BLUE
RIDGE GROTTO of the NSS
Monthly
Meeting Minutes – Jersey Lily’s Salem,
VA
October
15, 2021
Attendance:
Marian McConnell – Chair Lauren Appel –
Vice Chair Mary Sue Socky
– Secretary
Dave Socky - Treasurer Kevin Johnson Nick Schmalenberger
Susan Burr *Pat
Banks *Beth
Banks
Carl Cornett *Erin Bejjani *Ahmed
Alkarboly
*Tracy Martino *John
Martino
(*
denotes guest)
Meeting called to order 6:49p by Chair Marian
McConnell.
Trip reports:
9/18: Buckeye
Creek Cave, WV. Participants
included Erin Bejjani, Jeff Huffman, Doug Feller, Trish Geiger (WVACS Member),
Nick Schmalenberger, Kelly Perkins, Brandon and Candyce Phibbs. This was Erin’s first cave trip with
BRG. It was WET Going through the low spot (the Watergate)
was awful. It smelled really
bad! After the low spot, we went
into the upper levels, which involved lots of climbing. Erin had never done free-climbing before. Good trip.
9/18: Helectite
Cave, VA. Participants included David Socky, Amos
Mincin, Brian Mayfield, Sophia Reap Tress, Jeremy Hess, Alicia Bateman, Tomas B
Hawkins, Ethan Radcliffe, Alex Nagl, and one other. Amos took a bunch of cavers
from Philly Grotto to Super Sweet dig. Amos and I did three straws as set up
for the dig and checked out the actual way on. Lots of digging to do to
continue. The first part of the entry tunnel was wet, about a foot of water, so
everyone got wet. People were cold and enthusiasm was low, so we made a pretty short trip out of it - about 7.5 hours.
10/1 – 10/3: Burja
Cave, VA. Petra
Project: Cat recovery:
Participants included Dave Socky, Alex Hastings, Katarina Ficco, Mike Ficco,
Joe Myre, Lauren Satterfield, Wil Orndorff, Zenah Orndorff, Mike Futrell,
Andrea Futrell, Tom Malabad. We spent two days in Burja Cave extracting and
removing the cat skeleton, thought to be an American Cheetah. The third day was
to retrieve the rest of the gear left at the entrance and lug it up the hill.
See the Carbide Dump Oct. 2021 for full article.
10/9: McClung
Cave, WV. Participants included David Socky, Joe
Zokaites, Meredith Blanco, and Sydney Hansen. Railroad team: Nick Socky, Alex
Faunce, Penelope Vorster, and Jean-Philippe Ouellet. Our team finished the
upper-level part of the passage at the end of the First Breakdown, where it
ties into the overlook from the Batbone Crawl. We then did an upper-level
narrow passage that extends northeast and south from the backend of the First
Breakdown. Our passage was mostly walking, about 4 feet wide and 7 to 8 feet
high, with a trickle stream over a cobble floor. We left one side lead which
takes off to the right from DFS43. We did reach an end for the main way we
surveyed. Nick's team surveyed the 'Railroad Tunnel' plus a side lead off the
main entrance canyon. It was a good and easy 11-hour trip that netted 1074 feet
of survey.
10/14: Maxwelton
Cave, WV. Participants included David Socky, Nick
Socky, Joe Zokaites, and Penelope Vorster. We cleaned up side leads and loops
upstream from the Latte Room. We actually got 50
stations (65 shots) and came away with 584 feet of new cave. It was a fun and
easy 8.5 hour trip, with our survey less than an hour from the entrance.
Ahmed Akarboly, a caver recently from TX,
introduced himself and related to BRG of some of the caves he had visited when he
attended Texas A&M. Nice vertical
caves! Dave Socky had also been to a few
of them.
Pat Banks, one of the “before BRG cavers” who
went caving with Al Stewart while attending Roanoke Technical School
(pre-WVCC), told BRG a little about the old caving days, going to Unthanks and
Gilley Cave with Al, and that one of his favorite caves to visit was Paxton
Cave, VA.
