Women providing LA adventure club a new challenge
One member of the Adventurers Club of Los Angeles has walked on the moon, while another rode a crashed airplane to the ground and walked away from the wreckage.
Still, for some members of this venerable institution that has been meeting once a week since 1921, their biggest challenge may lie ahead: Deciding whether to admit women to what has always been a "gentleman-only" club.
One member angrily resigned after past president Marc Weitz suggested the idea. Initially the club's board of directors unanimously supported him, Weitz says, but as things grew more acrimonious three board members had second thoughts.
The controversy has brought a rare moment of discord to a group of ah-shucks kind of guys who quietly go out and do amazing things, then meet just as quietly on Thursday nights to shoot the breeze over a meat-and-potatoes dinner in a clubhouse hidden above a drugstore in a modest LA neighborhood.
"It's been quite divisive," acknowledges board member Kevin Lee, choosing his words carefully. "Some of the folks opposed think it would hurt the club's camaraderie. Others say if we let women in they should be as qualified as men."
http://www.myfoxla.com/story/27285834/women-providing-la-adventure-club-a-new-challenge