Attachment D

National Speleological Society

Operations Vice President’s Report

February 14, 2003

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

Colin Gatland
1151 Crestwood Hills Drive
Vandalia, Ohio 45377

937 890-0339
cgatland@who.rr.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 chair of each committee or organization, followed by their report. The committee and sub-committee chairs have provided the information in this report, although I’ve made some spelling, formatting, and minor editorial adjustments.

Plans: I will be working with Andy Niekamp to revamp the NSS Bookstore web site. This should make it much nicer and easier to utilize. The plan is to try and make to membership think of the Bookstore as a "brand", like other cave related vendors. Currently the bookstore is not thought of this way, we hope to give it more visibility on the NSS web site. We have also secured the domain name: NSSBookstore.com to help in this overhaul.

As you are all aware the Bookstore catalog was not out in a timely fashion to the membership. Hopefully this will not be a problem again. We have rethought the catalog and will make it a four page insert in the November NSS News. Several comments were made by the membership that included:

-There is too much money spent on a glitzy catalog

-The catalog should not be full color

-The catalog money should be used to make our library better

-The catalog is not useful when it is late

Hopefully, by having an abbreviated catalog included in the NSS News, this will address those concerns and also ensure that it is delivered in a timely fashion.

Progress: I hope that everyone has had the opportunity to see what great things that Andy Niekamp has brought to the NSS web site. Andy has been interim IT Committee Chair for several months now and has done what amounts to a superb job with the web pages. Andy is very enthusiastic and from the comments that I have heard from many sources, doing things extremely well. He has a good team working with him and gets things done, in better than a timely fashion. Andy has some great ideas for the web site, and everything that he has done thus far is listed in his report. The web pages are a big link for the society and having someone with this type of enthusiasm and drive is a huge asset. I am truly happy that he stepped up to the plate and I hope that everyone applauds his efforts and officially approves him as IT Committee Chairman.

Andy is a Programmer for E.D.S., NSS Life Member, NSS Fellow, Life Member of the Dayton Underground Grotto, Webmaster for the Dayton Underground Grotto, and the person that introduced me to the NSS. 

Stephanie will travel to visit Phil Winkler for Training in late February.

Problems: The latest problem to crop up at the NSS Office is the leaks in the roof. As of this writing two have occurred. Currently we have been working with Clyde Simerman an NSS member and a roofer by profession. He has been getting cost estimates from reputable roofers in the Huntsville area, and we should hopefully have this problem solved in the near future. From what he has determined from photographs is that we will need to have a new roof put on at least the library section. This cost will most likely be approx. $10,000 (based on the previous quotes that Stephanie had received), however this cost could move higher if more of the roof would need to be replaced.

The lackluster sales at the bookstore have been an ongoing issue. I think that the current economic climate, coupled with no major book releases has helped in this downward trend. There are plans to release the "Taming of the Slough", by Sheck Exley this May, hopefully this book will help sales.

We still do not have a Market Analysis Committee Chairman. I have had several notices out in the various caving lists on the Internet, as well as a continuing notice in the NSS News.

The library proposal, as you might guess, continues to be a topic that is well discussed. The main problem that I have encountered is the amount of false to absurd rumors that have spread like wild fire and that no amount of accurate information that may be given to counter those rumors has done much to dispel them.

Andy had worked with an NSS member from Spain who wanted to tackle the redo of the NSS Book Auction site. After several weeks of work it was basically ready to launch. But it was felt that due to the ongoing library issues that the auction site was better off not going live at this time. We hope to have it up and running when some of the library issues have been resolved.

General Membership Update: As of this writing we currently have 645 General Members of those 248 have listed the CDS as their primary IO.

Archivist Committee

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

256 852-4522
jrdandlld@aol.com

ARCHIVES COMMITTEE REPORT

No report submitted

Audio-Visual Committee (Slides)

Timothy C. White
2505A Toll Gate Road SE
Huntsville, AL 35801

256 508-1908
KD4GOC@BIGFOOT.COM

Note:

At the time of this writing I have had several e-mails to touch base with Tim. He has some of the AV library, but I would prefer to hand deliver the actual master slide show library rather than send it via UPS (paranoia maybe). Typically this time of year is slow and not much happens with the committee. Ray Cole has been advised of Tim now being the AV Library Co-Chair/Slides as has Bruce Bannerman. I don’t forsee any problems when the salon images start to happen in April.

Colin

Audio-Visual Committee (Video)

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

703 989-7693
sockydr@cox.com

David Socky

NSS A/V Library Chairman - Video Section

January 27, 2003

Plans: No new plans

Progress: Online AV catalog

The new Online catalog is now the main AV Library web page. Also, the Online order page has been fixed and updated thanks to the work of Andy Niekamp.

