Attachment D

National Speleological Society

Operations Vice-President’s Report

March 5, 2005

Table of Contents:

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

Operations Vice President

Tom Rea; 765-653-4423; tomrea@ccrtc.com

The Department of the Operations Vice President consists of 11 committees, plus the NSS Operations Manager and the NSS headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama. The committee and sub-committee chairmen have provided the information in this report, although, being an editor, I have edited it to my liking. I have listed the telephone number and e-mail address of each committee chairman below. Additional addresses and contact information for all people in this report can be found at:

http://www.caves.org/nss-businessog/table-4d.html

Plans:
Continue as usual

Progress:
Stephanie returned from maternity leave on January 3. She has a new baby girl.

I have done nothing earth shaking this period except put out little fires here and there.

It's amazing how many ways people can misunderstand the new Conservation Member and Conservation Life Member categories. I have spent hours explaining it over and over. People want to make it more complicated than it is. Hopefully the Web site will be correct by the time you read this.

Problems:
None except the tremendous number of e-mails I have to page through everyday.

Archivist Committee:

J. Reynolds Duncan, Jr; 256-852-4522; reynolds.duncan@worldnet.att.net

January 22, 2005

Plans:
Continue with the review, sorting, and integration of Archives material.

Progress:
Responded to a few requests for information and sorted and filed some of the material.

Problems:
None.

Audio-Visual Committee (Slides):

Timothy C. White; 256-508-1908; kd4goc@bigfoot.com

Nothing to report

Audio-Visual Committee (Video)

David Sockey; 703-989-7693; sockydr@cox.net

No report received

Cave Files Committee:

Richard Blenz; 812-825-2345; rblenz@ucs.indiana.edu

Plans:
To keep going as usual

Progress:
I spent the two-week break for Christmas and New Year's plugging data into the computer and now have references to 40,550 caves in the U.S. Some times the reference is to a cave name and state with no other data. Sometimes the reference is a four inches thick stack of paper like Mammoth, Lechuguilla, or Fisher Ridge.

Jackson County in Alabama is the number 1 for number of caves like 1,900.

The three counties around White in Tennessee hold #1 for the highest density of caves. Something like a cave every 450 acres.

The lowest density is Sweetwater County in Wyoming with one cave in 10,000 square miles.

Just some tidbits to chew on.

Problems:
I don't have problems ... I cause problems.

Headquarters Facilities Committee:

Jim Hall; 205-772-9829; jimehall@cs.com

Plans:
When the weather gets warm there is some minor painting needed on the Smith house.

I have a report that the roof on the Smith House needs repairs. I have an expert (member) lined up to have a look at in the next couple of weeks. --Tom Rea

Progress:
We have a new computer for the Library and the LAN cable has been run but the link isn't active yet.

Problems:
No notable problems.

Internal Organizations Committee:

Keith D Wheeland; 814-238-2057; kwheeland@psualum.com
Evelyn Bradshaw; 540-785-4048; ebradshw@midatlanticbb.com

January 19, 2005

Submitted by Keith D. Wheeland with input from the Committee members

Progress:
I/O Information on the Web.

The I/O web site at www.caves.org/committee/i-o/ is kept up to date. (See (1) under Problems and Issues below.)

The general information for regions, sections, and surveys on the NSS Web site is updated manually by Gary Bush.

Because of a suggestion from Bob Hoke, we have begun showing detailed information for regions, sections, and surveys on Web pages on the I/O Web site. The pages can easily be accessed from the I/O home page. The data displayed is similar to that shown for grottos on the NSS Web page (and shown in the Members Manual). We have contacted the NSS webmaster and requested that she provide a link from the NSS page that shows the general information to the I/O pages that show detailed information. This information should also be helpful for the Convention chairman to contact Sections in order to develop the Convention schedule.

Annual Reports.

Eric McMaster (owner and webmaster for the site) changed the URL for the site where I/Os may update their information and submit their annual report. He changed it to http://www.nssio.org. We hope that it will be easier for users to remember.

On November 16, 2004, and January 10, 2005, the Committee sent e-mail notices to all I/Os with instructions for submitting the Annual Report. We set the deadline as February 28, 2005. There are two I/Os without an e-mail address. Those two were sent the instructions by USPS on November 16, 2004. (See (2) under Problems and Issues below.)

