August 2021 Minutes
Sarah Arpin calls the meeting to order at 7:06 pm.
Christopher Morris, Sarah Arpin, John Cassidy, Bob Roth, Preston Forsythe, Howard Kalnitz, Jeff Hamilton, Kevin Zachary, Barry Adams, Chris Redmon & Pat Kambesis were all in attendance.
Minutes taken by Christopher Morris.
Announcements:
- We passed the bylaws!
Approval of the Previous Meetings (Sarah Arpin)
- Preston motioned to pass them, Bob seconded.
- Minutes passed
Treasurer’s Report (John Cassidy)
- $17,851.47 as a starting balance
- $590 in search fees
- $208.48 from membership
- -$500 for the grant
- $0.15 worth of interest
- $18,150.03 as an ending balance
- Howard asked if we have any firms that are not paying us.
- John has one that is falling behind.
- He will give us an update next month and see where they are at.
- They have paid some of their invoices but not all of them.
Data Committee (Howard Kalnitz)
- We are up to date with requests as of this morning.
- We have had 8 requests since the beginning of July.
- We are averaging 5-7 requests per month.
- We have had a decent amount of caver or land owner requests.
- In the last few months we have had 2 requests that we have forwarded to KGS due to the legal issue.
- We don’t want anyone in our organization to have to show up to court.
- These have been landowners requesting them.
- Preston told a story about one in Western Kentucky that he helped with years ago.
- FileMaker is up and running.
- Between Howard and Kevin they have got a lot of it updated.
- The spreadsheet has been updated in the FileMaker database.
- The rock layers and elevations are not in there yet though.
- They will be brought in on the next update.
- Howard sent out an updated GIS database to the data committee.
- This is for doing data requests.
- All the caves out of state have been taken out and corrected.
- We should be using this new database that Howard sent out.
- Kevin asked if all the old layers could be removed from ArcGIS Online.
- Howard said he has started on this, but it is labor intensive.
- Preston asked about the extra caves for some counties that WKSS does not have.
- Howard explained where all our data came from.
- Sperka, then Randy and Lee, then Howard.
- In most cases you can see where the data came from to be able to figure it all out.
- Howard shared the old and new database via GIS and explained the differences.
- Discussion ensued about checking the old data and the role of local grottos in this effort.
Emergency Response (Mike Keltner)
- Not present, no report
Membership Committee (Notes from Sheila Minor)
- KSS Membership Notes on 11 August 2021
- Attendees: Bob Roth, John Cassidy & Sheila Minor
- Member Total: 81 Life 59 Regular 22
- J Cassidy to clean up list before next mtg
- Reach out to those who have moved to get their addresses
- Bob to talk to members @ large regarding mass emailing without seeing others names
- Better communication with members
- Post on FB to increase participation
- Does anybody know of survey & project ideas?
- NSS Presentations: Need people to do 1\2 - 1 hour presentations. Anything related to caving.
- Next Membership Mtg: Wed, Sept 8 @ 8P, est
- Later date: look @ organizational membership & discuss cost of Annual (paper, envelopes, stamps, etc,)
- Bob noted that Sean and Sheila are looking at co-chairing the committee.
Annual Meeting (Bob Roth)
- Bob talked with Pat about hosting at Hamilton Valley.
- We need to set a budget.
- Bob noted that in the past there had been awards.
- Bob said if we want that again, someone needs to take ownership of this.
- Bob talked about the lineup for the weekend.
- We are looking for a nerd hole for Saturday to survey and produce a map.
- Bob is looking at the presentations to be 30 minutes long.
- He has 5 commitments to participate.
- We need to look at the CDC Guidelines on the day of the event.
- Bob is looking at getting videos from some people as backups.
- Preston is recording one with Bob this coming weekend since Preston & Shari will be in the Galapagos.
- Preston said there are some nice small caves on the property at Hamilton Valley.
- Dogwood Cav, Adwell Cave and another.
- Discussion ensued about mapping or bio inventory of a cave instead.
- There is a vertical cave real close by that needs to be mapped that Pat mentioned.
- Pat will come up with the ideas for caving.
- Pat asked about the food payment.
- Howard said in the past we were in the $200-400 range.
- Pat said it would be $20 a person.
- Howard motioned that $400 be budgeted. Christopher seconded.
- Pat thinks that would cover up to 25 people.
- Sarah noted that is about how many we have had in the past for an annual meeting.
- Sarah also mentioned that we need to have an RSVP.
- All are in favor.
- Christopher will work on an RSVP on the website for the annual meeting.
- Sarah asked about paying to stay at Hamilton Valley.
- Bob noted that it will be paid individually, not by KSS.
- Bob and John talked about having a PayPal button on the website.
- Sarah said we need to eliminate us as a middle man and they just pay Pat themselves.
- All were in agreement.
- Bob talked about the presentations.
- Bob has 5 signed up for 8 slots on Sunday and 2 for Saturday night.
- Need 10 minimum.
- Sarah asked if we can put together a shared Google Doc for the schedule and who is confirmed for presenting.
- So we can stay up to date with what is going on.
- Sarah has suggestions that she will email Bob.
- Rachel Bosch, Martina Hines, etc. are suggestions.
- There are 3 main time slots.
- Saturday night, Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon.
- If someone can not attend, we can still have them present via a 30 minute video.
- Bob’s goal is to video all the presentations and document them and archive them.
- Bob asked if there was anything that he missed that he should be covering for an Annual Meeting.
- Howard noted people could have posters or maps to hang, especially if they can not come.
- A lot of academics present their research with posters.
- Bob noted he really liked that idea.
- Pat noted to put this in the announcement.
- Bob, Christopher & Pat will get together for the next announcement and get everything on it.
- Sarah noted the grant recipient could be someone to reach out to about a presentation.
- Pat asked about a projector.
- She will get it for us.
- Sarah noted that the KSS has a projector.
Annual Report (Christopher Morris)
- Not ready yet. Christopher has been busy and slacking.
Old Business
- Bylaws Revisions passed.
- They have been updated on the website.
- Code of Ethics/Conduct
- No update at this time.
- KSS Grants
- Howard & Sarah have talked about this and will work on updating it.
- We need to update our grant details.
- Cleveland Grotto, NRMG good examples/templates.
- Sarah would like to tackle this before the Annual Meeting.
New Business
- International Year of Karst
- Thoughts or ideas?
- Other ideas/goals?
- Look at our vision and mission statement and decide what we are lacking in and what could we do better at going forward.
Bob motioned to adjourn at 8:19 pm and Kevin seconded.