From: "John Tudek" Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:16:38 -0400 Subject: [wvusg] Meeting minutes for 8-22-07 WVU Student Grotto, Meeting minute "stream of consciousness". Date: August 22, 2007 17 people were at the meeting. The meeting was called to order at 8:00 - Welcome Back everyone! We started with introductions and moved onto Brief Trip reports Katherine went to Mammoth Cave as part of the WKU / CRF summer courses. Dave Riggs helped find a bunch of Cheat Canyon discovering Gail showed up late. Gail went to Cass and worked as a tour guide at Laurel Caverns Kyle went with a bunch of people down to TAG. John Harman participated with six people in the Hellhole survey. Hellhole will unfortunately be shut down after this season as the contract has not been renewed. Rich Finley showed up even later. John Tudek went to Convention. Jessica went to Hawaii and found some Lava Tubes and did a little 'Cave Entrance' diving. Financial Report We have something between fifty and seventy bucks in the account. There'll be a better accounting next week (hopefully). This brings us to... Fund Raising Eveyone PAY your dues! :-) (as an aside we need to do a grotto inventory). Dr. Rauch showed up reallly late. Dues get us to use grotto gear, a grotto card which gives us discounts at some of the local outdoors stores ( i.e. Adventures' Edge), subscriptions to the WV Caver, and first call on upcoming trips and fun. We kicked around working a football game. Rich told us some encouraging stories about it which really got the interest flowing. The good news is that it'll probably net us a few hundred bucks. John Harman will look into it. Kyle will look into the student grant for equipment / expenses. Beginners Weekend Will almost assuredly be on September 15th and will be down to the Slaty fork area, with camping down near Elkins, if not closer. Excellent horizontal caving there. Tents can be rented from the rec cneter. The cost will be forthcoming, but should be in the neightborrhood of five bucks per person. OTR Is Labor Day weekend as usual, in the same place as usual. Non TRA members require sponsors, as always. WVU will be camping on the loud side. Selling the Grotto We need flyers and volunteers to help put the flyers up. Kyle will be handing out flyers on Sept 7th in the Mountianlair and looking for help. So come out and help get some new members! John Harman will make up some new flyers. Kyle will put ads into the DA, while John will put out an ad on MIX. We will also get a more permanent room for future meetings somewhere in Brooks Hall. Brian Masney has been volunteered to make a great, excellent, wonderful slide show no longer than fifteen minutes (ten if the meeting goes long). If you have great, excellent, wonderful photos that you want to show, email them to Brian at masneyb@gmail.com Selling the Grotto, Part II - the Outdoorering. Nathan at the Rec Center is putting together a cave class for credit! and has a couple of slots left open (class max size is 16). He may also be looking for experienced cavers to help lead the trip. Kelsea will be giving a presentation for the beginners in two weeks' time (September 5th) Kyle will also be leading a beginner trip on Sept 9th to Barton's Cave in Pa. This will be a great warm up for beginner's weekend. Upcoming Trips We have plans for lots of trips for the fall - among them being Elkhorn, Mystic, Sinnett-Thorn, Harper's pit, Fieldhouse, Butler (in Virginia), Cave Mountian, as well as the standard Trout, New Trout and Hamilton. There's also a Friar's Hole survey going on this fall. TSHIRTS will be avialiable at next week's meeting!!! meeting closed at 9:15 -- "Schist Happens" --ancient geology adage