February's Newsletter (click here)

Piette’s Post

As I write this, the trip to Big White with 71 people is closing on its final days.  The participants were challenged with travel issues and an atmospheric river hitting the west coast and flowing to the Okanogan region of Canada bringing warm weather, limited visibility, and light rain on multiple days of the trip.  I was challenged with missing the trip when I tested positive shortly before I was due at the bus stop. It came at a poor time for me but it would have been much worse for everyone if I was sick while on the trip.  Thank you to Heidi Janowski and Ron Quick for ensuring people had a good week in spite of the weather.  The trip story will be in the newsletter next month.

Looking forward, we have a good trip to Searchmont coming up March 22 to March 24.  Searchmont is a favorite destination for our members due to the good terrain and the snow conditions we typically enjoy given the propensity for good storms off of Lake Superior.  I am happy to report that the sign-up is proceeding well and there will be a good number of people.

During the signup period, we had a prospective new member to our club ask about the possibility that we would allow his 19-year-old son to join him on this trip.  The Board has decided to address this possibility during February.    The thought process is that we do want to remain a club for adults.  Eighteen-year-old people are adults that are able to join the military, have a full-time job in industry, get married, etc.  They are not allowed to legally purchase or consume alcoholic beverages in the United States, with limited exceptions. 

Our club no longer supplies alcoholic beverages for our trips and other events.  Therefore, we will consider the issue.   It is not a given that this suggestion will result in a change to our by-laws that specify age 21 as a requirement for membership.  We have significant questions to address in order for this to happen.  It is possible that we would start with a trial approach this year by voting to approve a temporary rule to allow this approach on only the Searchmont trip this year.  We will only proceed with such a change if we are convinced that we have the right approach.  For example, adults are allowed to bring and consume alcoholic beverages on our trips.  We must never have an incident in which a member illegally supplies alcohol to someone that is 18, 19, or 20 years old.

The Board is interested in your thoughts.  Please feel free to share your thoughts by sending a note to me at President@gelandesprung.org.

Tom Piette