Saturday, July 4, 2015

General Meeting Minutes - June 23, 2015

Due to a sewage leak the museum moved this month's meeting to a room on the fourth floor. In attendance were Emily, Martin, Zeke, Carlin, Sarah, Mark D., and Ken.

Past Business
Carlin is building an electronic survey instrument. He has a pile of pieces. The next step is to construct a housing worthy of East Coast caves.

As of this meeting the new website was not yet in use. Carlin gave a quick tour of the new layout. It should be up and running soon.

The Annual Grotto Fun Trip: Carlin was hoping to have it near Perkins, in southwestern Virginia. Sarah pointed out that it would be nice to have a place with some basic amenities, particularly if there's going to be a feast or a large number of attendees. We settled on August 14-16.

New Business
Ken brought up the museum's annual BugFest. The date is September 19. The theme bug is the cicada. Peter might not be exhibiting this year due to some climbing thing.

Trip Reports
Beaver Creek survey trip: [Ken and Mark took turns reporting this in a deliberate and successful attempt to confuse me.] Ken, Mark, Dave, Matthew, and Michael went to Beaver Creek Cave. One team intended to survey some of the lower passages, but they spent much of the day stooping through upper-level maze. Matthew contributed by absorbing a puddle that the others would have had to crawl through. Elsewhere, Mark and Dave descended a hand line into some ankle-deep water. They decided that it probably floods fairly often so they took the opportunity and surveyed 350 feet, a lot of nice, long shots through walking passage with well-decorated walls. Ken [and some others] returned [either the next day or the previous day] and saw some pretty rimstone dams that are easy to access. While investigating water sounds Ken squoze into an area that he thought would be horrible to survey, but Dave was able to get a 45-foot shot through. There's a mud slope, no, a Slope of Mud, and water of unknown depth. It looks promising. Ken's team surveyed 300 feet and 200 feet.

Martin joined Baltimore Grotto at Grand Caverns. What he expected to be a dig turned out as a leisure trip instead, so it was fun.

Upcoming Trips
July 13-17 - NSS Convention
Aug 14-16 - Annual Grotto Trip
Sept 3-6 - Old Timers Reunion

Program
Carlin Kartchner gave a presentation on the interesting history of Kartchner Caverns.

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