Minutes from the October 28, 2007 Meeting

Wayne Co., KY

Kentucky Speleological Survey Meeting Minutes

Oct. 28, 2007

 

The meeting was called to order at 10 am by the president, Preston Forsythe. Ten cavers were present. The agenda was distributed. Preston announced that neither he nor Brent Ray will run for office at the January elections. It is time for new blood, so to speak.

 

VP Report: Brent Ray was not able to attend.

 

Treasury Report: Jim Currens distributed a detailed treasury report. Bill Walden still needs to be re-imbursed for the Windows XP purchase. Barry Nichols of the KY Transportation Dept. is a new life member of the KSS. Applicant requirements, especially for non-cavers, were discussed. It was agreed we need to co-operate with the KY cabinet. Kami McDonald of Owensboro is also a new member. We have 18 individual members and 9 organizational members.

 

Data Access: Barry Nichols has submitted a valid request which will be forwarded soon. Barry may have some new cave locations. UK researchers are studying isotopes in caves and need some broken cave formations. Randy Paylor has talked with the researchers and the KSS will help by naming some sacrificial caves with many broken formations near the Ohio River .

 

Data Base: Randy Paylor reported three new data submissions and two were new locations. We discussed how cave data is lost and what we need to do to get cave data out of caver basements and into the KSS files. Progress is being made. We were pleased Duke Hopper was present and Duke discussed archeological caves and caves with graves. We need to work with Dr. George Crothers and the KY Dept. of Archeology. We need to write up a MOU for working with state groups especially the KY Nature Preserve and others.

 

Tax Status: We are waiting on a reply from the IRS.

 

Randy Paylor and Jim Greer, along with Steve Gentry will continue to work on starting to copy the extensive cave data files of Angelo George. We hope progress on this often talked about matter can be made this winter.

 

On Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007 we will begin inventorying the Jim Quinlan and Don Coons cave data that is in the UK Library. Time: 10 am. On Nov. 11, we will work on the KSS cave files at the Mines and Mineral Building .

 

 Richard Hand via an email said Horton Hobbs will be furnishing the KSS with his Carter Cave material in a few years.

 

Both Don Conover and Anita Spears are having health issues and we wish them a fast and full recovery.

 

We would like to thank Don for the excellent job he did with the KSS brochures which were first distributed at the 2007 Indiana NSS convention. We would like to thank Randy for his informative, artful, and colorful KSS Newsletter. Also, thanks to Randy for setting up the KSS table and display at the Indiana convention.

 

Savage Cave and Watts Cave in western KY were discussed. These are both candidates for extra preservation and some group such as SCCI, it seems to Preston , should get involved.

 

Ron Fulcher of Dayton Underground Grotto, via an email, asked about a special rate for organizational members. It is $125 for 3 years. The WKSS will renew that amount on Nov. 10^th.

 

The nominations for the January meeting election were opened.

Candidates at this time are Bill Walden for president, Randy Paylor for vp, Jim Currens for treasurer, and Jim Greer for secretary. Members at large candidates are Don Conover and Jim Greer. John Cassidy hopes to be more involved in the future.  

 

Ana Greer suggested that the KSS consider a public relations position. John Cassidy said we need to work harder on providing information other than via the website. Kevin Toepke has been doing an outstanding job with the website and keeping it updated. Kevin recently moved to Oakridge, TN. Organizational members need to be individually informed on what is going on.

 

Randy said he is working on another newsletter and is considering making it an annual newsletter available  in pdf form.

 

Open Floor: Bill Walden had a request from Matt Niemiller for help with a cave fish study in Breckinridge, Hardin, and Meade counties. We can contribute. Matt is a PhD student at the University of Tennessee . Jim Greer asked for copies of previous newsletters. Duke Hopper said he had been watching from a distance and wants to officially join. Randy gave a demonstration of a new data base program on our new laptop. All present agreed we should buy the program.

 

Meeting adjourned at noon.