is going to work for you, not sure of this facility, we can help you connect to the right people or get that information for you.  We also are the keeper of the ADA transition plan.  If you want information about our plans for upgrading a specific site or facility, our office has that.  It's on our website.  We do as much outreach as we can.  I'll tell you about that later.  I'm going to go through this quick, but our website can be complicated.  I want to make sure you know how to get to our site.  On the main site, up right‑hand corner, there's the bar, so click on that, the menu bar.  Lower right hand corner, accessibility is going to be right there above Espanol.  That's it, right there.  My ‑‑ that's my contact.  ADA coordinator's office.  You can click right there in the middle of the screen.  This website is new.  We launched it in January.  We're very excited to have this.  It's a central hub for all things accessibility in the agency.  It's a good way to get you to connect with information about other places.  We've got tabs about around the state, so accessibility at state parks, different places you can go visit, information about permits and passes for people with disabilities.  So hunting licenses, fishing licenses, our state parks passport, and then also frequently asked questions.  Can I bring my service animal with me, how can I learn more about a camp site or facility.  
>>:  Jessica, on the advisory committee, there was a question about if there's a member who is deaf and uses sign language. 
>>:  Oh, yes.  We ‑‑ our committee, we try to have a broad range of representatives from all groups.  We have an ASL interpreter who works with groups.  She plans recreation outings.  Glad to have that representation.  Enough about the website.  Let's do what we came here to do and talk about getting outside.  So Todd, can you tell us how to get outside?  
>>:  Sure.  So these next several slides ‑‑ and I'll just preface this, there is a lot of information that we're going to share, and I want to go back to what Jessica was sharing earlier about, if you have any questions for follow‑up, we will absolutely do that.  It's hard to share our passion and everything that we do in an hour, but we're going to do our best.  One of the ‑‑ you know, when thinking about parks and wildlife, I know as I was growing up, it was typically around hunting and fishing and camping.  We do offer a lot of opportunities for hunting in the state.  As you can see there, our governor Abbott, with his daughter is there out on a bird hunt, we offer hunter education courses, mentored hunting workshops for a variety of folks that don't know how to go about doing it.  That's a big part of what we do is to help educate and grow somebody's experience.  We offer public hunting opportunities through a drawn hunt system.  So those are available.  Then also, we have laws that are able to accommodate.  Say, for example, visual impairments, you can use a visual aid while using a hunting scope.  That is ‑‑ that's to help also in one of our very own ‑‑ one of our own is a member of that, and so he's using that aid to help him when he hunts because he's an active outdoorsman.  Through Jessica and anybody on our team, we're willing to help and that's what we want to try to connect folks with where those resources are.  
>>:  Todd, I know you grew up hunting.  My first memories and first thoughts about parks and wildlife probably go with buying a fishing license with my dad.  You don't need a fishing license if you're fishing in state parks. 
>>:  That's right. 
>>:  With ours, there's a caveat for people with IDD if you're with a licensed angler.  You don't need any fishing license.  All of that information is in that annual.  So make sure and check it.  You have to bring paperwork with you.  There's certain things you need to do.  That's good information.  We also have a tackle loaner program with sites all across the state.  If you don't have your own equipment, you can log on and check where the nearest one is.  Parks and rec offices.  Check the calendar.  There's events coming up.  There's one for teaching kids how to fish.  Lots and lots of opportunities to get engaged with fishing.  
>>:  And Jessica mentioned the outdoor annual.  So this is a way for folks to learn more about hunting and fishing, rules, regulations, and so the outdoor annual is our primary publication for that purpose.  We also have it as an app.  So you can access it from your phone or access it from your computer or a hard copy, a printed copy as well, whenever you buy a hunting or fishing license.  That way, you're familiar with all of our laws when you're out in the field.  
>>:  Hunting and fishing are great ways to get outside, but what we really are going to ‑‑ excited to talk to you about today and are going to focus most of our time on is state parks.  That's a great way to get outside.  
