This year we have an outstanding mountaineering committee headed by our vice and outings chair, Maris Valkass, and includes Bill Bradley and Ron Jones. They have suggested a list of requirements for a senior or advanced emblem. The requirements include additional desert activities as well as additional peaks for a total of 65. These additional activities include: exploratory unlisted peak climbs; scheduled trips to ghost towns and mines; desert plant, animal and bird recognition; etc. The object is to create additional OPS participation and interest in our deserts. The committee has also reviewed the Emblem Peaks and is offering various options for adding, deleting or changing the present emblem peaks.
We recently received notice that the DWP meeting rooms will no longer be available for non-DWP meetings. This includes all of the Sierra Club group sections and committees that are presently using these facilities. The Chapter is working the big problem of rescinding the order, however we are actively engaged in finding a new location convenient to freeways, where we can again serve refreshments. Refreshments provide for good camaraderie and help in arranging participation in DPS trips.
Art Blauvelt, our past chair, is heading the nominating committee and I am told that he has obtained an outstanding slate of candidates. He has also been elected as Angeles Chapter Council Chair and I want to offer him our heartfelt congratulations and support.
Chuck Stein
| "These are things which other nations can never recover. Should we lose them, we could not recover them either. The generation now living may very well be that which will make the irrevocable decision whether or not America will continue to be for centuries to come the one great nation which had the foresight to preserve an important part of its heritage. If we do not preserve it, then we shall have diminished by just that much the unique privilege of being an American." — Joseph Wood Krutch |