Wednesday, July 29, 2009

TriTrogs General Meeting Minutes 7/28/2009

Howard Holgate, Bryce Schoeder, Janell Lovelace, Mike Broome, Lisa Lorenzin, Hayden Holgate, Matt Westlake, Mark Little, Matt Spears, Mike Dooley, and Ken Walsh were in attendance. Howard ran the meeting quickly, so the minutes are short.

Mike announced the new web hosting and photo gallery is up on the new service and the old site at rtpnet is now redirecting.

Howard is still building the sign to place outside the museum.

The Region Record lists a proposal to save a population of the endangered Virginia Big-Eared Bats and is looking for donations. Mike Broome will contact Bob Hoke and establish a link on our site to notify members.

Bryce, Howard, Ken and Mark talked about the survey trip to Flat Ridge Cave and the Potato Bin. Good formations were found, but the caves don't appear to join. Spiders in the cave were delicious treats because the Sugar Grove Diner is closed while the town is without a water supply. Howard recommends not eating Mexican food before caving. We also found a 72-inch-diameter pipe that leads 100 feet into a cave entrance. The pipe protects the road above from the cave spring.

Old Timers Reunion (Labor Day weekend) will include entrance cleanup trips, and the Fall VAR wil be held in Middletown, Virginia on September 25-27. Many upcoming trips (Boone's Cave wrapup, Lover's Leap Cave survey, and Cribb Cave sport trip) did not have firm dates established, so we may need to do a member survey to get some dates set to coordinate. Ken shared notes about Lovers Leap and Mike about Cribb Cave, an easy dry maze with more than 8000 feet of passage.

After a short break, Bryce Schroeder shared an excellent program about his exploration in Lava Beds National Monument.