>>:  So your Texas state parks is recognized as the best in the nation.  So in 2023, we were recognized by the national recreation parks association at the conference in Dallas as the best state park system in the United States.  This is something that didn't come lightly.  Coming on the hills of our centennial year, we celebrated one hundred years last year in 2023 for Texas state parks, so it was a great year for us.  Your state park system consists of 88 parks and counting.  I'll show more about that in just a second.  Comprised of about 630,000 acres.  Half of that is big bend.  We serve nearly (1) 000‑0000 visitors a year and another huge success for us was this last fall during the legislative session, proposition 14 passed which dedicated one billion dollars to go towards acquisition and development of new state parks.  That went to the voters of Texas and passed 77 percent.  That shows the level of commitment and support that our citizens have for their Texas state parks.  So what that means is over the coming years, that one billion dollars is generating interest and so we are able to use that interest to go towards and purchase new state parks.  It won't be allowed to be purchased for ‑‑ sometimes we'll have bolt on properties which are properties adjacent to existing state parks.  It is truly meant to be new state parks.  If you've been to a state park or tried to get in, you've seen a lot of times we're at capacity and so this will help with that on providing more state parks near urban areas and remote destinations to better help us serve the needs of our communities.  So what can you do in a state park?  There's lots of things.  You can gather with friends, fill the mist on the water as you're canoeing or kayaking through the cypress trees, enjoy the sounds of the rushing Frio river, star gaze in big bend.  If you've never been out west and you have the opportunity, the stars are literally on the horizon.  It's dark and quiet and peaceful and we pride ourselves on protecting that night sky.  Such an amazing experience.  However, you may want to be ‑‑ you're more interested in our history.  You can immerse yourself in sites, you can wet a line at possum kingdom, picnic with your family at Bonham.  Here is a photo at one of our picnic facilities.  You can enjoy a nice, quiet time in the pines.  Put your toes in the sand at Galveston.  Preferably not during hurricane season.  This time of year, it's coming up, and it's getting hot, it's nice to get down there and catch some of that breeze.  Experience the heights of the enchanted rock state national area.  This holds a special place in my heart.  I was fortunate to propose to my wife on top of the enchanted rock.  She said yes.  Excited about that.  Observe your first eagle at Tyler state park.  For that matter, most of our eastern Texas state parks, you'll be able to see the majestic bald eagle.  Or just enjoy the vastness of Palo Duro Canyon.  This is the second largest canyon in the United States, second to grand canyon.  If you've never experienced that, it is just a tremendous site.  They have a play there every night during the summertime.  So it's a great opportunity to make a trip to the panhandle.  Our favorite and most attracted site or amenity is our hiking trails.  This can come in a variety of different ways.  We have visitor surveys where ‑‑ and this is not just at Texas state parks.  This is for national parks, county and city parks.  The trails are the number one attraction and amenity.  We received dedicated funding to go towards improving our trails because not all of them are user‑friendly for all types and abilities.  Here, you see a picture of canyon state park.  This is a trail project that park staff did on their own.  It leads to a bird line and so they were able to add decomposed granite and put a binder in it which made it very durable and hard.  So it is wheelchair accessible.  So that along with our regular dirt trails, we had a board walk and we'll show an example of one of those, overlooks and then also some that have steps, designed steps for some of the impromptu, whether it's a ‑‑ you use logs or whatever, and then we have some park surface, some paved trails as well.  Sometimes you may not want to go just for the day, but you want to stay a while, and we can accommodate that as well.  Our reservation system is site specific, so you're able to pick and choose and determine which facility might best suit your needs.  So all of our camp sites on our website will have photos and descriptions of the camp site, but we also have a call center and these call center agents are here to help you and help folks get connected, answer the questions, what might best suit their needs to make their experience great, and so they work hard to find out where might be the best site for you, and so we have overnight camping, just regular camp sites.  We offer screen shelters, cabins, lodges, and a variety of group facilities as well.  Here's an example of our reservation site.  So you can filter by accessible features.  You can make reservations for our regular camp sites five months in advance.  We have some sites that are part of a group, whether that's a group camp site or some of our larger facilities and those can be booked 12 months in advance.  You're able to double‑check the features of the facility to see is the camp site accessible, is it near an accessible restroom facility because not everybody ‑‑ and this is things we've learned through visiting with folks is not just always assuming that folks want to camp near the restroom just because that's the closest accessible site.  We have folks that want to experience remote areas as well.  So we are doing our best to try to improve paths to be able to promote that.  But again, we want you to contact our reservation center if you have any questions about finding the right site for you.  
