You will read elsewhere in this issue about the formation of GROPE (Grass Roots Outings PeoplE) - DPS member Randy Bernard put this effort together to take action on the insurance crisis, and your DPS Chair and Vice-Chair were at the organizing meeting on Nov. 30 at the Angeles Chapter headquarters. GROPE wants to elect people to the National Board who will find a reasonable way for the Sierra Club to insure mountaineering activities, and from Nov. 30 to Dec. 25 petitions were passed around nominating three candidates to run for the National Board.* XXXXXX, XXXXXX, XXXXXX and XXXXXX are the candidates, and by Dec. 25 Randy had received at least 450 signatures for each one (only about 253 legitimate signatures were necessary). Now we need to support these candidates and actually elect them to office! GROPE will also be working on a referendum for the 1990 national ballot which will put mountaineering activities and insurance for them more securely into the constitution and the national agenda. Please call Randy if you want to help with GROPE activities. People hold a variety of opinions on how to respond to the Sierra Club prohibition of mountaineering activities. The Sierra Club National Board has appointed a Task Force to look into insurance for mountaineering and it will report by May. Many of us will want to wait for that report and work with GROPE to see if changes can be brought about within the Sierra Club, but there is no reason not to look at other alternatives too. Some people are talking about affiliating with the Seattle Mountaineers or the Southern California Mountaineering Association (set up again by the RCS). Others are discussing forming a new and separate Los Angeles Mountaineering Club of some sort. Why not let us all know what you are thinking? Send your plan or opinion to SAGE editor Anna Valkass by the next deadline, March 1. Which reminds me of more mundane matters, the mechanics of DPS management. If you did not RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP yet, do so by sending our Treasurer Randy Bernard your check immediately. If you don't come to meetings because you don't like where we're meeting this year, find us another place by March (we need to move, Cal Fed is closing out night meetings because of vandalism) so it can go in the next schedule. If you haven't read about that great trip you went on because the leader didn't write it up, write it up yourself so we can all read about it. And if you haven't gotten the SAGE when you should have, the procedure in the past has been cumbersome: contact the Treasurer who contacts the Secretary who contacts the keepers of the mailing list to reinstate your name, and also contact the Editor who may have an extra copy to send you. We are simplifying that: contact the Secretary who will do all the checking and facilitating for you. Now you know what to do...if you get this SAGE, that is!

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