Conservancy Roundtable and Work Session

July 7, 2005

Huntsville, AL

 

John Wilson opened the meeting by reminding all conservancies to check their information on the Conservancies webpage (linked from caves.org) There will be tables with all conservancy data as one resource, so it should be updated often.

 

Agenda items:

 

I.                     Insurance

A.     Rane Curl followed with the Land Trust Alliance in regards to the insurance issue. Group insurance through Chubb with Franey, Muah & Allient Agency. Some land trusts have been turned down, not just cave conservancies.

B.     Rane sent around questionnaire to conservancies. Received 21 replies out of 26 sent. Many conservancies had invalid email addresses.

C.    Discussion

·        Be careful what you divulge on your website. Insurance agencies and companies will use it for underwriting purposes.

·        How is the NSS insuring their properties? Can we use whatever they use?

·        Problem with getting cave conservancies included in the LTA policy?

·        Who have conservancies who haven't gotten insurance through the LTA been able to? Is there an impact to those that do?

·        Land conservancies are not big enough for most companies to even consider -- premium made doesn't cover policy expenses

·        Rane will email an update from Ted Kayes on whether or not conservancies can join the NSS policy.

 

II.                   Rane sent around email sheet to get valid email addresses for conservancies.

 

III.                  John Wilson explained the list serve and how it works.

 

IV.               Other discussion

·        How do the NSS and conservancies work together on MOU"s or agreements with National Forests? Do they get local grottoes, etc involved? No one knew for sure, but suggested to check the President's report of the Board of Governors meetings.

·        Texas Cave Management Association wondered how other conservancies kept membership databases -- how to track members and donors, secure it on the web? Someone offered that they used single office function to control access to sensitive info - some donors or members don't want their addresses published.

 

Meeting was adjourned at 11:53 am.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Jean DeVries