>>:  And that reservations, that's no joke.  People ask me sometimes if I get to make special reservations because I'm an employee, and I'll tell you, I booked my family's garner trip for October.  We set a timer on our phone and the day that our site is open, our friends book our sites that day.  There is a high demand for some of our parks.  There's also some ‑‑ people cancel all of the time, so you get notifications.  There's a feature you can sort by what is available this weekend.  You have to keep an eye on it.  You'll get the sites eventually.  I'm going to talk about state parks accessibility.  State parks is really ‑‑ they are stepping up to the plate in all of the different ways that this division is working to become more accessible and inclusive.  We'll talk about the accessible facilities page, wheelchairs, programs, and events.  We're back to the website, TPWD.  Click that accessibility and if you look down here, accessibility at Texas state parks.  I'm not going to get into that site, but that's a great resource for all state parks accessibility.  One of the best features of it is a very evolving feature in that each park has an opportunity to provide information about their accessible facilities.  This is something, again, kind of a growing, evolving feature where not every park has it built yet, but we're working with parks to get above their ‑‑ it takes work to figure out what's the right information, but we are learning we don't want to just put accessibility ‑‑ you know, these are the ADA camp sites, but we want to give as much information as possible so folks can make an informed decision.  We may have a couple of different types of trails.  It may not be ADA compliant, the trail, but for a lot of folks, it will work for your needs.  Given good resources.  We've got an example from a state park, and Todd knows about this one.  
>>:  I'm actually in the state park today.  I was fortunate to work there for about 12 years.  Our golf cart trails, folks are wondering, why is that ‑‑ we did have a golf course.  It was built in the 1930s.  Our operator during the mid to late 2000s, we're not able to keep the doors open.  We restore this area back to ‑‑ it's a restoration ‑‑ back to its native wildlife.  We're maintaining the original nine course fairways.  We have grasses and things like that planted there.  We converted the golf cart pads and rented those to make them accessible.  We have some on the north side that are more hilly and challenging, but on the south side, you ‑‑ if you have a stroller, if you have a bike, kids, or if you're in a wheelchair, you can go out and experience and see the restoration there, if it's at Basdrop state park firsthand. 
>>:  That's where my kid wanted to ride their bike.  It's a great place to get off of the road and have some nice, smooth access.  One of the other features that I'm really excited about and I'm excited to see getting more of these images.  This image is a Google map 360 photo, and so if you were to go to this website and click, you'll be able to get a view of the entire area right here.  Again, that's ‑‑ these are ‑‑ we've had a lot of feedback that people want to see more, make more information, and so that's what we're trying to do with these pages.  If you get to a park page and they don't have an accessible facilities page, it is not that they want one.  They might not have the staff or resources to do it.  Call or e‑mail us and we can help you get information about that park.  
>>:  Yet.  They're not there yet.  
>>:  Yet.  One of our great features, and we've had these chairs for quite a while.  We've got beach wheelchairs at a couple of our parks.  These are waterproof water chairs.  You can take these in the water.  They are a little bit difficult.  They're kind of bulky.  They've got the big knobby yellow tires on the bottom.  They do require a push from behind.  They are a way to traverse across the sand.  Then we also have our GRIT freedom chair.  We have these in 11 parks currently.  I'm excited to say that we've got on order out and should have an additional 12 coming in the next ‑‑ I mean, soon, next couple of months here.  The chair is really neat.  It's mountain bite hybrid.  You can fix anything with mountain bike parks.  We have remote locations.  You may be far west or north and being able to ‑‑ park staff are not trained wheelchair experts.  It was important that they could get the parts or take it to the bike shop and get those chairs fixed.  They do feature a front wheel and a foot plate on them.  They're action driven.  You can do one arm, two arms.  The levers can come off, if you prefer or don't like them or get tired of them halfway through.  They do have handles on the back.  Anti‑tip bars on the back.  They're nice chairs.  In the parks, we have 18 or 20‑inch seats.  It varies depending on the park.  You can call ahead or check the sites.  That accessible facilities page is evolving the list of where the different chairs are.  Now, if you ‑‑ if there's not a chair at one of the parks and you want to go out to visit, you call us ahead of time or e‑mail us ahead of time and we can get the chair out to you in advance if you give us a little bit of a heads‑up. 
