With the D. O. C.
APRIL BRINGS CHANGE IN STAFF OF OFFICERS AND IN ACTIVITIES
THE MONTH OF April so far as the Dartmouth Outing Club is concerned is one of change, from skiing to cabin and trail activities, from old officers to new ones. It can be said that the Outing Club year runs from April to April.
The selection of Elmer T. Browne '40 of Shaker Heights, Ohio, as president of the D. O. C. and chairman of the executive committee was recently announced at the Club's annual banquet. Other appointments include Percy Rideout '40 of Asburnham, Mass., as captain of skiing, James Murphy '40 of Washington, D. C., as chairman of Winter Sports division, and Herbert Porter '40 of Palmdale, Calif., as chairman of Cabin and Trail. Ed Fritz '40, Ed Schecter '40, David Nutt '41, William Rothermel '40, Dr. Winslow Hatch '30, and Prof. Charles A. Proctor '00 in addition to Browne, and Murphy will compose the Executive Committee of the Club for the coming year.
The past year, under the energetic leadership of Kenneth MacDonald, has been marked by a serious reconsideration of values connected with the organization, and of its purposes. One section of Club opinion felt that D. O. C. activities were attempting to encompass too great a field, felt that too great a burden of labor was being laid upon the shoulders of the undergraduate leaders; that the idea of the Dartmouth Outing Club as a service organization had developed to such an extent as to endanger the personal enjoyment to be derived in Club activities by its active members.
With these considerations in view a redefinition of purposes and a reconsideration of activities was asked for. The question was posed, "Where are we going?" Frankly the answers, by no stretch of the imagination, can be declared to have been found completely this year. A beginning was made, but with the only certainty that a reasonable amount of introspection and self-correction can be safely experienced in a healthy organization, experimentation of a constructive nature will undoubtedly be carried on throughout the coming year.
A new constitution was adopted for Cabin and Trail, something that the threeway division of the Club three years ago into Cabin and Trail, Carnival, and Winter Sports seemed to call for. Election to the actual Cabin and Trail body was shifted from spring of an Outing Clubber's freshman year to the same time in his junior year. The various departments such as Trips, Cabins, and Secretariate were reorganized on the basis of department-clubs, with emphasis on the latter; in the hope of developing much-desired fellowship as well as aiding the efficient performance of an outlined piece of work. The elected chairman of Cabin and Trail has been given the power of appointment, subject to that body's ratification, of the Cabin and Trail Council, which he heads. The aim here was to secure compatibility between chairman and co-workers, and aid in a difficult personnel problem by securing men desirous and capable of filling the various positions.
COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE CARNIVAL
Reforms in the Winter Sports division of the D. O. C. were not of such a revolutionary nature, but were reforms in internal administration calling for no constitutional revisions. Carnival was untouched, although the retiring Carnival chairman suggested in his report the creation of a committee to examine the various aspects of Carnival, the function that the occasion plays in College life, and means of bettering that week-end.
Perhaps the reform of greatest importance was that made in the membership campaign. It was felt that the door-to-door canvassing of dormitories and fraternities during the first week of the college year was in itself a bad thing. That a campaign of this type put too much pressure on the incoming freshman to join the Club, perhaps before he was acquainted with what it was possible for him to secure from the D. O. C. It was felt that less antagonism and more of a spirit of appreciation would be created by discontinuing the "button hole" campaign. Hereafter freshmen instead of very possibly getting their first taste of the D. O. C. through an experience with an enthusiastic membership salesman, will be introduced to the Club through a more active program of pre-College and fall freshman trips and feeds, instructional lectures, informal get-togethers at the Outing Club House, and the "Dartmouth Out-of-Doors" publication. Only after this early introduction to Club activities will membership be offered, then on an application basis. It is hoped that this method of approach will tend to create a lasting interest in the D. O. C. on the part of students desiring to join the Club.
The ski season, with the exception of the annual Harvard-Dartmouth affair at Mt. Washington, ended during spring recess with the victories of Co-Captain Dick Durrance in the Far West. Durrance, closing his collegiate skiing career, secured permanent possession of the Harriman trophy given for his victory in the National Amateur Four Way Championships at Sun Valley, Idaho. A few days later, performing at Mt. Hood, Oregon, Durrance took National Open and Amateur Combined Slalom and Downhill honors and annexed the National Amateur Championships in the individual downhill and slalom events.
So many superlative adjectives have been associated with the name of Durrance by sports writers everywhere during the past four years that any attempt to say more would be superfluous. Throughout four years of intercollegiate skiing, during which time Durrance has taken every possible American amateur downhill and slalom honor and has represented the United States on an Olympic team, the Dartmouth senior has remained a quiet, unassuming leader and team skier. Perhaps one of Dartmouth's greatest individual athletes, the highest compliment of all was paid by a rival competitor who remarked that Durrance had done more by his example of controlled skiing and competitive temperament, by his willingness to help both rival and team mate, for skiing in the United States than any other single individual.
