BLUE RIDGE GROTTO
MEETING MINUTES
March 21, 2008
Pat Sims Al Stewart Mary Sue Socky Doug
Feller
Susan Burr Dave
Socky Carl Alls Trish
Geiger
Carl Cornett John Layman Cameron Hall
Pat Sims (VC) was acting Chair in Marian
McConnell’s absence.
CAVE TRIPS
2/23/2008: BRG Trip
to Clark’s Cave, VA. Doug Feller,
Susan Burr, Pat
Sims
They went straight down the cliff, found
all SIX entrances, and had fun popping in and out of most of the entrances. Susan said she always knew where she
was. Doug had a compass, just in
case. Climbing out with no vertical gear
was a bitch.
2/23/2008: BRG trip to Lightner Entrance of McClungs Cave, WVa. Dave
Socky, Carl Cornett, Rick Shortt. They had a good 12-hour trip back to the Wind Tunnel, and beyond.
3/1/2008: Grand
Caverns Weekend. Mary Sue Socky worked with Carol Tiderman and Anya
Crane, picking up broken light bulbs “off trail” in Grand Caverns. Susan Burr
& Pat Sims hiked up to Fountain Cave
to help the Biggers Clan with their
ongoing dig.
3/8/2008: Cole Frantz, Rick Shortt and Leanne Barley went to James Cave,
VA. This
was Cole’s first time in James
Cave, & she enjoyed
it. 5 hour trip. The
cave was nicely decorated in areas, &was in good shape. No vandalism, graffiti, or garbage. They
found some testing machine/rain gauge connected to stalactites in the
cave! (Dave
Socky said it is a Ben Schwartz
& CCV study to find how fast water percolated down through the cave.
UPCOMING
Cave Trips
3/22/2008 –
Susan Burr, Rick Shortt and Dave Socky lead a trip in Crossroads Cave, VA.
3/22-23/2008
– Meredith Hall Johnson and Andy Reeder head up the Grand Caverns Annual
Conservation/Restoration weekend.
4/5-6/2008
- Grand Caverns project. Contact Carol Tiderman
ctider@us.ibm.com
&reserve a slot.
June 5-8,
2008. Spring VAR/SERA, Bristol, TN.
NEXT
MONTH”S BRG TRIP – Grapevine Pit/Lost World Caverns, WVa. VERY EASY 120’ VERTICAL
DROP onto commercial tour deck in
cave. Susan will make the contact with
owner, and talk with Steve Silverberg about VAR Conservation work in the
commercial cave. Trish Geiger
recommends using walkie talkies to coordinate rappel and ascending. (NOTE: Bring
BRG VOC headsets for the rappel.)
Alternate
trip: in case of rain, will go to Poor Farm Cave, Greenbrier Co. WVA.
Susan Burr will make contact
calls.
PROGRAM: NSS DVD
“Hellhole”. We could not get the program to play on the
Firehouse DVD. It played on Trish’s laptop, but we could not get sound. Oh well.
Members DID
vote for their “Favorite Five” of the 2007 CARBIDE
DUMP covers. The
top five covers will be entered in the Graphic Arts Salon at the 2008 NSS
Convention in FLA. (See attachment)
BUSINESS MEETING
TREASURER 3/21/08
General Fund $ 4963.89
Conservation $ 476.09
Equipment Fund $
321.00
Cave Bucks
$ 67.30
Total: $ 5,828.28
Committee Reports:
Newsletter:
Send in your artwork, photos, and articles. Al Stewart complained that the February DUMP had January headers on each page. Susan Burr
complained that the March DUMP’s
treasurer report was listed as January.
What do these people have against January??? We spelled it
correctly! Postage
will be rising by 1 cent in May 2008.
Membership: Membership packets were handed out at the
meeting. Remaining packets will be
mailed. Extra copies of the BRG Membership List and Constitution are available
at the front desk.
ROCKS: Dave Socky, Doug Feller,
Randy Michael, Mary Sue Socky
checked out 4 caves in Botetourt Co.
VA. Previously
numbered caves now have names. Doug and Dave surveyed 65’ deep Black
Forest Shaft, and “checked out” the others.
S&T: No report
Conservation: vacant
Ways &
Means: vacant
Membership Proposals –
Nothing
tabled, nothing new. NSS Membership
brochures are at the front desk.
Cameron Hall paid his 2008 dues. His contact info will be printed in the April
DUMP (He missed the cutoff date for
the membership list – sorry!).
OLD BUSINESS
·
All
Haunted Cave funds have been sent out to the
various organizations.
·
BRG Website: The
new website is AWESOME! Check it out!
·
ICS
donation: BRG
took out a ¼ page advertisement for $100.00, BRG
logo will be listed in the ICS 2009 program.
·
NCRC Cave Rescue – 2008 mini rescue info
sheets have been distributed. Note new
numbers! The
BRG Call Down Lists have been
updated for 2008, with those important new numbers. The
“Big” Lists will be given out to the
BRG call down folk (Randy Michael,
Al Stewart, Dan & Marian McConnell, Mary Sue
Socky).
·
July
26, 2008 Va Museum of Natural History
Family Fun Festival. BRG will be represented; Marian
McConnell and Mary Sue Socky
will attend.
