General Meeting Minutes (3/27/2007)

Howard Holgate presided over the meeting. Attendees included Mike Broome, Lisa Lorenzin, Matt Westlake, Matt Jenkins, Gordon Bolt, Melanie McCullough, Mark Little, Hillary Nickerson, Chris Richter, Dave Duguid, Dawson Duguid, Ken Walsh, John Plyler, and Hayden Holgate. To begin, Howard announced that tonight's program would be Caves of the World from the Planet Earth series, to be aired in April in the USA. Mark passed around a contact information sheet so that people could update outdated information.

Matt Jenkins described the cave trip that didn't go. First Douthat Campground was flooded, then the cabins weren't available, then they found a campground buried in three inches of snow. Linda Waters has threatened to reschedule her trip with the NCSU Outing Club, so everyone should beware of that weekend.

Matt J. and Gordon then described their trip to Hancock Cave. The group entered the cave, headed to the Octopus Room, and turned left to head to the Funnel Tunnel. There was little to no air space in the Funnel Tunnel, and Bob Alderson began digging out the stream while the teams relaid their plans. Ken had left the survey notes for that side of the cave back at Tanya's house, so the leads were less obvious.

Fortunately Matt, Gordon, and Bob found that ladder acrobatics weren't necessary to cross Not-in-the-Face Pit. They covered just sixty feet of survey in seven hours of a passage that Gordon thought they were smart to mark as just a lead eight years ago. The drop was miserable and not quite vertical. It led to a very muddy passage with dripping water.

The topic then turned to crossing You-Don't-Know-Jack Pit in Hancock Cave, and Matt and Gordon described the need to pound rebar stakes into the mud for the crossing. Matt and Mark reminisced about crossing the pit with an ice axe and a "for-comfort-only" belay.

Dave Duguid and Ken Walsh then described their descent down Hickory Dickory Pit in Hancock Cave as an annoying set of lips, and they descended about ten feet too far. Dave then stated that the Whine Cellar is an aptly named pit. He traveled up and down it until convinced himself that the crack at the bottom was the way to go. He slipped out of his vertical gear and descended the last ten feet in a ten-inch wide hole. He found that it connected to Linda Waters' fist lead.

Dave Duguid also talked about the survey trip to Rowland's Spring Cave. He, Tanya McLaughlin, and Ken Walsh surveyed the grand large entrance at the top of the cave. He mentioned that there were still a couple of leads left to survey, and it should take at least one or two more survey trips. When Lisa asked, he mentioned that the tight lead at the back is still there to be surveyed, but the low area at the top is surveyed.

Howard mentioned the article in Sunday's News and Observer and the Science Night presentation at Wiley Elementary School.

We then moved to introductions. The new folks have caving experience, Chris Richter from his middle school days and Hillary Nickerson recently in a lava tube at Mount Lassen. Dawson Duguid described what he saw in the caves as well.

Next month John Plyler will present slides from Mexico. After the break, we watched a well done film that exposes us to many cave creatures around the world that most of us have never seen.

Genl Meeting Minutes (2/27/2007)

(minutes recorded by Mike Broome and transcribed by Ken Walsh)

Sixteen TriTrogs attended the February meeting, welcoming new member Erin Amadon from Hanging Rock. She joins us from NNJG.

Mike Broome mentioned the updated web site. Many are impressed, but others lamented losing the bouncing bats. Mike will look into the possibility of a cookie that will allow users to turn on/off the bats.

In her final act as Treasurer, Lisa Lorenzin shared the Annual Treasurers Report. It took almost four hours to compile, partially spent finding the bank statements. The TriTrogs Treasury holds a balance of $2169.97 currently.

Lisa also shared details about the Fall VAR/MAR that the TriTrogs are co-sponsoring with Philly Grotto. The celebration of Philly Grotto's 60th anniversary will be held at the TRA site, and the TriTrogs are responsible for finding trip leaders. Philly Grotto requested that the TriTrogs man a security gate, but no one at the meeting felt that the TriTrogs could pull this off (and didn't know if a security gate was necessary). Lisa still needs to discuss whether the TriTrogs might receive a cut of the proceeds, but we would likely just earmark it for a charity.

Howard discussed the Wiley Elementary School's Science Night and the fact that he, Diana, and Ken will be manning a cave station there. He discussed the planned demonstration for March 15.

Some survey notes from Worley's Cave in Rich Valley, Virginia were returned to Ken last month, and this should allow continued exploration and mapping of this cave. Anyone interested in leading the novice cartography effort should contact Ken.

There was a prolonged discussion about the traditional TriTrog format of meetings and the executive board's role. We discussed the NSS requirements, low meeting turnout, the possibility of alternate social occasions, how to inform people about alternate meeting places, why it's good to have officers handle business, and our relationship with the museum. The consensus of members present at the meeting was that monthly meetings should be continued with the existing format and officers should start to define the executive committee roles differently in the electronic age. This will be handled by an interested group at a future date.

After a short break to pay dues, we discussed upcoming trips:

• Aqua Cave with Matt Jenkins on Mar. 17
• Rowland Springs Cave and Hancock Cave on Mar. 10 with Dave Duguid
• Spring VAR in Durbin, WV on April 27-29
• Girl Scout trip on July 15
• Fall VAR/MAR on Oct. 12-14
• Grand Caverns survey on Mar. 3
• Easter Restoration weekend at Grand Caverns April 7-8

Cave trip reports were then shared:

• Howard Holgate described his trip to Mystic, New Trout and Hamilton Caves with Ken, Hayden, Rick, Ericka, and Steve.
• Ken put off his discussion of Australian caves to the program.
• Pete Hertl and Mike Broome discussed trips to Organ and Grapevine Caves with Bob Handley.

Officer elections were held with the following slate winning by acclamation: Mark Little (Treasurer), John Plyler, Mike Broome (Editor), Howard Holgate, and Ken Walsh (Secretary).

Ken shared a program called Summer Caving in January, with cave slides from his trip to southeastern Australia and Tasmania.