Vertical Techniques Video

This new video is about 80 percent complete. It will be called "Vertical Ascending Systems – An Introduction", and will be about 30 minutes long. It will be complete in time for the NSS Video Salon this summer.

New entries for the NSS Video Library

By this summer, there are plans for two new video programs for the library. The producers for both videos indicated they would enter there programs in the Video Salon in the professional category. The first is a program from Florida called "Water's Journey" produced by Jill Heinerth and directed by Wes Skiles (see http://www.floridasprings.org/expedition/). The second program is called "Cathedral Caverns" (A new state park in Alabama) produced by Ambassador Video Productions.

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

Dave Socky
NSS AV Co-Chairman (Video)

Cave Files Committee

Richard Blenz
8070 W. Eller Road
Bloomington, IN 47403

812 825-2345
rblenz@indiana.edu

Progress: The Cave Files have not stopped, are running as designed.

Plans: To continue the Cave Files' running as designed.

Problems: A one person Cave Files Committee should not have any
problems....I don't.

Headquarters Facilities Committee

Jim Hall
623 Larry Place
Madison, AL 35758-1118

256 772-9829
jimehall@compuserve.com

Plans: Still planning to paint the high trim on the White house

Progress: Too cold and rainy to paint.

Problems: We have developed several leaks in the office roof and I am waiting for dry weather to check the roof. Roofing estimates have been made $6k to $16k.

Jim Hall

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-Chairman
2191 Mountain View Ave.
State College PA 16801-7214

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

I/O Committee Report – January 21, 2003

Submitted by Keith D. Wheeland

Progress: Liaison with NSS Members Manual Committee

We have been working with the NSS Members Manual Committee and have sent them samples of our data for the upcoming Members Manual. This allows us to work out any problems in advance of publication.

Submittal for Region and Section Annual Reports

This year I took over the responsibility for processing the annual reports for Regions and Sections. Evelyn Bradshaw has handled this in the past. Dave Taylor handles the reports for Surveys.

Web Submittal for Region and Section Annual Reports

This reporting cycle, we added Regions and Sections to the I/Os that may submit their reports via the web just as Grottos were able to do this past year. Eric McMaster and I made changes to our respective portions of the software to allow this to happen.

I/O Web Site

The I/O web site at www.caves.org/committee/i-o/ is updated frequently to show the progress of the submittal of annual reports.

NSS Members with no Primary Affiliation

This is the first reporting cycle since we started getting the primary affiliation data from the NSS records.

An article explaining the new policy concerning primary affiliation was published in the September 2002 issue (page 265) of the NSS News.

We are educating NSS members as to the reasons for keeping their primary affiliation up to date in the NSS records. Working with Andy Niekamp and Phil Winkler, we have taken another step by notifying all NSS members who have no primary affiliation (and also have an e-mail address). Andy set up a very impressive system to allow members to select a primary affiliation - if they care to. Phil will take the data and update the NSS records.

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.

Job Descriptions and List of Duties

This project is ongoing.

Progress of Annual Report Submittal

Plans: Primary Affiliation

We are planning to take some more steps in order to educate NSS members as to the uses of the primary affiliation.

Problems and Issues: Submittal of I/O Electronic Newsletters to the NSS Library and to the Cave Files Committee

A greater number of I/Os are preparing and distributing their newsletters on electronic media. The NSS regulations require that an I/O Submit two copies of each issue to the NSS Library and two copies to the NSS Cave Files Committee.

The I/O Committee needs to know the policy concerning the transmittal of electronic newsletters. I have had three requests so far concerning this issue. I have not offered any definite answer until a policy has been formulated. This is causing a problem in the I/O Committee since we must enforce the regulations.

Co-Chairmen: Keith D. Wheeland & Evelyn Bradshaw.
Members: Gary Bush, Eric McMaster, Esty Pape, and Dave Taylor.

Addendum to IO Committee Report

Plans: Primary Affiliation
With valuable input from Bob Hoke and the help of Phil Winkler, we plan to begin printing primary affiliation on the address label of the NSS News. Because of limited space, we will be showing the serial number of the primary affiliation rather than its name. This will make it easy for each member to see just what is in their record without placing additional work on the office staff. In the coming months we will be taking additional steps to educate the membership as to the importance of this piece of information.

