June 23, 2009 General Meeting Minutes

John Plyler invited everyone to a hike down to Crabtree Creek after the meeting.

Vice Chair Howard Holgate began the meeting with introductions: Howard Holgate, Hayden Holgate, Ken Walsh, Giselle Lõpez, Sam Garvey, Bryce Schroeder, John Plyler, Melanie McCullough, and Mark Daughtridge were all in attendance.

Howard announced that the sign for outside the museum would likely be constructed in July, but the labor negotiations seem to still be underway.

Ken shared Mike Broome's announcements about the web transition. They included the switch to Tiger Technologies, the move of the list serve, the reposting of the Photo Gallery (hooray), and the Facebook page (try http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=123950503288&ref=mf).

Before the trip reports, we recapped that Hancock Cave is closed due to the likely sighting of WNS there. Mark D. encouraged new attendees to send money for research and learn more.

Ken shared a long trip report about his survey trip to Worley’s Cave with Dave Duguid and Tanya McLaughlin. The highlights include very thin layers of separation between the diagonal layers, a long easy dig, a climb up the waterfall, bootsucking mud, and stubbon horses. Speaking of stubborn, Dave Duguid turned a 2-foot-deep cave into a fifteen-foot tube through sheer determination.

Mark Daughtridge waited until after the presentation to share a trip report about his trip to Seneca and Stratosphere Caverns. [ed: Because he was using this computer to show photos, I don't have any notes about this]

Howard also mentioned the upcoming cave trips:
--Boones Cave on June 28 with Dave Duguid
--Ken suggested that the Hancock Cave surface cleanup trip be postponed due to the WNS issue
--Karst-o-Rama will be held in Kentucky this weekend
--NSS convention held in July
--Ken may try to organize a sport trip for July 18, and Bryce and Howard expressed interest in going along.

John Plyler mentioned that his proposed trip to Lechuguilla Cave was cancelled before it began because the National Park turned down his application for a service project.

After the break, Bryce Schroeder shared his slides from a trip to the caves in the Marble Mountains in California.