ACC Meeting Minutes

July 14, 2007

The ACC Board met at the Perkins Cave Preserve field house. The meeting was attended by John Rossi, Jason Lachniet, Will Clark, TM, Bill James, John Wilson, Joel Stevenson, John Matthews, Don Feathers, Gary Fielden, Tony McGee, and Robbie Spiegel.

John Wilson called the meeting to order at 10:20am.

Joel moved and Tony seconded a motion to dispense with the reading of the minutes of the last meeting. There was no discussion and the motion passed with no dissent.

Tony moved and Joel seconded a motion to approve the minutes of the last meeting as published at the conservancy website. There was no discussion and the motion passed with no dissent.

John asked for a count of people who are going to the NSS convention and willing to represent the ACC. Gary said he might go and would rep for ACC if he did. John said he would be flying there on business and would have no space to carry luggage. TM volunteered to take the tee-shirts package there. John said he would represent ACC if no one else showed up to do it.

Cave Management Committee Report

Bill said he was contacted by the lady who owns Baileys Cave in Dryden. She hinted that the cave’s pit entrance could use a fence around it. There have been several animal rescues there. Currently she relies on dense brush growth to shield the pit entrance. Tony mentioned that Gary had a lot of recent experience in putting up fence. Gary asked what kind of fence was desired; he doesn’t do chain-link. Bill said that would have to be determined. He plans a trip there in the coming weeks.

John asked Tony for a progress report on the cave sign project. Tony said he had located some good aluminum framing material and ordered a sample of it at his own expense.

John talked about a conversancy strategy used successfully by the Texas Cave Conservancy. In Texas, developers are required to reserve pieces of property as undeveloped set-asides. Organizations may earn fees from managing set-asides. Under Mike Walsh, the TCC used this management approach and grew rapidly from a very small base. Joel remarked that this strategy worked well for 15 years. In response to questions, John said that we do have set-aside programs in this part of the country. Joel commented that Walsh approaches developers with a low key approach, suggesting that conservancy management is a good way to reduce liability.

Tony asked Robbie about the cave in Bristol’s Sugar Hollow Park, which Robbie had looked at the day before. This cave was brought to John’s attention by a lady who contacted him after finding the ACC website. Tony suggested that managing a cave for a city would enhance the ACC’s reputation.

John said that the website got hits from 40 countries in a one month period. It is now the most popular link from the NSS website. The high traffic is also attracting spammers, who spoof the site’s email address as the return address on their spam.

Gilley Cave – Robbie said that Wil Orndorff had offered to try to find out what the situation is concerning the offer of Gilley by its owner to the University of Virginia at Wise. Wil had failed to find anyone at the school who knows anything but said he would contact the owner directly.

Treasury Committee

TM reported that our current balance is $1833. 25:

Starting Balance: $1856.27

Income, dues: 560.00 2416.27

Mailing expense: 94.26 2322.01

Tee-shirts, cost: 447.00 1875.01

Tee shirt postage: 41.76 1833.25

Bill suggested that we give cave owners on the ACC list free tee-shirts. Gary suggested that we give them the older edition to keep our stock fresh. John asked Bill to make a motion; he did, Tony seconded it, there was no further discussion and the motion carried with no dissent. John suggested giving owners their choice of tee-shirt. Tony suggested putting the owner’s name on the shirt. Don said that he could probably do it by silk screen. John Matthews said it would be easier to add the name by making an iron-on with a computer printer.

Old and Unfinished Business

John asked for new developments on the SERA/ VAR plans. Don said that Mountain Empire Grotto voted unanimously to partner with ACC in hosting the SERA/ VAR in accord with the proposal approved at the May 5 ACC meeting whereby ACC would officially host the SERA/ VAR and MEG would manage it, in the expectation that ACC’s tax exempt status would be beneficial. Don asked Joel for his opinion on the advantages of tax exemption. Joel said to contact the NSS convention committee for their recommendation. Don said that he already had a lot of information from SERA. Don said that all (caving) convention organizations had adopted the liability release form as an alternative to buying liability insurance.

John reminded us of the planned guided SERA/ VAR trips to Perkins. Don said that we need to come up with a cave trip list. Tony asked Don if he had contacted Milton Starnes of Daniel Boone Caverns for permission to use that cave as a convention destination. Don said that Milton would be OK with that, with the proviso that the trip be a guided trip. Don also said that the Brickeys had essentially given Don and Bill carte blanche to do with the Brickey caves as they wished. Don said the attendance at the recent SERA was 741.

Joel said we need a signed, “arms-length” agreement with the campground owner to guarantee a firm date for SERA/ VAR. There was some discussion about the IHRA schedule (they refuse to divulge the schedule until this fall), the campground owner’s desire to separate events by two weeks, and Don’s point that we may have to help the owner clean up the debris if the previous event is only one week prior to the SERA/ VAR, as seems likely.

John pointed out that we would need trip leaders from neighboring grottos, since most MEG members will be tied up at the campground. Don agreed, saying that he would be in contact with Mike Crocket of Pine Mountain and Joel McCrea of Flittermouse as possible trip leaders, for example.

New Business

John said there were two vacancies on the board and asked Will Clark and John Matthews whether they were interested in serving. They indicated yes. Tony moved to nominate them for board membership. Joel suggested modifying the motion to include the proviso that the Will and John give their contact information to the secretary. Tony accepted the modification and the motion carried.

John reported that he hoped he would soon sell his Goochland property. His Hawaii home, which will have space for visiting cavers, will be completed in three to four months. He plans to eventually sell his Richmond home and build a new structure at the Perkins farm.

The ACC Board meeting adjourned at 1104.

Perkins Cave Management Committee Meeting

John asked Jason to report on mapping. Jason said that he had gotten Paul’s notes but had not mapped them yet. He still needs the latest notes from the trips at the last meeting.

John said that he had paid for a group license for the Compass cave mapping program so that anyone working on the Perkins map project could use Compass.

John said that he and Terri connected the Poplar entrance survey to the main survey at the last meeting. He said that the Poplar entrance is very close to several passages, and is not on the periphery of the cave, as commonly thought.

Tony said that the gate improvement project should be completed at the next meeting. Gary said that he and Tony could use some help loading the equipment on the night before the next meeting. Helpers will earn the hospitality of the Fielden farm.

Activities today: John offered to lead a trip past the 200-foot crawl to orient surveyors in that part of the cave. Bill, Robbie, Don, Will, and John Rossi decided to go.

The meeting adjourned at 11:30am.

Minutes submitted by Robbie Spiegel.