Here is the progress of the submission of Annual Reports as of January15, 2005. The deadline is February 28, 2005. I have shown the totals for last year (about the same time) for comparison purposes.

2004 Reports (1/19/05) 2003 Reports (1/25/04)

Submitted via the web 71 98.6% 95 92.2%
Submitted by e-mail 0 0.0% 5 4.9%
Submitted by USPS 1 1.4% 3 2.9%
Total 72 103

Dave Taylor has begun to process reports from Surveys.

New I/Os and Reinstatements

Co-Chairman Evelyn Bradshaw has relinquished her duties of processing new applications and reinstatements over 5 years old. Co-chairman Keith Wheeland has assumed those duties. The I/O Web site has been updated to reflect this change. Evelyn will continue to review constitutions and bylaws for applicants.

There have been two inquiries in January for interest in starting new grottos. Keith will process them. Evelyn is following up on the applications that began with her tenure to see if any are still pending.

In October, we chartered the Florida Cave Survey (200021). The President is Paul Aughey.

In December, we chartered a new grotto in Gloucester, Virginia named Grapevine Grotto (000447). Eunice Cates is Chairman.

In December, we reactivated Sewanee Mountain Grotto (000379) (Tenn). Peter Michaud is Chairman.

In January we reactivated Smoky Mountain Grotto (000130) (Tenn). The Chairman is Chris Kerr.

Plans:
Continue to be proactive in making improvements to the chartering procedure, annual report procedure, and resolutions of issues brought to the attention of the I/O Committee.

Problems and Issues:
1) During Stephanie Searles' leave, we were not able to get one of the files that we need to keep the I/O site current. This problem was solved when Stephanie returned from leave. The specific file is used for the following things: To look up NSS numbers and/or names, verify that I/O officers are NSS members, determine Congress votes, determine minimum membership requirements for grottos, look up e-mail addresses for bounced messages, determine Primary Affiliation for NSS members, and sometimes find the latest address for an individual. It is only used for official I/O Committee business on Keith's computer and to update the I/O Web site.

2) There may be a problem with the I/O e-mailing system. We have had about eight complaints that I/Os didn't receive the e-mails from the Committee. We are investigating to determine whether this is a Committee computer problem or the action of aggressive spam filters. We send to approximately 580 addresses when we make a mailing.

Please address any questions or comments to kwheeland@psualum.com .
Co-Chairmen: Keith D. Wheeland and Evelyn Bradshaw. Members: Gary Bush, Eric McMaster, Esty Pape, and Dave Taylor.

Information Technology Committee:

IT Team Chairman: Kelley Prebil; 650-520-3150; webmistress@molokovelloct.net

Progress:
First off, Paul Stevens has officially retired from his duties with the IT Committee due to health reasons. His contribution was very valuable and the team will miss him.

A search for a webmaster for the NSS On-line Library site, http://www.nsspubs.org, proved futile as in several months no volunteers have stepped forward. With Paul’s retirement also, the dedicated server reserved for the online library is being shut down. If a team in the future wants to take on this project, a new dedicated server will be sought out, but in the meantime, this project is being shelved due to lack of support.

The IO lookup was screwed up again with the HTML links for grotto Web sites being off by one column. Dave Olsen was able to fix it by altering the mapping algorithm in the script.

Updates were done to the new/renew membership section of the NSS site to reflect new price changes and also reformat the pricing pages. Many thanks to Cheryl Jones for all her contributions to this!

Todd Bryan is in the process of switching scripts that handle membership, donations, etc. to the NSS server since we have the SSL certificate. This way in the future he’ll have access directly to those scripts (or anyone else for that matter) in the event of my absence. He will let me know once the scripts work on the NSS server so the links can be changed.

Several new brochure PDFs were updated in the brochure section.

The information for the convention’s salons competitions were updated to comply with information in the December 2004 NSS News.

New skins were created for the NSS Discussion Board to give users an option to the look & feel of their environment.

I believe a webmaster for the GreatX site was found as Eric Weaver stepped forward. I have not heard anything after he started conversing with Stephanie Searles and Scott Fee about whom to contact, etc.

Permissions were increased for all discussion board moderators to allow them to view users’ profiles in detail. This hopefully will help them sniff out spammers, etc. in the future.

While users can delete posts from the public view, the moderators can still see the deleted post by clicking on a link, as the post is still technically in the database. This has been useful in enforcing discipline with unruly members who try to delete their offensive posts.

