North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, 4th floor, green conference room

The meeting began a little after 7:30pm, was led by Taylor T, and attended in person by Cat C, Mark D, Matthew B, Matthew W, Zeke VF, Jacob G, Christopher T, & Dennis V, and joined remotely by Stephan F, Peter H, Emily G, Piotr S, Alan O, Diana G, & Mike Y.

The introduction question asked everyone what their favorite cave passage is. The same location was mentioned by more than one person, and at least one place was from fiction.

Annual Elections

Grotto elections were held after being postponed in the January meeting, which was held virtually due to severe weather. The election took the place of a regular program for this meeting.

• Taylor Tibbs was re-elected Chair by unanimous consent.
• Matthew Brown was elected to the office of Vice Chair by unanimous consent.
• Zeke Van Fossen was elected Secretary by unanimous consent.
• Stephan Francke was re-elected as Treasurer by unanimous consent.
• Jacob Gonzalez & Matthew Weiss were jointly elected to the Webmaster position by a unanimous vote of the membership in attendance, against one or the other holding the office solely.

There was discussion about the nomination and election process, whether more than one person can be nominated and elected to an office, and how to vote for all possibilities in that event. There was also continuing discussion about amending the grotto by-laws to redefine the role of Webmaster (Editor) with regard to changes in technology and communication, and how any changes would need to involve the broad membership.

Upcoming

• Mark shared information about the scouting fair in Carthage on May 9-10, talked about what kind of cool stuff we could do, and asked who was interested, which included Matthew B, Taylor, and Alan.
• Christopher talked about an upcoming trip to Maxwell Cave and other locations on July 17-20.
• There is a trip to Low Moor to plan for graffiti clean-up, which will be followed by the actual clean-up in May.

Trip Reports

• Piotr talked about a trip to Worley’s Cave on 2/21, and Matthew B added some details. They spoke with a couple going into the cave at a late hour without helmets or sufficient gear, and they found it odd.
• Cat talked about exploring Hancock Cave on 2/21.
• Stephan and Peter were together in Yucatan exploring cenotes.
• Dennis talked about Hawaii Cave Week, and witnessing some significant volcanic activity.

The meeting ended around 9:30pm.