Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 22:57:10 -0400 From: "David A. Riggs" Subject: 2007-04-25 WVUSG Meeting Minutes Minutes from the 25 April, 2007 meeting of the WVU Student Grotto. Only 8 people were in attendance for officer voting this evening, what a sad showing. 1. This weekend is Spring VAR in Durbin, WV, hosted by the Front Royal Grotto [1]. The WVU Student Grotto is celebrating our 30th birthday at 7pm on Saturday evening, please come join us! [1] http://www.varegion.org/frontroyal/var.html 2. The weekend after finals we will be doing some camping/caving/relaxing. It was proposed that we camp at Ben Mirable's Monroe County Ranch and do some southern WV caving. 3. Kyle says that there will be a memorial service/party in honor of Ron Simmons on June 2, at the Butler Cave Conservancy in VA. 4. New grotto officers were elected for 2007-2008. The new officers are: Chairman: John Harman Vice-Chair: Kyle McMillan Secretary: John Tudek Treasurer: Jessica Morning Congratulations to all! 5. Trip Reports: - Brian Masney, Rich Finley, Jason Thomas, Josh Flaugher, and Dave Riggs of the WVUSG joined dozens of other cavers in responding to the cave rescue callout early Monday morning at Simmons-Mingo cave. A group of 5 PA cavers were rescued after 48 hours underground attempting a through trip. They were rescued quickly once the NCRC was on the scene - four of them walked out on their own, three had mild hypothermia, one had more advanced hypothermia and was hauled out in a litter and flown to the Charleston hospital (all are fine). - John Harman, Josh Flaugher, Brian Masney, and Dave Riggs surveyed in Bennett Cave this weekend for the Tucker County survey. They scaled a waterfall and got soaked, so they decided to survey some dry passage until they can return with wetsuits. Several hundred more feet were surveyed in the cave by two teams this weekend. They also checked out a small virgin cave on the property, and did a surface survey outside of Bennett. - Kyle McMillan took a trip into Bowden Cave and ran into a group from Rich Finley's church (Morgantown) in the cave, as well as someone that he'd caved with in Butler Cave. Due to the "dead week" crunch, there was no after meeting! We will be meeting next week, John Chenger is scheduled to give a presentation on bats - it should be excellent! - DR -- David A. Riggs