UPCOMING
TRIPS
Tomorrow Sat. 10/16/2021: BRG trip to Paxton Cave, VA.
Next Month’s Trip – Porter Cave, Bath Co.
VA. See Susan Burr for info and sign-up
BUSINESS MEETING
10/15/2021 BRG Treasury Report – Dave Socky,
Treasurer
Fund Amounts
Cave Bucks $
201.00
Conservation $
0.00
Equipment $
104.12
General $ 3,183.32
Total $3,488.44
*Cave Bucks:
All Cave Bucks donations are voluntary; funds go to cave conservation
programs.
Committees:
Membership – We have a membership application
to vote on.
ROCKS – nothing
Safety & Techniques – nothing.
Membership Proposals: Larry Manning, NSS 37229, has applied for
BRG membership. Larry’s sponsor is Doug
Feller. Trish Geiger seconded Doug’s
motion: Larry’s membership was tabled until the October 15 BRG meeting. Well, Larry could not make the meeting, but
he has been caving with many grotto members.
Larry Manning was voted in unanimously by the Regular BRG members
present. Welcome, Larry!
Old
Business:
·
BRG
Christmas/landowner cards – are here! Marian
passed around one of the cards for everyone to admire. Thanks to everyone who
responded to the email on deciding to go with the early order discount.
·
No progress on Al Stewart’s caving books auctioned off to the BRG
community. Al has been extremely ill; he
is in the hospital.
o There was some discussion on
how the cave book auction would be held:
Decided: On-line., is open to BRG members first, then other cavers. The auction should last a month.
o Dave Socky offered to do the
on-line auction. He will create a PDF file on the books (title, author,
description, condition) in about a month.
He promises to KISS (Keep it simple).
o Carl Cornett has several
books he wishes to donate to the auction, too.
Thanks, Carl!
·
Grotto Nominations:
Revisited: All current officers may serve one more year of their term if
they so desire.
·
Nominations were opened on Sept. 17, 2021:
Chair: Marian McConnell
Vice Chair: Lauren Appel; Nick Schmalenberger was
nominated for V.C.
Secretary: Mary Sue Socky
Treasurer: David Socky
o During the October
15 meeting, Nick Schmalenberger decided to withdraw his nomination for
2022. The current officers are willing
to serve a second term.
Nominations remain open until the November 19 BRG meeting. You must be a BRG member and an NSS
member to hold grotto office. Please
consider running for BRG office.
New Business
·
Mary Socky proposed that BRG donate to one of three
NSS funds – Save the Caves, New River Cave Preserve, or Junior Speleological
Society (JSS) in John Fox’s memory.
After discussion it was suggested by Susan Burr that BRG donate $100.00
to the JSS in memory of John Fox. BRG regular
members voted YES 7-0 -PASSED.
·
Conservation Donations – Both MAKC (Mid Atlantic
Karst Conservancy) and WVCC (WV Cave Conservancy) lost major fundraising
opportunities due to OTR and other events being cancelled. They have requested direct donations. BRG Regular members voted 7-0 to divide the
Cave Bucks fund and send half to each cave conservancy. PASSED.
·
Meeting place in 2022 – Does BRG want to continue
meeting at Jersey Lily’s? Vote
-YES. JL’s is much better since they got
rid of the smoking bar. MSSocky was
instructed to book the 3rd Friday of Each Month in 2022 – we
can always cancel a monthly reservation ahead of time if we give them enough
notice.
·
Future meetings and WiFi for Zoom meetings
o Nick Schmalenberger
wished to revisit the idea of meeting at a place with a WiFi hotspot. (JL’s does not have WiFi).
o Lauren Appel
mentioned it would be nice to be able to show on-line programs – but WiFi is
needed.
o Dave Socky said if
someone could do a Wi-Fi hotspot on their phone, we could watch YouTube caving
videos.
