Ken Walsh, Emily Graham, Stephan Francke, Mike Broome, and Taylor Tibbs were in attendance.
Future Programs
We threw around ideas about programs we’d like to see this year. Among those were “Name That Room,” cave diving, Peter’s Mexico trip, Mike and Lisa’s PESH trip, survey or sketching practice, map reading and analysis, some sort of vertical program, post-processing photos, and nighttime orienteering. We agreed that a gear swap can wait until a future year to give people more time to accumulate stuff and in hopes of better attendance. Emily volunteered to give the February program.
Annual Grotto Trip
Officers briefly discussed desirable elements of an annual grotto trip: caves with really nice formations, destinations, or specific features; culvert entrances or cave gates; communal group camping.
2022 Donations
After some discussion, Mike proposed $100 to RASS and $100 to NSS Nature Preserves Fund. A donation to Proyecto Espeleológico Sistema Huautla (PESH) is under consideration for 2023.
Other Cave Trips
We named some specific caves that we’d like to visit this year, such as Buckeye Creek, Bone-Norman, Scott Hollow, Perkins, Buchanan Saltpeter, Butler, Lowmoor, Dead Air, Patton, etc.
Communications
Officers agree that Asana works sufficiently well for our needs.
Some discretion should be used when approving new Facebook members to the grotto Facebook group. Mike added Taylor as an admin. Under consideration: switching from public to private, reinstating questions for joining the group, pinning a post about how to join the grotto.
There was some discussion about making it easier for new people to post trip reports. We decided that cavers might email trip reports to the grotto or just to the webmaster. Then the webmaster can post the trip reports to the website.
Lastly, Taylor will add a note to the website that tells whom to contact for adding an upcoming trip to the calendar.
Meetings
At this time, no changes will be made to the general agenda structure.
We agreed that the grotto should continue to hold hybrid meetings when practical. Stephan is prepared to allot sufficient time for set-up before meetings. Mike volunteers to assist with advice and troubleshooting.
Officers discussed at length the masking protocols for meetings. Taylor will add wording to the website to point people to the hybrid information if they don’t feel well. For the time being, we continue to request masking for indoor meetings.
Other Topics
An updated, though not current, version of the constitution and bylaws has been discovered.
Officers agreed to document the process for transferring officer positions at the end/beginning of each term.