Would you like to make this site your homepage? It's fast and easy...
Yes, Please make this my home page!
National Outdoor Recreation Society of America
NORSA General Information and History
The NORSA was conceived in late 1998 by Adam Domanski and Tom Saffell, two
Georgetown Preparatory School students. Their club, to be called the Georgetown
Prep Outdoor Club (GPOC), met with many obstacles on the road to its foundation.
First, on account of a lack of faculty support and interest, the club never made
it off the ground in 1998 or even in 1999. Finally, obtaining enough willing
members and College Counselor/Government & Politics teacher, Steve Maczynski,
the GPOC went on the first expedition that would mark the founding of the NORSA.
An overnight, cold-weather, backpacking trip through the Dolly Sods Wilderness
in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. The original six crewmen of
the NORSA are Adam, Tom, Steve Maczynski, Manuel Dominguez, Denis Dwyer, and
Nick Douglas. The inaugural trip was a smashing success and led to a new
vitality within the club. In June of the same year they club returned to the
Monongahela for its second trip with a new crew featuring four return members,
a new moderator, "Uncle" Ben Williams, who is an English teacher at Prep, and
Scott Umosella, another student. This trip, too, was a success and generated
interest as well. All this took place in 2001.
The founders of the NORSA Adam Domanski and Tom Saffell in the Monongahela
National Forest on the second organized NORSA expedition.
Unfortunately, it seemed too late for the GPOC, all the members but one were due
to graduate. Only Denis Dwyer would remain to continue the legacy of the GPOC,
but the original club co-founders would go on to foster and nurture their great
idea. Extending their resources, Adam and Tom organized an alumni reunion trip
for January of 2002. Recruiting for the trip was a dismal failure and only the
two of them were returning members, while the trip itself featured only three
members total, including newcomer, Steve Long. They went to Signal Knob in the
Massanutten Mountains in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia on an
overnight backpacking trip. After this, the co-founders of NORSA decided to take
step back to re-evaluate the situation. Adam spent three months working at the
Maine High Adventure Scout Base guiding expeditions down river. Tom worked on
recruiting new members with long-time member Manuel Dominguez. Together, Tom and
Manuel got two more people involved in the fledgling society, including the
first girl to join, Bethan Haaga. They led an overnight camping trip into the
Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Immediately upon Adam's return from Maine,
the co-founders met once again and came up with the idea for a more extensive
and all-encompassing club. The NORSA was founded in August 2002 when Adam and
Tom decided to extend the reach of the GPOC to non-Prep alumni and students.
Today, the NORSA remains a college student-oriented society for people
interested in the outdoors, but is not limited to this demographic at all.
Recruiting and advertising has always been an obstacle for the NORSA, especially
with all the founding executives and current members being involved in higher
education. In an effort to reach a broader demographic, the NORSA website was
initiated after enough expeditions had been completed to give the new NORSA
online site enough material to present a coherent and substantial foundation.
Denis Dwyer maintains the legacy of the GPOC and recently led an expedition for
the high school in Utah.