Hosting Fall VAR 2008 (Susan Burr)
Site is Covington Moose Lodge.
Date: Sept. 19-21. BRG
and JRG are co-hosting the 2008 Fall VAR.
- Susan still needs to do a final
walkthrough with the Moose people and sign the contract.
- April-May: time to contact cave
owners, get permission for led trips.
We Still Need Volunteers to lead cave trips!
- Need an after dinner
program/guest speaker. (D. Socky
recommended Phil Lucas, Ben Schwartz, Wil
Orndorff as guest speakers)
- Does anyone have access
(through work) to some door prizes for Fall VAR?
- Pre-registrants for Fall VAR can
sign up for cave trips when they pre-register. (“Give us your first, second, and third
choices…”) A few spaces on the
trips will be held open for latecomers…
- There is a snag with the “JRG Tree Climbing Class”. Class may require a fee…
- JRG also wants to make, sell T-shirts.
BRG does not want to
(pain in the ass, money pit). Purchasers will have to make a separate check
to James River treasury.
White Nose
Syndrome (WNS) Virginia Cave
Board prefers it be called WHITE NOSE CONDITION
(“syndrome” sounds contagious).
Scientists still DO NOT know
what is sickening, killing the bats, or how it is spread. VA Cave Board
made a “vanilla” statement about WNC. Please see websites, etc. to stay up to date on what
has been found, and current proper caver “gear cleaning” recommendations.
NEW BUSINESS
- None (* see last minute request
below)
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Thank You letters from
WVCC, ACCA, VSS, NSS, etc. for BRG’s
generosity with Haunted
Cave funds.
- 2008 SERA/VAR brochures, describing the
upcoming weekend in June 2008.
- NCRC Weeklong Preregistration May 3-10, 2008, Mentone, AL.
ANNOUNCEMNTS (continued)
- NSS Convention
2008 (Lake City FL)
Aug. 11-15, 2008 registration info.
- Clean Valley Day April 5, 2008. Does anyone want to do a cleanup
somewhere?
*Last
Minute request: Dave Socky enticed the cavers to “re-enact” a
meeting so he would have footage for his ICS video. 15 minutes later…FINALLY…
Meeting ended 8:45p.
Minutes submitted by
Mary Sue
Socky
Secretary, Blue
Ridge Grotto.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Attachment 1:
VCB
statement
http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural_heritage/cavehome.shtml
CAVE BOARD STATEMENT ON
WHITE NOSE IN BAT POPULATIONS
- The Virginia Cave Board
supports the scientific studies being undertaken to determine the cause of
"white nose" in bat populations.
- The Cave Board endorses the on-going policy of seasonal
closure of caves where large numbers and/or legally protected species of
bats are hibernating or have summer maternity or bachelor colonies, as
identified by the Virginia
Department of Game
and Inland Fisheries.
- The Virginia Cave Board
encourages cavers to follow gear disinfecting protocols between cave
trips.
- The Cave Board asks that cavers, in the normal course of
caving, report any bat mortality, anomalous behaviour, unusual appearance,
or high bat concentrations to Rick Reynolds at the Virginia Department
of Game and Inland Fisheries (Rick.Reynolds@dgif.virginia.gov,
540-248-9386).
Attachment 2
Voting for the Favorite Five
DUMP covers of 2007:
VOTE FOR
YOUR FAVORITE FIVE
Everyone
vote for their “Favorite 5” CARBIDE
DUMP newsletter covers from
2007 at the upcoming March 21 BRG
meeting. We have some winners here! The
top picks will be sent in to the NSS Graphic Arts Salon in Lake City, FL.
3 Jan ’07 Dante’s Inferno Rimstone Pools.
Grand Caverns, VA. Photo by Nick Socky.
6 Feb
’07 Vanessa
Krabacker Sketching, Maxwelton
Cave, WVa. Photo
by Brian Williams.
4 Mar ’07 Dave Socky ready for ‘cold’ caving, Maxwelton Cave, WVa. Photo
by Brian Williams.
10 Apr
’07 Leanne
Barley squeezed in Crossroads Cave, VA. Photo by Pat
Sims.
7 May
’07 “Velcro
Ceiling” Hayley
Grasty in Poor Farm
Cave, WVa. Photo
by Pat Sims.
7 Jun
’07 Jeramy
Sims & Karla Teeter in New River Cave, VA. Photo by Pat
Sims.
5 Jul ’07 “Two Fools on Flowstone” Dave
Socky and John Layman in Cave Spring Cave, Lexington,
VA. Photo
by Pat Sims
5 Sep ’07
“Virgin No More”. Susan Burr
looks out from virgin passage, Grand Caverns, VA. Photo
by Pat Sims
2 Oct ’07 “Topless Caving” Dave
& Ryan Wickersham in “Spooky Slot
Canyon”, UT. Photo by Dave
Socky
6 Nov
’07 Rimstone
Pool in Grand Caverns, VA. Photo
by Elliot George.
2 Dec ’07
The 2007 BRG
Christmas Card, photo by,,,,,
artwork by Marian McConnell
Note:
The February, April, May,
June and November 2007 DUMP Covers
will be entered in the Graphic Arts contest.
(MSSocky)