The first line of a typical address label may appear as below
2878 RL  EXPIRES: 12/24 AFFIL: 000014

Information Technology Committee

IT Team Chairman:
Andy Niekamp (Interim Committee Chairman)
1515 Cordell Drive
Kettering, Ohio 45439

937 296-0245
ajniekamp3@aol.com

Submitted by: Andy Niekamp

Progress: Much progress has been made on the NSS web site since I took over as interim IT Chairman in September. Here are some of the completed projects:

Moved web pages that accept credit card numbers (new member app, renewal, Stash the Cash and AV request) to the SSL secure server. Created a web site for the NSS Office to retrieve the forms and credit card numbers using SSL. This creates a more secure web server for financial transactions.

Added many features and edits to the online membership application and renewal web pages. When I took over these pages did not even function.

Added a hit counter script to the web site for web masters to use.

Added a new search engine to the NSS web site. This feature has both a basic and advanced search capability.

Added the ability to search the NSS web site with the popular Google search engine.

Added a special "NSS Business Pages" only search engine. These searches are limited to the NSS Business web pages.

Took Jim Hall’s NSS library info and created a web page to search and display this data. The library data is also available for downloading in Excel format.

Added a "Favorites Icon". This icon of a caving helmet appears in a person’s List of Favorite web pages.

Removed the rollover graphics from the NSS home page. This eliminated the need to load 600KB of data every time some visits the NSS home page.

Correct several misspellings in the Conservation Statement and updated the copyright statement on the NSS home page.

Added a PDF version of the NSS New Member application to the web site.

Added the NSS Convention Manual to the web site. The manual is available in HTML and PDF formats.

Fixed several broken hyperlinks. Created email aliases for the NSS EC. Got the FrontPage extensions working on the web site.

Added a brochure request/download web page. Web page visitors can now download PDF versions of six NSS brochures or request them be mailed to them. Here is a typical request for brochures:

Group or Purpose: Girl Scouts of the Nations Capital

Please send me the following brochures:

Guide To Responsible Caving - 20

Fragile Underground - 20

Bats Need Friends - 20

Comments: I am a Brownie Girl Scout Leader. We are working on a badge about caving, conservation, safety, etc. I would appreciate any additional information you could send geared to the 3rd or 4th grade level. Thank you!

Put a process in place to monitor disk space usage of the various grottos, conservancies, surveys, sections and committees.

Created a web page listing the offerings and costs of hosting a web site on the NSS server.

Created a web page for the NSS Web Page awards for people to submit web sites to nominate for review for the award.

Gave the Stash the Cash web page a new and better look. Created an web page to enroll in the Stash The Cash.

Created a process to email 4,000 NSS members that have not selected a primary affiliation. The email will direct them to visit a special web page to select a primary affiliation. The results of their selection are written to file which will loaded into the NSS Membership database without involvement or burden to the NSS Office.

Created several interactive Great X web pages for making pledges, viewing pledges and making donations. Recruited Rob Coomer to do the main Great X web page.

Added an optional donation box to the NSS new membership application and renewal forms. As of the January 20 we have collected 35 donations totaling $686 in the last 90 days. The donations average about $7.50 per day. The largest donation is $100 and the smallest is $2. The donor has their choice of NSS funds to contribute to. The Cave Acquisition Funds gets the most donations.

Plans: There are a number of projects that still need to be done. The NSS Bookstore is way overdue for a new look. The NSS Book Auction needs a new home. I would like to put the NSS News indexes online and searchable. Paul Stevens is working on a project to put various NSS publications online. The NSS web site as a whole needs a new look. I also plan to support the various projects and ideas as they arise from the EC, Directors or membership. I plan to get more people involved in the NSS IT Committee to reduce my workload. I would like to upgrade our web hosting account to a reseller account to offer expanded web hosting offerings to the internal organizations and members. These offering would include the ability for a grotto to have their own domain name and still host their site with the NSS.

Problems: I’ve gotten complaints recently about the availability of our web site. We have experienced several outages lately. To fix this Xeran, our web hosting company, moved us to a new server to help with server overload. Xeran also plans to upgrade their servers in the next few months. I do not want to move to a new web hosting company because of the effort involved.

We currently use 700 MB of web space. Once we reach 1,000 MB of space our incremental web space cost doubles.

Our web hosting account is Unix based and does not support many Microsoft web development tools. Many web neat features such as the NSS Book Auction require Active Server Pages (ASP) to run. Our options are somewhat limited with a platform that does not support ASP.

Notes: Many of the completed projects from above were not my ideas. The ideas and suggestions came from the Directors, EC, NSS Office and membership. Thank you to those people for sending me those ideas and the related content. Ideas for the website are welcome. Ideas accompanied with content are even more welcome.