A Youth Group forum was added to the discussion board with Patricia Bingham as the moderator.

There was an emergency shutdown of all servers by ValueWeb on January 13 for 2 hours in the afternoon while they were doing router maintenance. Due to not receiving a single e-mail from anyone, I’m guessing that no one noticed or thought it was a crisis. They did send me an e-mail in advance to let me know about it, even though I was traveling at the time.

Scott McCrea was appointed to take care of the old discussion board threads, which it has been said over and over again by Tom Rea and Scott Fee that it will take McCrea quite some time to dig through everything as there are too many threads to count. Right now McCrea has some done and when information is requested, he will post the information from the old thread to the current discussion board.

Tom Rea has volunteered to take over the Committees page. Gary Bush is the owner of the files right now. Tom will be getting in touch with Gary to work something out.

Plans:
Some new skins for the discussion board would be nice, especially perhaps one for younger caves which will hopefully attract them to using the board if it is more visually appealing to them.

Eric Weaver approached me with the idea of having a Tell-A-Friend feature on the main page to send out an e-mail to friends to let them know about the NSS. I have forwarded the idea to Dave Olsen to see if he can implement a simple PHP script that will accomplish this.

When finished, all SSL-requiring scripts such as the membership and donation forms should be on the NSS server.

Problems:
One minor problem is that people are still e-mailing me for FTP/e-mail information instead of Doug Marchant, who handles those accounts. Some time is wasted with me being the middleman. Information on the NSS Web Team site states whom to contact for that information, but I haven’t figured out why people ignore that and still e-mail me first. Time would be saved by all as then the inquirer wouldn’t have to wait for me to check my e-mail, and then later for Doug to check it after I forward the e-mail to him.

There is a small problem with Plesk not creating password-protected directories correctly. It creates the file with the basic information (where the encrypted password file is, username, etc), but not the encrypted password file. I’ve been manually creating the password-protection on the command line, which isn’t a big deal for me, but Doug would like the Plesk problem looked into to see if Plesk can improve their software so this feature actually works.

When changes to the dues were supposed to take effect January 1st, no one in the IT Committee had a PDF of the new membership form nor was it brought to my attention before January 1st with a complete list of new prices for every category. In my absence, Todd Bryan was able to get a new PDF up during the 2nd week of January and change the HTML file that said what the prices were. I changed the prices in the secure section files after I got back from my vacation on January 16. In the future, if changes are to be made around the new year, it would be best if they are submitted in early December as I would not expect anyone on my team (or anyone else for that matter) to be available around the holiday season, give or take a week or two for travels.

Office Automation Committee:

Phil Winkler; 302-984-2698; pwink@dca.net

January 27, 2005

Plans:
It is time to update our office computers, operating system and some software. We currently use Windows 98 and Office 95. The computers are over 5 years old and likely will not even support Windows XP. The security available with Win98 is simply not adequate in today's infectious environment. We will research hardware costs over the next months to ensure good value.

Our office suite is now Microsoft Office 95. This will be replaced with Sun's OpenOffice package which is not only free, but fully compatible with current office suites. We have already switched to Grisoft's anti-viral software and trashed Norton. Our email package will be Eudora rather than Outlook Express and our browser is Firefox rather then Internet Explorer. Firefox is free from Mozilla and highly rated as superior to Internet Explorer.

The majority of these changes represent recommended best practices from some of the top experts in the field including Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. Microsoft products are both unsecure and expensive and these plans will reduce costs at the office.

Our accounting software, LedgerMaster, and our membership database, NSSTrak, are fully workable in a WinXP environment.

Later in the year I'll be exploring using Linux as our server operating system, but Novell remains the best choice for now for speed, security and reliability.

It's possible I could install new computers during convention as I plan to attend.

Progress:
Incorporated the new dues structure and membership types into NSSTrak in mid-January. Modified the Monthly Mailing to provide additional information on dropped members to the membership committee to aid in improving our member retention rate.

Problems:
Stephanie's computer needed to be reformatted and Windows reinstalled when it refused to boot. The error indicates the hard drive is probably failing due to age.

Market Analysis Committee

Debra Young; 321-984-0028; suzyoung@bellsouth.net

Plans:

Nothing at this time.

Progress:

Completed recommendation on Caves and Cameras. Gordon Birkhimer was in agreement. No new assignments at this time.

Problems:

None at this time.