>>:  This has been a game changer.  We receive positive feedback.  We received one from a state park and this was from ‑‑ she took her friend, Mark, and he had had brain cancer, and so he has some neuropathy.  He was active before his treatments and so it was ‑‑ he was not able to get out and enjoy the outdoors like he was, and so on their visit, they had ‑‑ they were able to use one of the chairs and she said it was just one of the most invigorating experiences he's had in years.  He was thankful for us to be thinking forward about providing opportunities for folks to be able to get out.  That's what it's all about.  Aside from federal laws and state laws, it's about doing the right thing and allowing folks to have access and that just ‑‑ I get goose bumps still when I read stories like that of how we truly are making an impact in folks' lives.  More accessible upgrades that we've made, we're striving to be ADA compliant, but we're also striving to just improve accessibility all around.  It may not need to be an improved pathway, but if we can make it smoother?  Some areas, there's days when I wake up with a sore knee and I can't make the climb like I used to.  I enjoy walking on a relatively flat back.  This is a trail, a board walk down along the coast.  This photo has got some miles.  It's just a great project that we were able to do in‑house and provide folks an opportunity not just those that may be needing to get around through a wheelchair, but for kids in a stroller, you know, just folks that want to get out and get in the middle of a marsh and observe wildlife or take photographs or go on a stroll.  That's what our intent is.  That's what our goal is, to do more things like this.  This is one of my favorites as well.  We've been installing some access mats at some of our beach and lake parks.  I wanted to show this one, this picture on the left of some of our park rangers that are installing this mat.  You can see some smiles on their faces.  This is not because somebody is standing there with a camera and saying cheese.  That's no what that's about.  Our staff are truly ‑‑ they want to make a difference.  They want to really provide access and improved access for our disability on the right.  He was able to get out and go on to the beach that he's not been able to before.  The GRIT wheelchair is not going to work for this young man, but this beach mat was able to afford him the opportunity to get out there and feel the breeze of the lake.  Our staff are excited about providing this improved access.  Here is an example of way finding tags at palmetto state park.  This is a pilot project that we're working on.  Along the hiking trails, when you get to the park, you download the app from way tags and then as you approach the site, there's a QR code that ‑‑ it will talk you through what is there, and so this has been a tremendous pilot project for us, and we hope to expand this at one of our sites such as Goliad and some of our other areas that we can give folks improved access to trails. 
>>:  Todd, I want to jump in here and say quickly that this image is from the parks and wildlife magazine.  This group was featured ‑‑ the tag starts as a result of a camp out for the national federation of the blind who offered to put the tags out for their event and then they liked them so much that they said, we'll leave them here.  That's how that project started.  We're excited to see how it grows. 
>>:  Awesome.  This is another exciting one where we installed a kayak transfer and a bench.  For folks that want to transition from a wheelchair on to a kayak.  This is ‑‑ jewel ‑‑ she ‑‑ this one gives training some staff that ‑‑ she was there and she's an active member our advisory committee.  Even though some facilities may be compliant, the user usability of them may still be lacking and so Julie has been helpful for us.  We may check off the box of this facility is ‑‑ meets ADA compliance, but it's still lacking in some usability features.  Julie has been great to work with.  This is you making assumptions ‑‑ listening to those that are experienced in it.  This is an exciting one.  Coming soon, we are ‑‑ have ‑‑ during the centennial year, we had some donation projects through our foundation.  We have viewing scopes.  We take for granted when we go and some of our scenic overviews where you can look through the scopes and see the landscape and not everybody is able to experience the color that we do.  We kind of take that for granted.  So we're going to be installing some scopes that may help those that may be colorblind to be able to experience like they should be able to.  Then we mentioned earlier about some tactile exhibits.  This is a picture where we've used a 3D printer of our mission at Goliad.  They are getting to describe and feel what the mission looks like and is.  Then we're also going to be installing kayak dots at some of our fishing parks.  That's one of our ADA specialists down at the bottom there.  She is testing out one of the motorized truck chairs.  Hopefully, we have five of these that are coming to Texas state parks.  We hope they grow that even more to be able to provide you access to our visitors.  
>>:  A great way to get involved with state parks or to learn more is to participate in one of our programs or special events.  So if you go to the parks and wildlife website, you can find the calendar events.  You will find different types of raker programs.  It can be anything from biking to learning about bats and the over ‑‑ such a good way to talk and engage with park staff, too.  I took a lot of time talking to you about how to make sure that the programs are inclusive.  One thing that I talk to them about a lot is, if you call ahead of time or you reach out ahead of time and you have a specific request or modification, they can do that for you.  And if the program is located in a spot you can't get to, we can do an alternative program, a live stream program.  We have been working a lot on even information about where is it going to be held, how long is it, and to be sure that there's some kind of contact there.  If you can't find their contact in that event description.  Wheelchair friendly means stroller friendly, walker friendly.  It's a way to say that this is going to be a relatively flat area.  This is kind of one of my favorites.  I think it's such a great resource for people as Texas outdoor families.  It's four folks that don't have the equipment, the resources, the knowledge to do it.  You sign up for one of these camping work shifts and then the park rangers bring all of the ‑‑ you can bring cots.  You show up for a great facilitative weekend.  The rangers are on‑site overnight.  They're there ‑‑ have been ‑‑ it's great working your group, with your family to make sure that you got what you need.  If you've got a group that works with people with disabilities, you are in a ‑‑ we just hosted our second one.  This is a new adaptive outdoor expo.  So keep an eye on this for April, May of next year.  Lots of groups coming out and bringing equipment.  
