Minutes from November 27, 2007 TriTrogs General Meeting

In the absence of Howard Holgate and John Plyler, Lisa Lorenzin volunteered to chair the meeting.  She began with introductions, and the following persons were in attendance at the meeting: Zoey Shepherd, Mark Little, Diana Gietl, Dave Duguid, Christine ___, Brett ___, Matt Westlake, Mike Broome, Lisa Lorenzin, Pete Hertl, Ken Walsh, Gordon Bolt, Theo Bolt, and Uncle Brian.

Lisa pointed interested cavers to the trip calendar at the web site.

Mark Little announced that the Holiday Party would be held at his home on December 8.  He and Howard will coordinate the food for the potluck supper that evening through the list server.

Lisa also mentioned the TriTrogs listserve as a good way to get information about upcoming activities; it has no archives and would be considered low traffic.  Mark and Mike then discussed the future of the TriTrog web services.  Because of the shutdown of the server for the photo gallery, we need more space than rtpnet will offer.  Mark has registered the tritrog.org as a web domain that links directly to the web site, and Mike is investigating the migration of the web site, list serve, and photo gallery to a single new server that should cost about the same amount that the existing web site is offering.

The TriTrogs offered $200 in door prizes for cave charities at the recent VAR/MAR, but only $50 has been claimed so far.

The officers agreed to leave the wear-and-tear fees for borrowing equipment from the grotto at their current levels.  The TriTrogs could use more equipment to borrow, so Howard is buying two new lights and a new headlamp.  John Plyler withdrew his request that the grotto purchase a rope.  The new web site will also advertise the equipment and the grotto library contents.

Howard Holgate is working to fill the slate of nominees for officers for next year.

Ken will share the NSS email about its new Conservation network across the listserve.

Ken mentioned the 15th International Congress of Speleology, to be held in Kerrville, Texas, is allowing grottoes to buy advertising space in the program.

In terms of Trip Reports, Gordon described his efforts during the final survey trip to Hancock Cave.  He said that Ken tried to make every blowing lead into new cave.  Ken and Gordon drew the extended profile while the another group of cavers managed to fall on their tailbones in a debacle trip.  Gordon’s wife didn’t like the Toilet Bowls and left the cave shortly after she entered.

Cutting back a few weeks earlier, Mark Little, Melanie McCullough, and Ken went through the Funnel Tunnel for a survey trip.  Ken has crawled it both forward and backward now, and Mark’s ass is getting bigger than it was when he first surveyed through the tunnel.  Diana made some observations about the shrinking nylon fibers in cave suits.

Dave Duguid went into Atwells Tunnnel to dive the sump.  It dropped 24 feet and pinched out into something small.  This effort ended that task in Atwells Tunnel.  Dave, Brian Williams, Tanya McLaughlin, and Dale Lofflin checked out some leads on the same property and found a 35 foot-long cave.

Dave also described a trip to Rowlands Spring Cave on Sunday he took with Brian Williams, Robbie Spiegel, and Ken Walsh.  We finished off the low leads out of the big room.  He still has one more pit to check out and some other leads.

Not many upcoming trips were announced for December, as per usual.  There was a Grand Caverns project weekend on December 1, and Dave may not lead another Rowlands Spring Cave trip until 2008.  Ken offered to lead a trip the weekend before New Years.

Lisa talked about Wide Mouth Cave and the possibility to explore some virgin cave there for small people.

After a short break, Mike Broome and Lisa Lorenzin shared pictures, videos and amusing anecdotes from their trip to rappel and ascend El Capitan (2650' drop) in Yosemite National Park in June as part of the Extreme Rappels 2007 expedition.