Attachment D

National Speleological Society
Operations Vice President’s Report

May 24, 2002

Table of Contents:

Operations Vice President Report
Archivist Report
Audio-Visual Committee (Slides) Report
Audio-Visual Committee (Video) Report
Cave Files Committee Report
Headquarters Facilities Committee Report
Internal Organizations Committee Report
Information Technology Committee Report
Office Automation Division (IT Committee) Report
Market Analysis Committee Report
NSS Library Committee Report
NSS Operations Manager Report
Photo Archives Committee Report
Speleo-Museum Committee Report

Operations Vice President Report:

Scott Fee
2501 Gable Blvd
Birmingham, AL 35215

205 854-7487
scottfee@pipeline.com

The Department of the Operations Vice President consists of 11 committees, plus the NSS Operations Manager and the NSS headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama. In this report, I provide the name, address, phone number, and e-mail address of the chairman of each committee or organization, followed by their report. The committee and sub-committee chairmen have provided the information in this report, although I’ve made some spelling, formatting, and minor editorial adjustments.

Plans:
I expect to provide a smooth transition for the newly elected OVP. At present, we are running peacefully with a forecast of "bright and sunny skies ahead."

Progress:
At the March NSS Board Meeting, it was indicated that the NSS Library had submitted caving material (books) regarding Afghanistan to the military. While we did in fact provide numerous individuals copies or faxes of the material we possess, at no time did a book leave the NSS Library.

Stephanie completed the hiring process and we are pleased to announce that Pati Miller is our newest part-time (20 hours per week) employee. Pati replaces Mark Ruocco who previously held the position.

Brochures: The new "Lava Tube" brochure was designed and printed. "Fragile Underground," our most frequently requested conservation brochure, was redesigned and printed in color thanks to members Michael Dale and Cheryl Jones. The NSS Membership brochure was slightly changed by replacing the 60^th Anniversary with a photograph. All of these are available at no charge from the NSS Office (nss@caves.org).

Thanks to Greg Passmore (Web Page), Bill Torode (Librarian), and Jim Hall & Terry Ragon (Photographers), the NSS On-Line Book Auction continues to be a success. As of May 25^th, we had placed about 70 books on line. We have bids totaling $3,000.

We now (May 23, 2002) have 163 General Members (an increase from 52 that I reported in February).

NSS Online Bookstore Revamping Project:

Once our subcontractor fell though, Will Marsh (willmarsh3@att.net) stepped up to tackle this project, What follows is his summary:

I have the start of a "newsite.html" developed, showing how it will look approximately. The big thing is I noticed that php was enabled on the server. I plan to use php in the website if that is OK with the server administrator.

How it will work is as follows:
1) NSS staff will edit a booklist.txt file to add/update/delete entries from the catalog.
2) When the file is saved or a marker file is created, the next time the website is hit, the php code will check the marker flag and generate new HTML files from the catalog file.
3) Subsequent hits will check this marker flag then go directly to the HTML and display it. This way avoids the inefficiency of reading the entire catalog and keeps the amount of php execution per hit reasonably low.

Point the browser at phplist.php and it will show the contents of booklist.txt on the screen. Next, I will modify this code to generate HTML code for proper formatting. The front screen will get unique occurrences of the category from the booklist.txt to display as access URLs in the blue boxes on the lower left. Also I am thinking of modifying the booklist.txt to have multiple lines per book entry instead of one long line so that it is easier to edit.

Some new features to add:
1) Hit counter so we have an idea how many folks are visiting.
2) Improved screen consistency and more professional appearance including better display of payment options.
3) "one stop" editing of a catalog file by NSS staff or who ever normally edits the HTML to add new books. This will involve adding/changing one entry, and possibly adding some image files to support the entry - making updates very easy and quick.

The new website will hook into the existing shopping cart service you are presently using.
So you ask, will this catalog file be scanned for every website hit? No because the code will check a marker file or the time stamp on the booklist.txt to see if it has been modified. If so then new HTML code will be generated from a template plus the booklist.txt and written to files. If not, then the existing HTML will be accessed.

If this is a security problem, which it could be, then there is a command line option (in some versions of php) to run a php program from a Telnet session to generate the HTML code.

Barring that then I can generate a UNIX shell script to write the HTML files from a template. So far, I have not encountered any significant problems.

Problems:
With the growth of the General Membership category, it has become apparent that we need to fully integrate the numerous membership processes into the master database program. (Check with Phil, this may be done. If so, move to progress.)