·
(NEW BUSINESS – cont.)
o Nick also mentioned
that he can host a WiFi hot spot, and get You Tube on his smart phone.
o If we could get
WiFi, Who (BRG member) would run that part of the meeting, each month?
o How would we set up,
view a Zoom meeting in our current meeting room?
o Chair Marian
McConnell asked that Nick check into the feasibility of hosting & WiFi hot
spots for Zoom meetings.
§ NOTE: free Zoom
meetings hosted through the NSS end in 2022.
o Nick Schmalenberger
mentioned Lydia’s did have WiFi. Has
anyone dined at Lydia’s’?
o Chair McConnell also
mentioned that if anyone wants to propose a new meeting place, we need to know
if there is a charge for the meeting room area, or if they have a minimum food
order/attendance, can accommodate our group size (7-20 people). Tabled. Discussion will be continued at future
meetings.
·
VAR Fall Zoom meeting this Sunday 10/17/2021,
4p. The info about the VAR meeting was
sent in an email a few days ago. Each
grotto should send delegates. All
cavers are welcome to attend. See PDF
attached.
·
Caroling in the Caverns – Grand Caverns is holding a
smaller caroling event in the caverns during the evenings of Dec. 4, 11, & 18. By reserved tickets. Six cavers are needed 4p -10p each night to
light, set up and take down candles and be ‘guardian angels’. Mary Socky hopes to go up and volunteer for
one of the nights. Is anyone else from
BRG interested in helping? Let Carol
Tiderman ctider@ymail.com know.
·
Keith & Lisa Goggin are planning their
post-Christmas party (and bonfire). BRG
is invited; date and details TBA.
Announcements
·
Please sign sympathy cards for the families of Chuck
Yech and Julie Russell, cavers who have recently passed away.
·
Please sign Get Well cards for Duane Owen and Al
Stewart.
·
NCRC Orientation to Cave Rescue (OCR) will be held at the Blacksburg Rescue Squad in Blacksburg, VA, Oct. 22-24,
2021. Cost $60.00. Must have proof of vaccination.
·
Pandemic Caving – let’s be healthy going
underground. Rules have been posted in
the DUMP.
·
Winter closure for bat caves in West Virginia begins
Sept.
1.
·
Winter cave closure for bat caves in Virginia begins Oct. 15. Please
respect all cave closures.
2021 CAVER CALENDAR:
·
Oct 15 – BRG
meeting, 6:30p, Jersey Lily’s-Salem.
·
Oct. 15-17 – Roanoke
GO FEST, downtown Roanoke, VA,
·
Oct. 22-24 - NCRC
Orientation to Cave Rescue (OCR), Blacksburg, WV.
·
Nov 13 – WVCC Banquet,
Lewisburg, WV.
cancelled
·
Nov 19 - BRG meeting, 6:30p. Jersey Lily’s- Salem. Elections.
·
Dec
4, 2021 - Virginia Cave Board meeting, @ James Madison University in
Harrisonburg VA.
·
Dec
12 – BRG Winter Party, 10a – 5p,
potluck, Dan & Marian’s house in Catawba.
·
NO BRG MEETING IN DECEMBER.
2022:
·
Jan 21 BRG
meeting
·
Feb
18 BRG meeting.
·
May
20-22, 2022 – Spring VAR/MAR, @ Grand Caverns (rescheduled)
·
June
13-17, 2022 – NSS Convention, Rapid City SD.
·
Jul
16- 21, 2022 – NEW! NCRC National Weeklong, which will be
held in Covington, VA.
Meeting adjourned 7:45p, followed by
Program: “Petra Project - Discovery of Large Cat Skeleton, Burja Cave, VA. ” by Dave Socky.
Elvis Left the Building 8:20p.
Cold Beer!
Minutes
Submitted by
Mary Sue Socky, Secretary