Thank you NOLS
In the last few days, NOLS has changed its NOLS Founders Day 2024 webpage for the better. Previously, the top banner was a collection of NOLsie photos including an uncaptioned photo of Ginny and Paul Petzoldt sitting in lounge chairs alongside Tap Tapley and Rob Hellyer. Now there is a video titled ‘Thoughts from Paul Petzoldt’ with Paul talking over vintage and current NOLS activities shown side-by-side.
Poor audio quality makes it hard to follow what Paul is saying.
This is our transcription:
“The mountains are a wonderful form of recreation because they are just about as far from things as you can get from your ordinary life. It’s really a different world . . . an entirely different world. It’s a world with a different set of values. I don’t think that the young people are fleeing from anything. Boy, I think they are facing reality, and we hope that they’ll discover themselves.”
Paul can now be heard as part of Founder's Day – a marker in the right direction.
If NOLS can add this video, we are confident NOLS can add the apostrophe to Founder's and appropriately describe Paul as NOLS Founder instead of describing Founders as a nameless and leaderless group of 43 students.
Once Founders Day is Founder's Day, we are ready to donate and have signed up to be an Ambassador on the NOLS website.
NOTE: To show how NOLS Ambassador works, NOLS made up one vintage example of Thelma Young matching every staff donation up to $1,000. More likely she would have gruffly said “Get out of here so I can get my work done.” That would have been Thelma's donation – hard work for low pay with a passion for NOLS. We can give money instead with the same passion.
NOLS Self-Assembly
Our objective is to serve as a link between NOLS and the greater NOLS community for an open discussion about how NOLS can stay true to its Mission and the practice of Expedition Behavior. We have consistently reached out to the NOLS Board and the Executive team as a group. We aim to engage with open inquiry and constructive and generative dialogue.