Information Technology Committee
Office Automation Division

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

302 571-1156
pwinkler@plmconsulting.com

Plans: Continue development of automated processes to make office operations more effective and efficient. Research feasibility of including member's IO Name on first line of NEWS label to promote awareness of this fact.

Progress: Finally completed integration of General membership type into the routine process. Major discovery of the reason for the problem in the first place is that the multi-year fees established by the Board do not conform to the same business rules as those for all the other membership types. A subtle difference of $0.50 in the 2 year amount, but that was the main problem. Probably only Bill Mixon remembers the logic in setting these amounts in the first place, but the same logic was not used with General Members. Oh, well.

In coordination with Keith Wheeland and Andy Niekamp, 2000 emailed notices to sent to members without a Primary I/O affiliation in their record. Since that field was blank in the database we didn't know if that meant NONE or NOT KNOWN. Andy created a web site where members could respond to their e-mail and enter their affiliation from a pick list of all IO's. He emailed me two batches of results and I used them to update the member's file in the database. This process should go a long way towards making our data better and better over time.

Provided Bob Hoke with updated member data files for inclusion in the Members Manual. Bob has made numerous helpful suggestions for improving our data where Institutional and Canadian members were concerned. Mainly, our data was inconsistently formatted due to data-entry differences by various people. Bob is quite detail oriented, fortunately and spotted numerous discrepancies.

The TCP/IP internet connection for remote access to the Office computer system has performed perfectly resulting in significant savings to both me and the NSS.

Problems: Just the usual associated with Windows and computers.

Market Analysis Committee

We still have not been able to fill this committee position. I have got notices running in each NSS News. Notices have been placed on the various internet outlets.

NSS Library Committee

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

801 224-6678
cavediva@msn.com

PROGRESS:  In communication with Paul Stevens, we have identified a collection development guideline for the NSS Library.  This is preliminary at this point and details may need to be clarified at a later date.  Many individuals have been working hard to develop the Online Catalog for the NSS Library.  These include Title, Author, and Publisher.  Also coming are the indexes to the NSS publications.  Diana Northrup is working to acquire a license to put the "Guide to Speleological Literature of  the English Language" online. This will be a great asset.  We are still looking at options regarding the possible move of the NSS Library.  I have looked at dollar numbers for Catalogers and Cataloging software to be possibly used in the library project.  I have given the ballpark figures to the Operations Vice President.

PLANS: At this point, it would be a good idea to invite more members of the Library Committee to advise with areas of expertise that I do not personally have.  I will be at the BOG meeting in Salt Lake City in March to be involved in the discussions there.  I am planning to visit the current NSS Library in Huntsville to see how things have changed since the last time I was there.  Hopefully I will get there before the March meeting but certainly before convention in the summer.  I will continue to work with all involved to bring the Library Project to a satisfactory conclusion.

PROBLEMS: Most of the problems are coming from the misinformation that is out on the net concerning the whole library project.  This is a touchy subject with patriotic declarations on all sides.  It makes it hard to sift through al the bombast to get to the core issues.  Just a thought on a possible patch to the whole "move to New Mexico" thing.  A few years ago it was suggested that a satellite library be had in the west, possibly to be housed at the NCKRI.  This is still a viable option in that duplicates of the volumes we have could be sent there,  they could do their cataloging etc. and we could still maintain the bulk of the collection in Huntsville. 

 That's it for now.

 Richard

Please note: An NSS Library Ad Hoc Committee was formed and that information can be found in the President’s Report.

Colin

NSS Operations Manager

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

256 852-1300
manager@caves.org

Progress: Avis and Jim attended OTR in West Virginia – August 28th – September 1st. OTR attendance is around 2,000. OTR bookstore sales $2,409.80.

Avis attended TAG at Sequoia Caverns – October 11 – 13. Estimated attendance 1,500. TAG Bookstore sales $1,702.40.

October 2002, the heating unit stopped working at the office. We got a new Trane system installed and it’s been working perfectly. Thanks to Scott Fee and Clyde Simerman’s assistance and recommendation of Bunn’s and Bennett Heating & Air Conditioning.

October 1 – Began working on the 2003 NSS Bookstore Catalog.

November 12 – Tim White/Slaton Press installed PageMaker on my computer. This software will be much easier to use than Microsoft Word. PageMaker gives the viewer a detailed layout of how the information will look as a final product and it holds graphics. Learning curve/period involved.

November 18 – Problems with my bookstore scanned copies of the ‘new’ book covers. Tim had to re-scan every ‘new’ book cover on his personal scanner because my scanner produced poor images.