President Elect Activities:

In addition to the monthly meeting of the Birmingham Grotto and numerous monthly caving trips, I attended the annual meeting of the Alabama Cave Survey.

Archivist:

J. Reynolds Duncan, Jr.
153 Atria Drive
Toney, AL 35773-9515

256 852-4522
jrdandlld@aol.com

Plans:
Now that the cataloging of the Archives material in boxes has been completed, the next step is to get all of the material into filing cabinets in some organized manner. This material will need to be to integrated, in some fashion, with the material that is already filed and cataloged.

Progress:
Responded to several requests for information. All of the material at the Archives has been cataloged, at least to some level that would facilitate location and retrieval.

Problems:
None.

Audio-Visual Committee (Slides):

Colin Gatland
1151 Crestwood Hills Drive
Vandalia, OH 45377-2714

937 890-0339
cgatland@core.com

Progress:
I am currently working on creating the "Best of" slide salon show for 2002 and also the "Best of" Photo CD's. These will be distributed the Friday of convention.

Avis indicated to me that she now has some time to archive the various slide shows that have been taken out of circulation. These shows are pulled from the catalog for various reasons such as lack of interest by the general membership and if they become outdated or contain information that is no longer correct. However these shows are still important to the society as a historical reference and should be kept in our archives. Avis will be taking the slides from the trays and placing them in archival plastic slide pages. These pages will protect the images for many years to come. The slide shows and scripts can be kept in 3 ring binders and stored. This will also free up some extra slide trays for other slide shows coming into use.

Plans:
Hopefully the addition of a "Digital" Multi Image Category, to be announced by me at convention will enable those that could not enter a multi image slide show in the past to do so now. This would theoretically start the flow of digital slide shows into the AV Library. Most people now have access to a computer and could benefit from viewing caving related slide shows on a CD-ROM.

Problems:
The only problem I found out about was that Barbara Moss mailed me a slide program on Project Underground, many months ago and it apparently did not make it to me. We spoke about it via e-mail a couple of weeks prior to the Spring Board meeting and talked again at the Board meeting. I am hoping she can get me another copy of it, then I can get it duped and sent to Avis.

As a final note, I would like to thank Mike Hood for his two plus years as NSS President and wish Scott Fee good luck as our new President. It has been great working with you in your OVP capacity Scott, carry on the good work for the society.

Audio-Visual Committee (Video):

David Socky
6572 Woodbrook Drive SW
Roanoke, VA 24018-5402

703 989-7693
sockydr@cox.com

Plans:
Online AV catalog
I’ve done some additional work the new online AV catalog. There are still a few clean up tasks that need to be done, plus I need to get the slide catalog updated. Once everything is cleaned up and fixed, I will make it the main AV Library web page, hopefully sometime after the convention.

Finish the stuff in the ‘Progress’ section
This should be self-explanatory.

Vertical Techniques Video
With some prompting by Bruce Smith, I agreed to produce and edit a video on the subject of vertical caving, if Bruce (and anyone else) developed the story line, script, and narration. I am sure more planning will take place during the convention.

Progress:
Video about Floyd Collins
The video is completed, with a runtime of 40 minutes.

A video about collecting memorabilia about Floyd Collins based on 16-mm newsreel clips from the 20’s from Bill Halliday. The video should be about 10 to 15 minutes will be an NSS production, to be used in the AV Library and sold through the NSS bookstore. During the 2000 NSS Convention, I interviewed Bill Halliday, Gordon Smith, and John Benton for this video project. Gordon has not been able to get the photos to me, so after the convention (2001), I will write the script and then edit the video.

Purchase of a new Video/Computer Projector
The projector was purchased and will be used for the NSS Photo Salon in Maine. The projector is a Sharp XG-C40XU, a professional model, with a light output of 2000 lumens.

Rental feedback cards
Nothing done yet

Borrowers of the AV video programs are encouraged to send in a 3x5 survey card which asks about the quality of the show, whether we should keep it in the library or not, suggestions for improvement, and so forth. So far, I have received 100’s of these cards. I need to compile all the comments, and suggestions. From this data, we should be able to see how the AV library is doing from the perspective of cavers, but more important, we can find ways to improve the AV Library and the administration of the Library.

Started a database for compiling data, and have entered about 10 percent of the cards.

