Village Creek - September 2021

The Voice VOLUME 18 | ISSUE 09 |SEPTEMBER 2021

Fun times with the Boomers social group Copyright © 2021 Peel, Inc.

Village Creek - SEPTEMBER 2021

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The Voice IMPORTANT NUMBERS IN CASE OF ANY EMERGENCY DIAL 911 SCHOOLS Tomball ISD ................. 281-357-3100, www.tomballisd.net Willow Creek Elem (K-4)............................... 281-357-3080 Northpointe Int (5-6)...................................... 281-357-3020 Willow Wood Jr (7-8)..................................... 281-357-3030 Tomball High (9-12)....................................... 281-357-3220 Tomball Memorial High School...................... 281-357-3230 Transportation................................................. 281-357-3193 SERVICES Village Creek Management..............................Pam Hummel Email..........................................pam@crest-management.com Phone................................................281-945-4618, Site Mgr. Website......................................www.Crest-Management.com Village Creek Board Website....................www.VillageCreek.us Harris County Animal Conrol ..........................................................................281-999-3191 Precinct 4 Non-Emergency............................... 281-376-3472 Lost/Found Pets........................................ ......Nextdoor.com Harris County Veterinary Public Health........ ..281-999-3191 Municipal District Services (24 hrs)................ 281-290-6503 For water leaks, water outages, water quality, or sewer leaks or stoppage. Street lights out & power outages............................ .........................................www.centerpointenergy.com/outage Harris County traffic signal outages................. 713-881-3210 Best Trash........................................................ 281-313-2378 customerservice@besttrash.com, and www.best-trash.com Trash and Bulk Waste on both Tuesdays and Fridays Recycle on Tuesdays only. Recycle only plastics (1-7), steel and aluminum cans, cardboard, paper, or paper grocery bags, and glass (any color).

Digging? Two days prior to ANY digging in your yard, call 811 or use http://www.lonestar811.com/ NEWSLETTER Publisher - Peel, Inc......................................... 512-263-9181 Advertising...........advertising@PEELinc.com, 888-687-6444 Editor Village Creek Media..............vcmedia@villagecreek.us 2 Village Creek - SEPTEMBER 2021

Homeowner Briefing for Village Creek’s July Board Meeting Pursuant to Article II, Section 4 of the Bylaws of the Village Creek Community Association, Inc. an Annual Meeting of the Membership was duly called and held on July 12, 2021, at 6:30 pm via dial in and video conference.

CALL TO ORDER Director Thomas called the meeting to order at 6:34 p.m. Director Thomas read the 2nd Addendum to the Bylaws regarding Diminishing Quorum. Director Thomas confirmed there was a quorum was met with a total of 25 homeowners present (10) or by proxy (15). The board of directors introduced themselves, Pam Hummel and Kendall Cook of Crest Management to the Membership.

SESSION The 2021 Annual Meeting Agenda was presented to the Membership.

Election of Board Member Director Thomas announced the voting results. Due to no other candidates running, Ty Thomas and Chimeria Gonzalez were elected by acclamation.

Annual Meeting Minutes Approved Director Thomas called the Membership's attention to the 2020 Annual Meeting Minutes that were emailed to all directors. Director Thomas called for a motion to approve the 2020 Annual Meeting Minutes from the Membership. A motion from the Membership was presented, seconded, and approved. The 2020 Annual Meeting Minutes were approved.

Financial Report Pam Hummel presented a financial overview to the Membership. She explained a detailed summary of the Association's income and expenses.

She explained the Associations current and prior month's expenses, as well as expenses year to date. She concluded her remarks with a summary explaining the collection rate of Homeowner Assessments. Director Moody motioned to accept the financials, Director Gonzalez seconded the motion and the motion carried.

