The huge burst of activity on Alpine L recently, in particular a huge series of photograph uploads by Jane Hendrix, leads me to the logical question of what we in NARGS can do to support our numerous 'orphan' members. 'Orphan' refers to those members who are not members of Chapters, most often because they don't live near an existing one. We have members all over the world, and even in North America there are many members, Jane among them, who would have to travel hours to get to a meeting of their closest chapter. One of the reasons why I suggested that the Chapters link their newsletters on the NARGS website is to give these NARGS members an opportunity to see what is going on with the Chapters, and take some advantage of the enormous body of knowledge which is shared among the various Chapter members. And, of course, as our members travel, knowing what is going on in the various chapters would help them in possibly planning a trip around a particular activity or program. And finally, NARGS members might actually JOIN a chapter based on the newsletter and one or two particularly interesting programs or activities that might make a 4 or 5 hour drive worth the time and effort.
So the question of the day is "What can we do to make NARGS membership more valuable to those members who are not Chapter members due to distance from active Chapters?"