KSS Meeting 4-17-19
Attendees: Howard Kalnitz, Sarah Arpin, Bruce Isaacs, Christopher Morris, Josh Brewer, John Cassidy, Amber Yuellig, Philip Francis, Barb Grahm, Ben Tobin, Sean Vanderhoff, Preston Foresythe
Announcements:
- Tennessee Cave Survey- attended by Sarah and Josh
- Convention State Survey Roundtable- will have good representation from most cave surveys presenting
- Cave diving rescue currently happening in Jackson, Tennessee, four out of five made it out, line broke
- Saturday 4/27 GRG will be volunteering at Lost River Cave for Earth Day, will be removing invasive plants and helping to restore native habitat
Reading of Previous Minutes- Amber Yuellig
- Unanimously Approved
Treasurer’s Report- John Cassidy
- Ending balance $14,315.76
- Investment Update- on hold till we here back from the IRS
- Tax Update- no response from IRS
Committee Reports
- Data Access Report- Sarah Arpin
- 5 requests
- MACA Request- Park Service wants information about the area of Fort Nelson for potential karst management. Ben Tobin provided dye trace information for the area and Howard provided cave locations (3) within and directly adjacent to the park as well as publications. Hopefully this will lead to more collaborative work in the future.
- Arlis Request- filmmaker may make a data request in future, looking for a silver mine
- Database Committee- Howard Kalnitz
- ESRI Contract Updated- contract renewed
- New Coordinator Requests- tabled for under new business
- Data Archives- Sarah Arpin
- March Caving on Paper- see announcements
- Emergency Response Committee- Mike Keltner
- See above about rescue in announcements
- Membership Committee- Shawn Vanderhoff
- There are three new members in March
- Grant Committee- Amber Yuellig
- Currently committee consists of Amber and Josh. Looking for additional members with diverse backgrounds.
- Annual Report- Josh Brewer
- Report in press
- Advisory Committee Setup (new) – Howard Kalnitz and Ben Tobin
- Still seeking members
- KSS Survey Expedition Weekends
- Estill County- Hosted by Barbara Grahm and Ben Tobin
- Pulaski County- Wells Cave August 2-4 (Yuellig)
- Ben would like to make working in California Cave (Estill Co.) a regular/ annual occurrence
- May want to schedule some survey around convention, possibly Wells Cave
- Working with Preston to reschedule his survey weekend
- Is planning some surveys May 11-12
Old Business
- Kentucky State Natural Preserves Agreement Update
- We sent an agreement, they sent a contract
- We are not signing (we don’t have lawyers)
- If they can’t do that then they will have to submit regular data requests
- Data bequest from Bill Walden
- Working to move data into our digital system
New Business
- Letter for Advisory Committee (Howard and Ben)
- Regional Coordinator Plan- looking for input
- All counties split up and coordinated by single Board/ Committee member
- Northeast- Tobin
- Southeast- Kalnitz
- Central- Arpin
- Northwest- Vanderhoff
- Southwest- Brewer
- County Coordinators exist- report to regional
- Not given data sets unless specifically allocated by regional coordinator
- Removed from dropbox access unless specifically allocated by regional coordinator
- Regional coordinators responsible for entering new cave data
- Until this is set up- not accepting any additional county coordinators
- Commentary
- We cant rely on our county coordinators to keep up with our technology + limited access to ESRI
- We should not take away access from vetted coordinators that currently have access to Dropbox, does not encourage them to become more active
- Regional coordinators could mentor new county coordinators until vetted and active in the KSS, not sure the parameters
Chris needs a membership list for the website from Josh.
We should consider putting the cave reporter app on the website.
Put grants on website.