President’s Report Director Thomas reported that during his time on the board, the HOA has relocated meetings to closer, cheaper facility, hired a new management company, new law firm and collection agent, new pool company, and a new landscape company, all of which are saving the association money, while providing higher level of service. We have also implemented a new website, email blast service, online voting, online surveys, a new Media Committee, and a new Events Committee. Some future goals include: improving landscaping, lake and pool areas, plus looking into the more popular ideas from the online survey.

Homeowner Forum There were no questions received prior to the meeting as instructed in the meeting notice.

Adjournment With no other business to present to the members a motion was made to adjourn the meeting at 6:48 pm.

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The Voice The Morisons are original residents that moved to Village Creek in 2005. At the time Paulette was an office manager for a construction company, and Larry worked for AT&T as their wi-fi specialist. Larry had previously served six years in the Army and had retired from Union Carbide after a long career in technology.

Originally both from farther north, Paulette from Ohio and Larry from West Virginia, both were attracted to Texas’s warmer weather.

Although Paulette took a roundabout way getting here, living oversees in England and Scotland for five years before moving to Texas. They like the area and have children and grandchildren nearby.

In non-Covid times, Paulette and Larry enjoy traveling and meeting people. They’ve made friends wherever they have travelled.

In recent years they have enjoyed Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, Mexico, Cozumel, Cancun, Playa De Carmen, Ruidoso, Colorado, all the New England states, as well as cruising, and have taken cruises in Alaska, a Disney Cruise, and several cruises out of Galveston. For the last three winters, they’ve retreated to South Padre Island to enjoy mild temperature beach days and have made a lot of friends from different areas and keep in touch with them throughout the year until seeing them again the following year. Paulette and Larry love being around people with positive attitudes.

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Paulette and Larry had a second home in Sun City in a neighborhood with an incredibly active community social calendar. They felt Village Creek needed a way for retirees to meet, mingle, and enjoy life. Paulette formed the Boomers social group. So far, the group is developing and has 69 members signed up, with about 40 very active members. Paulette and Larry are thankful for the wonderful people they have met and become friends with right here in Village Creek.

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Front Row: Peggy, Alfredo, Adrian, Ralph, Helen Second Row: Sharon, Nhette, Shelia, Robert, Emily, Mo, Laura, Loni, Larry Back Row: Bob, Mark, Gordon, Sherry, Bruce, Rhonda, George, Andrew, Murray

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Event Committee Update Your Event Committee is looking forward to fall and a few outdoor events. The National Night Out Celebration in Texas is in October, and we are hoping for a fun evening with coordination with our local law enforcement agencies. We also have an exciting roster of food trucks scheduled for the next few months as well. And, of course, we’ll be gearing up for the lighting of the pool house in late November to help us celebrate the End of Year event.

We’d like to thank all our volunteers who graciously give their time to help us at the events and invite anyone who’d like to help at an event to contact us at https://villagecreek.us/index.php/contacts/. Scroll down to the Event Committee section.

Stay tuned to the website VillageCreek.us and be sure to receive all email blasts. Hope to see you soon!

Safety & Security Committee Update

For the month of July, the constable’s bulletin recorded 42 incidents for Village Creek. The majority of which were neighborhood checks and vacation checks. There was a license plate stolen from a vehicle. The license plate has been entered into TCIC/NCIC as stolen. There were also two traffic initiatives in the neighborhood in July. A reminder to all to drive slowly through the neighborhood and come to a complete stop at all stop signs.

Media Committee Update

The Media Committee works in conjunction with the HOA Board and other committees to keep you up to date. Information is shared in a variety of ways. The front LED screen is used to communicate upcoming dates, times, and events. The sign has limited space, but more information can be found on the subdivision’s website at VillageCreek.us.

An effort to inform all Village Creek owners is made with regular email blast sent to homeowners that have registered to receive HOA emails on our website. To register for neighborhood emails, go to VillageCreek.us, click on the Email Signup button, and fill in your information to receive HOA email blasts. In addition to the front LED sign, the neighborhood website, and regular email blasts, more informal social channels are used to try and reach all our neighbors. The HOA has a Facebook presence @VillageCreekTomball, a Twitter presence @VC_Tomball, and an Instagram presence @VillageCreekHOA. Information also is posted on Nextdoor by the different board and committee members, most commonly by Peggy Barriga, chair of the Events Committee.

