There is no doubt that the next year or two are going to be challenging times for the American caving scene. I think the Southern California Grotto is providing leadership on how to meet those challenges and find the opportunities while minimizing the potential for negative impact. Each area will face different challenges and addressing them needs to come from the local groups, not our national Board. What will work for Chattanooga or Washington, D.C. is not the answer for Los Angeles. And, what will work here are not the answers for McCloud. The SCG-EC has certainly not finished its work on the subject.....we are just beginning. Your input and help will be appreciated.

The Southern California Grotto Executive Committee and friends had a wonderfully productive discussion about the possible impacts of the upcoming IMAX® film and I would like to share some of our ideas. Perhaps other grottos will see wisdom in making similar plans. Four theaters (one is associated with an educational facility or museum and the others are Edwards theaters) will open the film as early as mid-March.

Action Plans Include:

1. Educate grotto members on the potential advantages and disadvantages of the coming publicity about cave resources.
2. Arrange to have a member of the grotto who works in Public Relations give a talk in March on how to appropriately deal with the press when, and if, they come to grotto meetings or call you. Some EC members advocated setting up a designated person, as done in a rescue situation, and asking everyone to direct all questions to that person. Others saw this plan as unpalatable to too many members who would like to talk with the press. Educating everyone on how to speak to the press seemed like the best solution.
3. Schedule appropriate neophyte trips (monthly?) to a cave that has already been heavily impacted. Schedule and encourage restoration and clean-up trips. Clearly designate the newbie trips in grotto publications. (In SCG, only grotto members can go on official grotto trips.)
4. Publish appropriate size limits for the newbie trips and strongly support the trip leaders in holding to those limits.
5. Publish and stick with a de-facto grotto policy that says new members must attend a newbie trip before attending any other trips. Exceptions, of course, may be made for NSS cavers moving in from out-of-state and such.
6. Get the flashy, adventurous grotto programs over in February and March before the IMAX® premiere. Starting in April, arrange more educational programs for grotto meetings covering science and conservation. Put the Lechuguilla slides in storage for awhile. The E.C. brain-stormed a list of outstanding speleologists (bat specialists, paleontologists, anthropologists) and such in the LA area as suggestions for the Program Chair to invite as presenters.
7. Three EC members volunteered to talk to each manager of the three Edwards-style theaters. They will give information on the grotto, show the managers the handouts we can provide on the NSS, karst and cave conservation, cave law, etc., and find out what the theater is interested/willing to do. We do not see it likely that setting up booths or displays at these types of theaters would be a successful strategy in the LA area. Our best strategy is to ask the managers what support they would like to have.
8. The EC is also talking with the museum folks about more proactive involvement, including possibly making a presentation to the museum members in conjunction with a viewing. One of their folks has already attended a grotto meeting.
9. The membership chair, Margie Nelson, and Carol Vesley are reviewing the available handouts and assessing our upcoming needs.
10. We ask members and particularly grotto leadership to evaluate how much energy they are personally comfortable with putting into new members, and to establishing their personal limits. Our previous experience in So Cal is that very few (probably <5%) of the people attracted to grottos as the result of mass publicity stay more than a couple of months. The caves are just too far away and the rewards (pretties, etc.) too limited to hold the attention of most folks attracted to a new thrill. Some folks can put hours into preparing newbies for trips, training sessions, taking them on trips, then watch them disappear without resentment. Some folks can feel good about educating someone and, maybe even, satisfied that the caving community didn't grow but the message did. That is a wonderful attitude and we encourage folks who can hold that attitude to be heavily involved in addressing the probable increase in new grotto members. However, many of us burn out quickly when new people seem to demand extraordinary amounts of time and appear to give nothing back before disappearing. If you fall into the latter catagory, we encourage you to pace your involvement in training.
11. Recognize that most the folks you are helping will just not come to feel about caving like you do. If your ego depends on turning folks onto caving and making them into productive grotto members, pick your activities carefully and pace yourself. Grottos have been ravaged by burned out, angry cavers who felt used and betrayed because too many new people passed through the grotto too fast and didn't acknowledge the cavers efforts (and feelings). Grotto members should find their level of comfortable involvement and others should not try to force them into doing more.
12. We will continue to schedule a five-minute novice demonstration, preferably hands-on (last year it was a different knot each month), right before the break at the general grotto meeting. We will continue to keep our business meeting on a separate night from the general meeting, thus not exposing new visitors to the politics of the grotto unless they come to the second (EC) meeting.
13. Update our website with the thought that there are probably going to be MANY more people visiting it, both potential members and the press, based mostly on their recent experiences with the IMAX® movie and related publicity. A committee was formed (headed by Scott Schmitz) to form a "mission statement" for the website.

The SCG-EC has certainly not finished its work on this Action Plan ... we are just beginning.
Your input and help will be appreciated.