Appalachian Cave Conservancy

August 7, 2004

Meeting Minutes……………………………………………………………………

Call to order

ACC’s summer meeting was called to order at 10:00 a.m. in the Perkins Cave Preserve field house at Wilson Farm. Don Feathers, Bill James, Greg McCoy, Lauren Rexford, Joel Stephenson, Jason Lachniet, Gary Fielden, John Wilson and Terri Brown were in attendance.

I. Committee Reports

ACC Organization Standing

John Wilson circulated a reply letter from the IRS concerning our 501 C3 filing as a tax-exempt organization. The IRS staff reviewer requested more details about the ACC’s activities and procedures for finding and managing caves. Joel, John and Terri agreed to work on a response, which was due on August 24.

ACC Website

John is the Web Master of three other conservation and conservancy related websites that will all have direct or indirect links with ACC’s website and each other for maximum communication effectiveness. The ACC site already has a number of great photos and info about the organization at http://www.acave.us/.

NSS Cave Conservancies Committee

Participation was up at the annual Cave Conservancies Round Table held at the NSS Convention in Michigan. John reported that 28 known cave conservancies in the U.S currently manage more than 6000 acres of land. Meeting minutes and other fascinating facts can be viewed at the website: www.acave.org/nssccc. Rob Stitt manages the Conservancies Committee list serve, which everyone is encouraged to join (conservancy@wingedseed.com).

Education, Promotion and Advertising

After some discussion of logo ideas, it was discovered that Paul Gaskins had already worked up some nice designs. These were sent out over e-mail for everyone’s comment.

John proposed to solicit the donation of a nice photo from one of the preeminent cave photographers. With appropriate recognition, the image could be used on t-shirts and our brochure.

Terri made some changes to the draft brochure based on ACC Board comments. A new draft will be e-mailed for review a.s.a.p. Funding requests for printing the brochure will be sent to CCV and the NSS National Speleological Foundation will be sent by 1 September 2004. Since it is important to have a Southwest Virginia address on the brochure, we discussed the feasibility of getting a Post Office box in Abingdon or using Terri’s Weber City P.O. box.

Finance & Fundraising

It looks like ACC is in line to sell badge lanyards at the 2005 NSS Convention registration desk in Huntsville, AL. We’ll have to have enough folks to man the table at registration for the first 3 days of the convention.

Although Tanya had other commitments, she reported earlier that her dance group made about $300 at their recent one-night fundraiser at the Abingdon Pizza Inn.

The group discussed the possibility that grottos might donate to the Conservancy. Joel suggested that a form letter requesting $100 or $200 be drafted and sent out to groups that go caving in SWVA and NETN.

II. Old/Unfinished Business

The special management agreement for DB Cave, which will become our basic format for such contracts, underwent a 7^th revision. It keeps getting better each time. Don and Bill expressed the need to get the draft agreement to the landowner before he leaves SWVA for the winter. John expressed similar urgency and promised to have the revised version out for Board review very soon. Joel has provided excellent legal guidance but emphasized the need to have a Virginia attorney review the agreement as soon as possible. Terri volunteered to ask an acquaintance of hers review the next draft.

III. New Business

The following motions were passed:

1) ACC will apply for small grants (Terri);

2) ACC will investigate the up front costs of t-shirts and hats (Don);

3) ACC will sell lanyards at the 2005 NSS convention (John);

4) ACC will ask grottos for cash contributions;

5) ACC will develop an organizational membership program (based on Single [$15-$20], Family [$20-$25], and Organizational [$30] memberships);

6) ACC established a management committee for Daniel Boone Caverns. Bill James was appointed the committee chair.

7) ACC will establish a management committee for Perkins Cave;

8) ACC Board is authorized to do business via e-mail using the same quorum requirements (requires an amendment to the By-laws).

It was agreed to decide on a date for the next meeting via e-mail. The meeting adjourned at 12:30 p.m.

Adjournment

Meeting was adjourned at approximately 1:30 pm.

Perkins Cave Management Committee

Most of the crew stayed around to work on improving the muddy sections of the main route. A report of our progress is on the website.

Minutes submitted on Aug. 30, 2004 by Terri Brown, Secretary.