November 26 – Emailed mailing list to Tim for catalog mailing labels.

Unfortunately, the catalog was not mailed to the membership by Thanksgiving. Due to miscommunication between the printers and the mail house, half of the catalogs were mailed on December 10 and the second half were mailed on December 19. I was unaware of this mix-up, until I received a call from the USPS for postage money.

FYI – 2003 catalog is a 36-page catalog, full color/glossy paper (production/printing) plus mail house labor cost was $7,253.00 for 11,000 copies - .66/ea.

Last year, 2002 catalog was a 32-page catalog, half the size of the 2003 and printed in black and white, we spent $6,302.00 for 9,940 copies- .57/ea. A .09 increase in catalog cost this year.

Future plans are for the catalog to be an insert in the November NSS News.

December 23 – Received left-over/extra catalogs from the mail house. I created a query and Bill mailed catalogs to new members (excluded family) who joined after 11/26/02 (date labels were emailed to the printers) and before December 23rd.

Colin and I have been trying to put our heads together to think of different ways to market the NSS Bookstore. I’ve been placing marketing blurbs on TAG-Net, Caver’s Digest and the NSS website discussion board. These blurbs have been focusing on new items, price reductions and continued support of the bookstore.

Progress: January 31, 2003 - With Phil’s assistance, direction and help and his testing of a copy of the database and testing completed here at the office, we finally have the General membership integrated into the People File. This accomplishment will make data entry of all general membership so much easier.

The Membership Renewal Specials Flyer bookstore sales to date are $3.014.00. These flyers are mailed out with the membership renewal notices each month to those members receiving their first renewal notice. If they renew their membership, they can receive a 10% discount on selected bookstore items. We began mailing these flyers in July 2002 and have run out. David McClurg is working on the 2nd batch of flyers.

NSS Bookstore Sales Comparison 3rd Qtr 2002 vs. 3rd Qtr 2001

*Includes OTR Sales
**Includes TAG Sales

Beginning in January 2002, the office began to record how a book order was placed. A source code was added to the invoice form. Data can be gathered on how a member placed an order via phone, mail, website, etc.

NSS Bookstore Sales Comparison 4th Qtr 2002 vs 4th Qtr 2001

Plans: Hire a part-time person to help with book orders and membership data entry.

Visit Phil Winkler in Delaware, February 18 – 21st for dataease/NSSTrak training.

Problems: Pati Miller turned in her resignation as bookstore clerk on 8/28/02. She did give a 2-week notice and worked hard until her last day. She will be missed. At this time, the p/t bookstore position has not been filled. I’ve been handling the book orders and when I’m out, Avis has processed book orders. We have continued to ship all book orders in a timely manner. Also, I used the help of a temp hire during the Christmas Rush.

Photo Archives Committee

Karen Kastning
PO Box 148
Radford, VA 24141-0048

703 639-4666
karen@skyhopper.net

Winter 2003 Report of the NSS Photo Archives Committee Submitted by Karen M. Kastning (additional committee member, Ernst H. Kastning)

Plans: Long-term plans:
Remains the same:  To establish a detailed database for research purposes. No progress on this during my thesis research months - but it remains my primary objective.

Short-terms plans and activity:
Work progresses at putting sleeves on the large-format prints, sorting them into appropriate categories, and filing them in new boxes as time permits. Work on this project will be continued throughout the winter months.

Progress: Things have been pretty quiet over the fall and winter.

A joint article for the NSS News is in the works regarding the two 1-hour, Skeets Miller Floyd Collins Television dramas from the 1950s.  Mike Nardacci will be reviewing the two films;  Karen Kastning will tell how they were saved and restored by the NSS.

Problems: No significant problems. Still need a HIGH QUALITY slide/negative scanner.

Speleo-Museum Committee

Craig Hindman
7600 Pindell School Road
Fulton, MD 20759

410 792-0742
ctider@us.ibm.com

Plans: To get the entire Museum online. This is a long term project and will take some time.

Progress: There has been one new collection from John Petrie (NSS 30) donated by his son Bill (NSS 126). Some items the Museum will keep and some will go to the photo archives. The collection was just received on Jan. 25, 03 and I am just starting to go through it. (Bill requested any items that are clearly family related and not caving related be returned)

FYI - John worked at the Patent Office with Bill Stephenson. He was Secretary, VP, and a Director of the NSS in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. It was said of him “He kept the NSS going through the war years” There has been one donation from the estate of Bob Lutz. The switchboard used on early NSS projects. This will be picked up in the early spring on the way to VAR. There will be a display at the 2003 Convention

Problems: None at this time