New AV Catalog
Nothing done

Online AV Catalog
Fixed a problem with the online order page by requiring the use of the secure server. The CGI scripts (or something) disappeared off the main server so the online order form no longer worked. Also added two new categories to both the online and print catalog. The first is for DVD’s. We have one so far, "Amazing Caves" (I plan on making a number of my own videos available on DVD also). The other category is Multimedia, which covers a Power Point presentation about caving on CD which Colin Gatland produced. These programs can be seen on the online catalog right now.

Problems:
Time: I never seem to have enough time to do all the things I would like to do.

Cave Files Committee:

Richard Blenz
8070 W Eller Road
Bloomington, IN 47403

812 825-2345
rblenz@indiana.edu

Progress:
Still adding data to the files. Tennessee sent me cave and county data for 8,099 caves. NM did the same. As well as Maine. About 12,000 caves for the three. NSS Files running as usual. (Maine only accounts for 140 or so.)

Plans:
To continue as usual.

Problems:
None

Headquarters Facilities Committee:

Jim Hall
623 Larry Place
Madison, AL 35758-1118

256 772-9829
jimehall@compuserve.com

Progress:
None

Plans:
Still planning to paint the high trim on the Smith house.

Problems:
none

Internal Organization Committee:

Evelyn Bradshaw, Co-Chairman
5713 Castlebridge Rd Apt 226
Fredericksburg, VA 22407-6044

540 785-5361
ebradshw@staffnet.com

Keith D Wheeland, Co-Chariman
2191 Mountain View Ave
State College PA 16801-7214

(home) 814 238-2057
(e-mail) kwheeland@psualum.com

Members: Gary Bush, Eric McMaster, Esty Pape, and Dave Taylor.

Progress:
Status of Annual Reports

Grottos: (Processed by Keith Wheeland)
199 complete reports (Submitted via web 142; by e-mail 27; by regular mail 30)
7 grottos chose not to report

Regions: (Processed by Evelyn Bradshaw) - 11 completed

Sections: (Processed by Evelyn Bradshaw) -17 completed

Surveys: (Processed by Dave Taylor) -11 completed.

Report to Editor of NSS Members Manual:
I submitted the bulk of the data for grottos to Jo Ellen Kimmel, editor of the NSS Members Manual, on March 15, 2002. A few additional changes were sent to her as I received them.

New Grottos:
Evelyn Bradshaw processed two new grottos since the last report. They are Buffalo Valley Grotto [440] in Pennsylvania and Branson Area Tri-Lakes Grotto [441] in Missouri.

I/O Web Site:
It is located on the NSS server at www.caves.org/committee/i-o/ The I/O home page uses the NSS standard layout. The site includes the following items.

I/O Manual:
Instructions and form for submitting the grotto annual report
Information about and how to subscribe to the I/O E-mail list
An I/O List with name and Serial Number
A discussion of COG issues

Web Submittal for Grotto Annual Reports:
For the first time, grottos were able to submit their annual report via the web. When they go to the site and enter their password, they can view and change their existing data and submit it to the I/O Committee.
Sixty-nine percent of grottos submitted their reports via this method. I’m pleased with the success of this new endeavor.
Eric McMaster designed the online system and is hosting the site.

Job Descriptions and List of Duties:
This project is still being worked on.

I/O E-mail List:
We use this list to send notices to I/Os. This is a controlled list so that the I/O Chair must approve all submissions to the list. No Spam, only messages of interest to I/Os.

NSS Web Page Showing I/Os and Links:
Gary Bush maintains this page for the I/O Committee. It is currently up-to-date with all changes he has received.

Plans:
Improve Web Site for Submitting Grotto Annual Report:
We will solicit, review, and act on any suggestions for improvement.

Congress of Grottos Issues:
We thank Bill Jackson for coming forward to gather issues for the upcoming Congress Meeting at the 2002 NSS Convention.
We are not asking the Board to respond to the following issues, but only to be aware that they are being discussed.

This year 70 membership lists did not include whether the NSS members listed thereon considered the grotto their primary grotto. The Congress of Grottos uses this data to allocate votes.

We will try to change the way we collect data for determining the votes for Congress. Currently the grottos give this information to the I/O Committee, which in turn give it to the Congress officials. We would like the data to come from the NSS database (COMPID field) and be available directly to Congress officials without going through the grottos and the I/O Committee. The data is already stored on the NSS database and there is a report available to display the information. Some wording should be changed on the NSS Membership Application form, the renewal form, and the Life Membership request for information form. Some education would be required.

Should the Congress be disbanded and replaced with a referendum method for bringing issues to the Board?

