Mark Langton was our guest speaker at the October 1998 club meeting. Mark has been involved with mountain biking since 1983 and teaches CORBA's skill classes. If the subject matter has anything to do with mountain biking, Santa Monica Recreational Area, advocacy of the sport, IMBA, CORBA, you can bet that Mark Langton has been involved with it. The main topic at our club meeting dealt with Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Association, CORBA, which was started 11 years ago to be the Guardian Angel of mountain bikers in the Santa Monica Mountains and a voice for us at the Santa Monica Land Management.

Over many years, CORBA has become a recognizable entity that has done all the dirty fights for its constituencies, us, mountain bikers. CORBA's livelihood does not come from giant corporations, big name banks, or the entire bike industry. We, the mountain bikers of Southern California, are its heart, lungs, and brain because it is a non-profit organization. The steering committee consists of eight members who are dedicated volunteers. In addition, CORBA depends on the volunteer efforts of all its active members.

We spent some time dealing with the issue of our roles and contributions to CORBA since it is doing all the work to keep the trails open and to get more trails open to bicyclists in the Santa Monica Mountains for us to enjoy. First and foremost, each one of us can and should become a supporting member of CORBA by paying an annual membership fee of a mere $25. Secondly, each one of us can and should participate in the upcoming CORBA's 11TH BIRTHDAY PARTY and POKER RIDE on Oct. 24th, 1998--please check the upcoming events in this month for more information. Besides financial help, our first line of support for CORBA would be to follow its rules and philosophy of riding on trails with the understanding that we must yield to other trail mates and users--check out CORBA's link at our web site. This attitude will win us friends from other trail users who will defend us in their perspective camps. Other things we can do are to become an active participant in CORBA's chores. We can participate in trail building and maintenance; be on the "CORBA E-Alert mailing list", at e-mail CORBA@pacbell.net, to get the latest news and important notifications; and, last but not least, donate our old bikes and bike accessories to CORBA to be used for its Trips for Kids program. Furthermore,our letters and concerns about keeping trails open and other issues in the Santa Monica Mountains should be send to the Superintendent of Santa Monica Mountains National Area C/O Mr. Art Eck 401 W. Hill Crest Thousand Oaks, CA 91361. E-mail and phone calls are not as effective with him as a stamped mail letter would be, and it would best to get more signatures on any letter that is being send to him.

We were delighted to have Mark Langton at our club meeting. Our thanks and appreciation to Mark for his time, efforts, and energy.