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The Voice Here are some tips regarding protecting your data. First, a disclaimer… there’s a new threat every day, and always some clever crook coming up with something new. So, take these tips as a “starting point” only. Keep yourself up to date by reading up on security periodically.

If you ever plan to sell, donate, or throw away a phone, tablet, or personal computer, you risk having your data accessed. To prevent this, you might simply destroy the device rather than give it away.

But really, you only need to destroy the storage device, such as the hard drive or memory stick. That could mean physically removing it and mashing it with a hammer, or it might be enough to do a Department of Defense Erase (DOD Wipe). The DOD Wipe can take several hours to complete, while the software app writes, erases, then writes again, over every bit of storage space, several times, making it very difficult to recover the data. This is different from a normal Erase or Format, which usually only erases the directory of the data. Think of it like peeling the label off a tape or record, but the music is still there. A full DOD wipe writes garbage data over the old data, multiple times.

Do you use the same password over and over, on multiple apps or websites? The problem with this is that sometimes websites get compromised, such as has happened with Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, and many others. The list of passwords is accessed and shared or sold around the internet. It is bad enough that someone might then access your social media or email. But what if you used the same password on your banking website? Hackers are starting to cross reference password lists, by trying your passwords on other websites. It is vital that you use different passwords for everything. One option is to create some kind of easy to remember “system” for creating different passwords. But if it is easy to remember, it is probably easy for a fast computer to guess. Another option would be to use a notepad and write down different passwords, but then you’ve got to secure that notepad in a safe or something. Many people are now using a password app, such as LastPass, BitWarden or similar. These will help generate random passwords, different for every app and website you use. Then it stores the passwords in an encrypted vault, with a single, “strong” password that is the only one you need to remember. Again, every option has a weakness, and in this case, your master password must be super strong, and protected. That means your email password needs to be very strong, and you must control access to your phone, tablet, and PC. If someone gains access to your email or device, they can gain entry to your password vault. Change your vault and email passwords at least annually. And never use those passwords for each other, or anything else.

We’ll try to post helpful home and tech tip articles in the future.

Go to villagecreek.us if you have a subject you think would be useful to cover.

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The Voice The Voice is a private publication published by Peel, Inc. It is not sanctioned by any homeowners association or organization, nor is it subject to the approval of any homeowners association or organization, nor is it intended, nor implied to replace any publication that may be published by or on behalf of any homeowners association or organization. At no time will any source be allowed to use The Voice contents, or loan said contents, to others in anyway, shape or form, nor in any media, website, print, film, e-mail, electrostatic copy, fax, or etc. for the purpose of solicitation, commercial use, or any use for profit, political campaigns, or other self amplification, under penalty of law without written or expressed permission from Peel, Inc. The information in the newsletter is exclusively for the private use of Peel, Inc. DISCLAIMER: Articles and ads in this newsletter express the opinions of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Peel, Inc. or its employees. Peel, Inc. is not responsible for the accuracy of any facts stated in articles submitted by others. The publisher also assumes no responsibility for the advertising content with this publication. All warranties and representations made in the advertising content are solely that of the advertiser and any such claims regarding its content should be taken up with the advertiser. * The publisher assumes no liability with regard to its advertisers for misprints or failure to place advertising in this publication except for the actual cost of such advertising. * Although every effort is taken to avoid mistakes and/or misprints, the publisher assumes no responsibility for any errors of information or typographical mistakes, except as limited to the cost of advertising as stated above or in the case of misinformation, a printed retraction/correction. * Under no circumstances shall the publisher be held liable for incidental or consequential damages, inconvenience, loss of business or services, or any other liabilities from failure to publish, or from failure to publish in a timely manner, except as limited to liabilities stated above.

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Village Creek - SEPTEMBER 2021

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