Near the end of January I sent her a proposed book by Larry Matthews on Dunbar Cave in Tennessee. -- Tom Rea

NSS Library Committee:

Chuck Lundquist; 256-883-8926; lundquc@email.uah.edu

January 21, 2005

Progress:
During the past three months, since the last report, the NSS Library has continued on the path of dedicated automation. The Library now has its own personal computer and monitor. The former was a gift from an NSS member, and the latter was funded by the National Speleological Foundation. However, the Library is still using the office printer. A review of candidate equipment appropriate for needs of the Library is underway. The intent is to identify a combination printer and scanner that can be linked with the computer to the Internet. A capability is desired whereby a reference requested by a patron can be scanned and e-mailed to the patron in a facile operation. Currently, a requested reference is copied and sent to the patron by U.S. mail. When the desired heavy-duty printer and scanner equipment is identified, a request will be made to the NSF for funding support. The scanner can of course be used to copy items for online access, when that is appropriate and legal.

Plans:
In preparation for the many visitors expected during the Convention, and in general to improve safety, the stairs from the Office down to the Library have been modified to achieve a less steep configuration. This was done by volunteer labor under the coordination of the Librarian. During the coming months, other actions will be taken to prepare the Library for visitors during the Convention.

Problems:
None

Operations Manager:

Stephanie Searles; 256-852-1300; manager@caves.org

Progress:
I’m back from two months of maternity leave. I’m the proud mother of a healthy, sweet, cute, baby girl by the name of Mariah Nicole Searles. I would like to thank each member who sent cards, e-mail messages and gifts. Your kindness and thoughtfulness means a lot. I’m playing catch-up, so please; forgive me if your requests aren’t handled as quickly as they used to be. Please give me time to get settled. We’ll get back to normal.

I would like to thank my office staff (Annette, Bill, and Micca) for holding down the fort while I was away. They did an outstanding job during the Christmas Rush. Camille Mueller did an great job coming by and sorting out the more perplexing problems. I appreciate that help very much. Also, please welcome aboard Annette Nayman, our new NSS Office Secretary.

As of January 1, 2005, the NSS has new membership dues rates. Phil and I have been working hard to implement the new rates into NSSTrak (our database).

Phil has informed me of terrific ways to save the NSS money by downloading free copies of Firefox web browser by Mozilla and Open Office by Sun Microsystems. This means we don’t have to spend money on upgrading Microsoft Office software.

Plans:
Work more closely with Annette and train her on the office procedures and database functions. She was hired in October right before I left for maternity leave.

Annette is proficient in desktop publishing. We’re going to work together and create bookstore ads for the NSS News.

Create ways to promote the NSS Bookstore.

Tom is attending the budget meeting this weekend. Hopefully, budget will allow the office to purchase new operating system software – Microsoft XP, a new scanner, and new computers.

Still researching plans to install Auction Pay, which will give us "real time" processing of memberships and bookstore credit card orders.

Problems:
My hard drive crashed! It would be nice to get a new computer and get rid of this Gateway.

Photo Archives Committee:

Karen Kastning; 540-639-4666; karen@skyhopper.net

Winter 2005 Report of the NSS Photo Archives Committee

Plans:
Long-term plans:
To establish a detailed database for research purposes.

Not much progress over the holidays: Primarily working on cleaning of old negatives that were received by the archives in VERY dusty and often mildewed condition. Work is quite slow due to the need to wash each negative/strip one at a time - while taking care not to scratch or further damage the work.

Short-terms plans and activity:
Same as last time: work continues to progress (slowly) at putting sleeves on the large-format prints, sorting them into appropriate categories, and filing them.

Progress:
As mentioned in the plans section, some progress in reconditioning (primarily black and white negatives) and storage activities (large format prints).

Problems:
Same as recent years: I have not obtained any new photos directly from any cave photographers this year. I need a high quality scanner for slides and negatives to make the reconditioning work easier, as some of the repairs may be tackled easier with photo-editing software/tools. A scanner was requested as part of this year's budget request.

Speleo-Museum Committee:

Craig Hindman;410-792-0742; ctider@us.ibm.com

Progress:
The museum has not received any new collections since the last report. A file with over 200 items was sent to the Web site designer for space formatting and layout. This is a long-term project and will take time to complete.

Plans:
Purchase plastic storage bins so t-shirts and other clothing items can be moved out of paper boxes.

Problems:
None at this time.

2/14/05