Submittal of Grotto Annual Reports:
There are still too many grottos which ignore the deadline for submitting the annual report. We will be discussing and implementing changes to try to improve the percentage of grottos that file on time. The percentage of grottos that submitted on time this year is 64%. Delinquent reporting is an expense for the NSS in terms of costs for printing, labels, envelopes, and postage.

This past year I sent 268 pieces of regular mail related to the annual report. I also sent approximately 800 e-mails. (A mailing to the entire I/O listserv was counted as one e-mail.)

I/O Web Page Improvements:
Additions are being planned for the I/O web page. We will be adding some details concerning the submittal of annual reports for Regions, Sections, and Surveys. We may be adding additional information to the I/O list depending upon our findings at the 2002 NSS Convention.

Problems and Issues:
Archives: The I/O Committee collects documents from grottos, including constitutions, bylaws, membership lists, and other paper. Evelyn Bradshaw has at least three file-cabinets full of such documents. In the short time I have been in the job, I have collected additional papers. The I/O Committee feels that this is an issue for the BOG to discuss. Should the Spelean History Association or the NSS Library Committee study this issue and make recommendations? Would a university that already has extensive caving-related archives be interested? Would microfilm be an option?

Information Technology Committee:

IT Team Chairman:

Joseph G. "Tray" Murphy
10210 Francill Court
Richmond, VA 23236-2276

804 745-6730 (home)
tray@jgmurphy.org

Progress:
The volunteer page is up to date and being maintained by me. The Events page is being updated almost daily, also by me. Positions are posted on the volunteer page and responses have been received, I expect to find three to four people to handle daily maintenance and some programming chores soon.

Plans:
I am hoping that the search for a Perl programmer results in a person who can take over reprogramming the bookstore. We will see.

Problems:
We've had some down time on Xeran's server. They are looking into the problem and are keeping me posted on progress towards fixing it. Apparently, the server suddenly decides to stop responding to HTTP requests, though other functions remain operational. We also had a miscommunication involving moving a site to its proper location that resulted in our pages asking for a password to access them. This has been resolved.

Office Automation Division

Phil Winkler
816 N Washington Street
Wilmington, DE 19801-1510

302 571-1156
pwinkler@plmconsulting.com

Plans:
Continue to enhance the office database systems. Add routine processing of General Membership category by reducing or eliminating hard coded GL numbers, etc.

Provide formal training to the Office Manager on our databases. This training will be performed over two days at our offices in Wilmington, DE and will increase Stephanie's abilities to perform databases maintenance, create ad hoc queries as well as make minor changes to tables to accommodate business rules changes.

Progress:
Incorporating the General Membership type into routine NSSTrak operations is proceeding well albeit slowly due to the complexity of the modification.

Problems:
None

Market Analysis Committee:

Scott A. Parvin, Chairman
8019 Riverbend Rd
Morris Al 35116-1259

(home) 205 647-1936
(cell) 205 563-CAVE
(e-mail) sparvin@mindspring.com

Progress:
No notable progress has been made since the last report due to no ongoing analysis or requests for such.

Problems:
No problems at this time.

Plans:
Recently, the committee has been asked to do an analysis of the audio book version of Beyond Mammoth Cave. This will be the short-term goal of this committee as the report has been requested by June 15, 2002.

NSS Library Committee:

Richard Downey
380 N 600 East
Orem, UT 84097-4843

801 224-6678|
cavediva@msn.com

Progress:
Nothing to report here.

Plans:
I am waiting to get some feedback from the ad hoc committee (President’s Department). At this point I will contact some other people in the field for suggestions about establishing a new library if the Board decides to go in that direction. I am only familiar with our experience here at my work.

Problems:
No Problems at this time.

NSS Operations Manager:

Stephanie Cothron
National Speleological Society, Inc.
2813 Cave Avenue
Huntsville, AL 35810-4431

256 852-1300
manager@caves.org

Progress:
In February, Patricia (Pati) Miller was hired as the new bookstore assistant. Pati is an NSS Member and has years of caving experience. Training Pati has been a breeze. She is a fast learner and has excellent customer service skills.

Roger Haley has agreed to assist and oversee IT problems and issues for the NSS Office under the supervision of Phil Winkler. Also, Roger Haley donated a laptop to the NSS Office. The laptop has 5GB of hard drive, which is enough space to store Ledgermaster, so we can use it at this year’s convention! This donation is greatly appreciated.