>>:  So let's talk about state parks on the horizon.  I mentioned the centennial bill.  I'm going to share about ‑‑ near the city of Strawn.  The photo on the right, it's in conduction right now, but this is an accessible.  A board walk that will be ‑‑ typically, in parks, you will see a fishing pier that may go out and come back.  This is one that you could see in the drawing will actually get you over the lake.  At ADK state natural area, this is in the hill country just north of San Antonio.  I want to show you the trails on the right.  When planning our park trails, one of our most attractive features, I wanted to highlight this one because the red lines are some of our trails and then the map goes off screen to the left a lot more.  When we incorporate it and put in an accessible trail, we fell short.  On this map, you see the dotted green lines, and that is a pretty ‑‑ they will take you around one of our knobs and overlooks there, so we're doing a better job of big on the ‑‑ let's incorporate it in the planning up front.  
>>:  I'm excited to see those parks coming up.  I got to visit ADK.  I haven't gotten to the other one yet.  I'm excited to see all of the upgrades that are going to happen.  Truly, I could sit here and talk to you all day about state parks.  We want to highlight other things really quickly just to give you more of a broad scope of what we've got going on here.  I'm going to talk to you about ‑‑ that's our green science center.  You can see aquariums, hands on programs.  They do offer fishing for groups.  That's reverse ahead or school ‑‑ starting next week, we are ‑‑ some of you may be familiar with the program.  They've done video game stuff.  This is the first into outdoor recreation.  We're excited to be that host for that.  We're going to start here and hopefully scale that out.  One of the ways or times you can go check out the fishing gear is at the third annual special Olympics fishing tournament.  In the fall, probably October, the ‑‑ we'll be hosting that tournament and having all of it available for you to check out.  I see Angela there has made it a comment.  Our team will also be at the conference next week showing off some of the gear.  If you check out the website, they have a virtual tour of the building.  You can see everything that they have to offer.  
>>:  We're not too naive to know that we have barriers that exist.  Some of our facilities have been around since the 1930s.  We recognize that which is why we were proactive with seeking out a full inspection of our park facilities.  We have a completed transition plan in place for parks and wildlife.  We are slowly chipping away at some of the known barriers, but also using that as we're developing new parks to be on the front end of that and improving our facilities.  We try to strike that balance of finding ways that we can provide access to the outdoors to ‑‑ for a variety of experiences.  Some of those may be just providing better restrictions.  Again, not making an assumption that, oh, we know ‑‑ I think I know what somebody with a disability might need.  No, I don't.  I've learned in my time, let's provide a good solid description because different folks are able to do things on their own and so just providing clear descriptions of the facilities and allowing you to choose your own path, but also continue like with 3D models we talked about, virtual reality, interactive exhibits, social media, altering wheelchairs, these different things that folks can still experience what we have to offer.  So different times, it gets hot and cold and so folks still want to go and visit and experience our state parks.  So we're trying to do better to move the needle in the right direction, again, to try to meet your needs and be as inclusive as we can.  
>>:  We're doing that in as many ways as we can.  We have our advisory committee.  We solidified our roster for the next couple of years.  If that's something you'd be interested in, let me know and I'll get you on our list.  When we come back around, we'll reach out to you.  That's not the only way you can be involved.  If you have a modification, submit it through our website or contact us.  We look at those requests.  If we start to see trends in an area, we're going to put a little more service or resource there and access inclusion solutions.  Maybe it's not a request you're making but an experience that you've already had or something you're saying this is not going to work for me.  Send it to us and we'll work with you.  We'll figure out how we can do better to meet your needs and we have already implemented this.  We started this process in January.  We have great results and improved staff training and processes.  Lots of ways that we are trying our best to be responsive and do better.  Everything ‑‑ any time we can collect data, we'll be working to get data on fishing gear or we've done some town halls, community feedback, look at visitor surveys from state parks.  All of that is incorporated into how we're making decisions.  
