Volume CXXXIII, Number 4 September 28, 2001 f

BOC plans new building
HENRY COPPOLA
Photo Editor

By this time next year the Bowdoin Outing Club will be nicely settled into a new home. Michael Woodruff, the Director of the Outing Club, said that the new BOC building "will have a very positive impact. I'm very excited about it."

The new building-complete with a classroom, meeting area, offices, storage, and kitchen-is truly unique because it will be the only facility constructed by any college or university which is designated explicitly for an outing club.

The building will sit across the street from the old Alpha Kappa Sigma house, at the intersection of Harpswell and College Streets, replacing the existing blue decal parking lot and adjacent sand lot. The main entrance of the building will face north down Harpswell, towards Druckenmiller Hall and Bath road.

After passing through the front entrance and its accompanying vestibule, visitors will find themselves in a large common area, replete with a stone fireplace. "We were really going for the rustic lodge feel," said Woodruff. "You should feel like you're in a ski lodge in there."

Besides the massive stone fireplace, the room will be lit by large second story windows. The room dominates the house with enough space for approximately 75; it will be used for classes, lectures, slideshows, and simply as a lounge. Woodruff envisions the room as a very inclusive space with "fires in the winter and everyone just coming by to hang out."

In addition to the main room, the building will contain a classroom, which doubles as a map room that will be used for leadership training classes and trip planning. This room will hang off of the main room and nestle back in the pines. In this room, more than any other, "you'll really feel tucked right into the pines," according to Woodruff.

Other features of the house include a kitchen that can be used to pack out food for trips and provide refreshments for talks and other events. The offices are also a big improvement over the current situation, says Woodruff.

"It's great being in such an open space now, but it makes it really hard to get work done with people pouring in and out all the time." He sees the new office space as a key to making the Outing Club more efficient.

While the main lounge room may be the centerpiece of the building the equipment room is its real substance and backbone. The new equipment room will allow the Outing Club to consolidate all of its equipment, which is currently spread all over campus-in the basements of Burnett and Appleton, a closet in the old Curtis Pool, and the garage at 30 College Street.

The Outing Club equipment room will feature a pickup window similar to the one used by the athletic equipment room. One of the more innovative features of the room is the trip lockers. These four-foot-square, eight-foot-high lockers will open on both ends; into the equipment room and the staging area by the parking lot. This will allow the equipment managers to pack all the necessary items into the locker prior to the trip and the trip leaders to pick it up at any time as well as return it promptly when they get back. The Outing Club will not only be able to keep better track of its equipment, but also take better care of it, necessities which have been two of Woodruff's biggest concerns as director.

The Outing Club House, nearly nine years in the making, is scheduled for completion in June of 2002. The project, budgeted at $1.2 million, is currently out to bid. By mid-October a builder should be in place and ground breaking should soon follow. When the building is complete, it will mark the beginning of a new era for the Outing Club: "The first giant leap forward for the Outing Club came in 1984 with the hiring of the first full time director," said Woodruff, "now with the hiring of a full time assistant director and the new facility, we have our second leap."