Charlie, Karen and Chad Helums (NSS Members) donated a computer to the NSS Office. Also, we had a 2^nd computer donated by Adam Lott in c/o Cullman Grotto. One of these computers will be used to update Bill Torode’s workstation.

I’ve completed three HTML classes at New Horizons Computer Learning Center. Hopefully, once Dave Irving and I close the Fiscal Year, I can use the new skills I’ve learned to maintain and update the NSS Bookstore website page.

The NSS Office now has an updated, color version of "The Fragile Underground". We also have a new brochure "Lava Tubes". Cheryl Jones and Michael Dale worked hard as a team designing these brochures.

In April, 25, 35, and 50-Year NSS Pins were mailed to honorary NSS members due their pins. Each member due a pin will have it in time to wear with pride at the 2002 convention.

In April, DSL lines were ordered for the office. In May, Hiwaay Info Systems installed the router. Follow-up work to be completed:

DIS (Distributed Info Systems) will need to order a hub and connect each computer to the hub by cables. By the end of the week, all four workstations should be able to access the DSL lines and we all can be on line at the same time with greater speed.

4/30/02, Avis, Bill, Pati, and Stephanie completed NSS Bookstore Physical Inventory count. Jerry Mercer of Mercer & Associates, P.C., his assistant, Paul and Kevin Smith were the auditors. The inventory count went smoothly and we were finished counting by 2:00 P.M. By 4:00 P.M., I had the inventory adjustments completed.

5/6/02, Membership Data for the Member’s Manual was e-mailed to Jo Ellen Kimmel (2002 Editor).

5/13/02 – 5/17/02, Dave Irving and I will work on closing fiscal year 01-02.

Carlsbad Payment for the Kartchner Caverns Journal – Update: Received $140 from Carlsbad for the 1^st Quarter (Jan, Feb, and March 2002).

Plans:
Prepare for Convention in Maine, June 23^rd – 28^th.

Prepare for SERA in Jamestown, TN, July 12^th – 14^th.

Problems:
Phil is diligently working to convert the General Membership to the People File (where the Regular, Sustaining, Life memberships, etc. are located). The slight problem is remembering to ask a member when he calls in if he is a General member, since his file is in another place. Also, at this time, when we process the monthly renewal notices, General members do not receive a renewal notice. We don’t want to loose the General membership revenue plus several members have changed their membership from Regular to General. I’ve designed a query for Avis to manually run each month, this report will let us know which General Memberships are due, and we’ll send them a renewal notice.

Photo Archives Committee:

Karen Kastning
PO Box 148
Radford, VA 24141-0048

703 639-4666
karen@skyhopper.net

Plans:
Long-term plans:
Remains the same: To establish a detailed database for research purposes. Not much progress on this for the past few months - but it is still my primary objective.

Short-terms plans and activity:
On Monday afternoon of the 2002 convention in Maine, there will be a special showing of both of the 1-hour, Skeets Miller Floyd Collins Television dramas from the 1950s. Tentative plans are to show them using the new NSS Video Projector (thanks to Dave Socky's assistance).

A small Photo Archives exhibit will also be set up at the Maine Convention, consisting of black-and-white photographs of early caving in the Northeast from the Photo Archives Collection. This exhibit may be merged with the NSS Museum Exhibit, if there is sufficient room in the display cases. Committee funds are being used to duplicate, enlarge, and mount the photos (so that no originals are placed on exhibit). Hopefully the exhibit will spark some memories for our long-time cavers.

Over the next couple of weeks, the large-format prints will be sorted and stored in new boxes (see below).

Progress:
New archival-quality storage materials were obtained in April (various-sized plastic sleeves for protecting prints and 16 x 20 acid-free boxes). The large-format prints had been passed on to me (several years ago) in seven very large boxes that allowed the prints to "rattle around," making it difficult to even move them, much less look through them. Therefore, I handled them only rarely, to minimize any chance of damage. Of course, this made them practically "dead storage." Finally, sufficient funds became available to purchase 15 appropriately sized boxes that will hold most of the large-format prints.

Problems:
No significant problems other than time and money.

Speleo-Museum Committee:

Craig Hindman
7600 Pindell School Road
Fulton, MD 20759

410 792-0742
ctider@us.ibm.com

Progress:
The digital camera has been purchased

Plans:
I plan to resume activity on the web page. There will be a Museum display at the convention. Several donations tend to come in during the convention and they will be displayed also.

Problems:
None at this time

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