>>:  And we want you to join us.  This is an open invitation.  We want folks to join our teams either through work, through volunteering, and so we're spread out all over the state.  If you're interested in what we do, we invite you to come speak with us and see if we can find a spot for you.  Come out.  You may not be able to.  We talked about the temperature and whatnot.  Maybe you're not able to get out during that time of year.  We have a whole bunch of other avenues in which you can learn about what we do from our PBS show, our magazine, our social media network.  We offer on line classes and education videos.  We want you to be able to experience it as well.  
>>:  Or catch our team out on the road.  We're going to be hitting up parks.  The accessibility team will be out this weekend.  Stop by.  We'll be at the conference next week.  We'll be in round rock in August.  If you have a conference or event, we would love to get involved and hear more from you.  Feel free to reach out.  We could talk about this all day and we really like to.  I don't know if you picked that up, but Todd and I love talking about this stuff.  Don't be a stranger.  Reach out to us and we'll keep the conversation going.  We've got our e‑mail addresses up here.  
>>:  Thank y'all so much.  Thank you to Beverly and Alena for putting this on.  We could go on all afternoon for the rest of the week about what we do.  We're excited to be more progressive in ways that we can help others be able to experience your Texas state parks.  We're going to continue.  We're committed to that.  Thank you very much for that.  Thank you for your time. 
>>:  We've got time for a few questions, if anybody has any.  We'll be watching the chat for a few minutes here. 
>>:  Yes, we do.  
>>:  I answered one earlier about going to Cedar Hill in our website.  The call center can help put you in contact as well with a superintendent out there.  We do, for some of our partnering agencies, we host or allow folks to come in and have staff meetings for community events or governmental agencies or whatnot.  We do that free of charge.  That could be another option, too.  
>>:  You mentioned that you have a magazine.  How do people subscribe to that magazine?  
>>:  Go ahead, Jess. 
>>:  That's a great question.  You can get online.  It's a paid subscription.  It's 10 ‑‑ gosh, what do we call our magazines these days?  Ten editions a year.  That information is on the website. 
>>:  Yep.  There's a digital or a print.  You can choose either one.  I still like the print.  I like to thumb through it.  I like to separate from my mobile device and look at the magazines at my leisure.  
>>:  There's one more question, I think, before time runs out.  What about your advisory committee?  If people have ideas on how to make improvements in the parks, do they have to wait for an advisory committee meeting or can they reach out to you directly?  
>>:  Please reach out any time.  If you've got ideas for improvements or you just want to tell me about a great time you had in a park, reach out to us, but the accessibility website does have a place ‑‑ it says access and inclusion solutions, and you'd click on that.  It's a form you can fill out.  If you want to make sure it's documented, tell us what you would like to see.  That's helpful for me.  I can take that information over to Todd and I can say, look, we've got this access and inclusion solution, Todd, let's work on this together to make it happen.  We love hearing from folks.  Don't wait for that committee.  Give us all of your ideas and feedback.  
>>:  Great.  Okay.  Well, I don't see any further questions, so we'll go ahead and start to wrap up here.  I want to say, thank you, both, for coming and sharing this important information.  I, myself, have always wondered when I'm participating in different park events, wondering if I can go because perhaps there's a barrier there, communication difficulties.  Now I know I can reach out to you to get that resolved and get the access one way or another.  So I envision the same is for others with disabilities.  I think this is a great opportunity for them to really enjoy and take advantage of the parks for years to come and I really appreciate that about Texas parks and wildlife department and very grateful to you for that.  
>>:  Thank you very much.  One last one is we do have an annual state park pass, and you can get that for $70.  The price is going to be going up in September.  September 1st.  If you're interested in securing that state park pass, which provides free entrance for you and anybody in your vehicle for one year at all state parks, so it's a great value, and then there's also some discounts for store sales as well.  So check that out, if you want to as well.  
>>:  Thank you.  And Matthew, you reminded me, too, to say, if you do need an ASL interpreter or another modification, if you can let us know ahead of time, it would make it much more likely we can get it done because some of our parks that are way far out, we may have to work ahead of time to get an interpreter there, but if we know two weeks out, we'll make it happen.  Between then and there, we will try our very best to make it happen. 
>>:  Well, thank you again for this presentation.  Have a wonderful rest of your week.  
>>:  Thank you.  
>>:  Thank you, everybody.  Really enjoyed it.  
(Recording stopped.)