Who we are
The Rio Grande Valley Chapter Texas Master Naturalist is organized exclusively for charitable, scientific, and educational purposes, more specifically to develop a group of knowledgeable volunteers to provide education, outreach and service dedicated to the study and conservation of natural resources and natural areas within the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
This chapter, founded in 2015, operates in Willacy, Cameron, and Hidalgo Counties, serving any and all community members living in the Rio Grande Valley. We generally host monthly meetings on the second Tuesday of the month from 6:30-8:30 PM.
Our website address is: https://rgvctmn.org.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments & Contact Forms
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Cookies
We do not use cookies to collect information. Note: A cookie file contains unique information a website can use to track such things as passwords, lists of pages you’ve visited, and the date when you last looked at a specific page or to identify your session at a particular website. A cookie is often used in commercial sites to identify the items selected for a specific shopping cart application.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
For site management functions, information is collected for analysis and statistical purposes. This information is not reported or used in any manner that would reveal personally identifiable information, and will not be released to any outside parties unless legally required to do so in connection with law enforcement investigations or other legal actions. We may collect and set information to track marketing to sales processes, but this will not include Personally Identifiable Information unless explicitly noted.
We use log analysis tools to create summary statistics, which are used for purposes such as assessing what information is of most interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas. The following information is collected for this analysis:
- User Client hostname – The hostname (or IP address if DNS is disabled) of the user/client requesting access.
- HTTP header, “user-agent” – The user-agent information includes the type of browser, its version, and the operating system it is running on.
- HTTP header, “referrer” – The referrer specifies the page from which the client accessed the current page.
- System date – The date and time of the user/client request.
- Full request – The exact request the user/client made.
- Status – The status code the server returned to the user/client.
- Content length – The content length, in bytes, of the document sent to the user/client.
- Method – The request methods used.
- Universal Resource Identifier (URI) – The location of a resource on the server.
- Query string of the URI – Anything after the question mark in a URI.
- Protocol – The transport protocol and version used.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
If you send us an electronic mail message with a question or comment that contains personally identifying information, or fill out a form that emails us this information, we will only use the personally identifiable information to respond to your request and analyze trends. We may redirect your message to another government agency or person who is in a better position to answer your question.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Your contact information
Rio Grande Valley Chapter Texas Master Naturalist
c/o Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
1390 W Expressway 83
San Benito, TX 78586-7633
Chapter Leadership: rgvctmn.org/chapter-leadership/