I was sent a brief report of the last Board of Directors meeting, Jan. 21, 1989, and there were two interesting items in it. First, the Board voted to discontinue the annual non-binding advisory poll of the membership on the Club's national priorities, a poll traditionally conducted in conjunction with the annual election of Directors. No reason was given, but this certainly cuts out one major (and cheap) source of feedback from the grass roots to the National Board. Second, Richard Cellarius in his President's Report had two relevant paragraphs. Commenting on the "good first meeting" of the Mountaineering Insurance Task Force, he added a parenthetical remark: "Meanwhile, we are in the third or fourth wave of letter writing campaigns to the Directors to reinstitute mountaineering 'or else'..." So our letters do not seem welcome when they are directed to the Board and concern its decisions, although we are routinely requested to write letters to others on behalf of Club efforts. He also commented on an Outing Administration Committee which was discussing ways to increase the visibility of conservation issues to outings participants, and he was pleasantly amazed to learn that the participant complaint rate on outings is only 1/2 of 1%. Guess we need to educate those primarily interested in conservation about the Club's outings programs too!
Meanwhile, out on the desert, we've had some beautiful and exciting weekends. See you out there!
