Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 21:12:48 -0500 From: "David A. Riggs" Subject: 2007-02-28 WVUSG Meeting Minutes Minutes from the Feb. 28, 2007 meeting of the WVU Student Grotto. There were about 17 people present at tonight's meeting. Upcoming Events: 1. Brian Masney is leading a photo trip into Mystic Cave this Saturday, March 3. This is a chance to see a really beautiful cave, but be warned that we may be in cave for a long time and move slowly while taking lots of photos. Meet at 9:30am at Harper's store, located at the intersection in front of Seneca Rocks. 2. We will do another vertical practice at the Rec Center at 5:30pm, Wednesday, March 7 - before the next grotto meeting. 3. MARG's CPR and Wilderness First Aid classes will be Saturday, March 10. Spaces are limited, and the deadline to ensure that training materials will be there was yesterday, but you can still register for the classes. Please read the announcement [1] if interested, and contact Carl Werntz [2] to sign up. [1] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvusg/message/3199 [2] "Carl Werntz" 4. On Sunday, March 11, we will be hiking back into the Cheat Canyon to retrieve dye traps placed in the Druid Cave/NYDC System. Anyone is welcome to come hike the canyon to pull traps, do some ridge walking, check out some very interesting karst features. We will also need to do a short trip into Druid Cave, beginners and non-vert cavers can work above ground during that short trip. 5. Saturday, March 17th is Tucker County Survey. We'll be starting a survey of Bennett's Cave, which has been closed for many many years. This will be a good chance to learn how to cave survey, and to see a rarely-visited cave. We meet at 9am in Parsons, WV. Contact Doug McCarty [3] for more info. [3] "Doug McCarty" 6. The Nittany Grotto is probably still going caving this weekend, but it looks like nobody from WVU will be going with them. They will be camping at Yokums, near Seneca Rocks. Sorry, no other details available. 7. John Harman is still looking into a trip to Sinnitt-Thorn, tentatively on March 24, the weekend of Spring Break. Other Topics: 8. Kyle told us about a grant available from WVU Student Government (up to $500/year). We need to decide what we'd like to buy (eg. qty of helmets, qty of lamps, qty of vert gear, etc.), and have someone write a specific proposal. Perhaps we can find a speleo-vendor who would cut us a group discount... We are wasting a great opportunity by not taking advantage of this grant every year! 9. We decided to look into a pizza fundraiser / membership drive at the Engineering campus. I talked to Student Orgs today and picked up a concessions permit - according to them, we are not allowed to sell food on campus without a food handlers permit. I need to go back and ask some more questions about this. 10. Dave mentioned several week-long Karst Field Studies courses offered by Western Kentucky University at Mammoth Cave during the month of June. You can study under some of the biggest names in karst science in the biggest cave in the world. [4] http://caveandkarst.wku.edu/kfs.htm Trip Reports: 11. Brian and Dave talked about the Cheat Canyon dye tracing trip, and some fun in the snow. 12. John Harman and Josh Flaugher took a trip [4] into the MG Section of Bowden Cave. They took some nice photos [5] of this less-popular part of the cave. [5] http://wvunderground.net/reports/bowden2.html [6] http://wvunderground.net/albums/Bowden2 13. Kyle and Garth told us about a trip into My Cave and finding a serious amount of water inside. Being the wise cavers that they are, they aborted the trip rather than pushing through it. The meeting was adjourned at about 9pm and all convened on BW3. - DR -- David A. Riggs