Attachment D
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
NSS Operations Manager
Photo
Archives Committee
Speleo-Museum
Committee
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:
Get the second server up and running for Paul Stevens and his
on-line library project.
Looking into a more economical credit card processing system that will work automaticaly with on-line orders and memberships. It should also work with on-line convention registrations.
Keep an eye on the on-line Speleo-Museum and it’s (non)progress to ensure that this does in fact become a reality.
Progress:
I'm getting my feet on the ground and dealing, so far, mostly
with problems at the office.
On October 12 we dismissed Avis VanSwearingen from the office staff. Avis will be replaced by Annette Nayman. Annette will be working part time on a six-months probationary period. Annette was office manager for Camille Mueller, Our former Office Manager. She has extensive computer experience including word processing, desktop publishing, and data bases. I anticipate that she will be able to learn the membership functions before Stephanie goes on maternity leave.
Fellow Scottish clan member, Scott McCrea, is working to format the archives of the old bulletin board system so the threads can be posted on the Web. This won't happen overnight. There are 1,849 threads and 10,582 individual posts. I do not intend to opinionatedly delete or edit any of them in any way.
J. Reynolds Duncan, Jr; 256-852-4522; reynolds.duncan@worldnet.att.net
Here is my report. There is not much there because we spent the summer driving to, touring around, and driving back from Alaska. We are currently at Lake Tahoe, California, doing some volunteer work at the Tallac Historic Site and will be leaving here in early October for home. I checked the OVP info on the NSS Web site and my info is correct. Looking forward to working with you again.
September 21, 2004
Plans:
Continue with the review, sorting, and integration of the
material in the Archives.
Progress:
Other than responding to a few e-mail requests, there has not
been any activity because we have been on the road all summer.
Problems:
None.
Timothy C. White; 256-508-1908; kd4goc@bigfoot.com
Plans:
Roswell Jones had been busy scanning and coping the AV slide
archives to CD/DVD as auto-run slide shows.
Progress:
As of this time he has successfully made DVDs of five slide
shows, S-107 to S-112. He had attempted S-101 to S-106 but had
difficulty with the slide show program. The new software is
working. I will reship him S-101 to S-106 upon his request.
Problems:
None
Audio-Visual Committee (Video)
David Sockey; 703-989-7693; sockydr@cox.net
September 20, 2004
Plans:
Produce New educational video
Tray Murphy is still expressing interest in writing a script for an educational video about caving for children. When I see it, I’ll start working on production.
Progress:
Convert more VHS programs to DVD format (And slide programs to
CDs)
DVD is becoming the format of the future. More and more people are requesting programs on DVD.
Roswell Jones (Jonsey) gave me three samples of slide programs that he has converted to CD using the self running "SlideShowToGo" program. The pictures look great, but the sound quality of the narration for two of the programs leaves a little bit to be desired. I’m sure it’s due to the quality of the original tapes. In spite of this, I believe the CD format for slide programs is great, especially with the prevalence of computer projectors. If Jonsey is willing to do the conversion, I’m willing to put them in the library. I’ll be contacting Jonsey to talk about this in the near future.
PDF Library catalogue
Produce a "downloadable" PDF catalog of the slide and video library.
No progress
Update descriptions in library
Most of the descriptions for the video and slide selections are very terse, and not very helpful. Programs need to be reviewed and better descriptions written.
Corrected a few incorrect entries in the online AV Catalog. Deleted entries for those instances in which the office did not have the program, and added entries (and videos) for those that needed it. Still need to do more on updating descriptions, though.
Work with the TV/Video production Committee
Roberta Serface was recently selected to be the Chairman of the TV/Video Production committee. I am a part of the committee and plan to work closely with Roberta and others as much as possible. This relationship can help both the TV/Video Production Committee and the NSS AV Library.
No progress.
Problems:
none
Richard Blenz; 812-825-2345; rblenz@ucs.indiana.edu
Plans:
To keep going as usual til death do us part.
Problems:
None
Jim Hall; 205-772-9829; jimehall@cs.com
Everything is good
No progress.
No plans
No problems
Jim apparently is busy with convention planning. Bill Torode is taking care of routine maintenance around the office.
–T. Rea
Co-Chairmen: Keith D.
Wheeland; 814-238-2057; kwheeland@psualum.com
and Evelyn Bradshaw; 540-785-4048; ebradshaw@midatlanticbb.com
Members: Gary Bush, Eric McMaster, Esty Pape, and Dave Taylor.
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. The information for regions, sections, and surveys on the NSS Web site is updated manually by Gary Bush. He is up-to-date with changes.
After the NSS Convention, at the suggestion of Carol Tiderman, the I/O Committee sent a message to all sections reminding them to update their records with the I/O Committee. This was done because many sections conduct elections at Convention. It is important for Carol to have the contact information for the latest officers. At least two sections responded to this request.
Co-Chairman Wheeland actually had a face-to-face meeting with Eric McMaster, the person who is the web master for the I/O Committee records site. He generously provides space and time on his server to access and update the I/O records.
Co-Chairman Wheeland is pleased that many I/Os are using the online facilities to update their records whenever changes occur. This is a shift from updating only at Annual Report time.
New I/Os and Reinstatements:
Co-Chairman Bradshaw is working on some new applications.
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:
None
IT Team Chairman: Kelley Prebil; 650-520-3150; webmistress@molokovelloct.net
Progress:
We now have 14 moderators for the NSS Discussion Board. Some
are more active than others are, but all forums have at least one
moderator. I would like to add more though to some of the forums
to help the other guys out. We now have 24 forums and almost all
the Directors and Executive Board members signed up at least for
an account.
The board also has three different custom styles that people can pick what they want. I plan on adding a couple of more in the next several days to allow more choices among members.
We now have our own SSL certificate for secure transactions on the NSS server. The membership forums are being moved off of my personal account onto a third-party server and directly onto the NSS server. Todd Bryan was assigned to work out any bugs in transferring the Perl/CGI files to the NSS server and offered to change the HTML links also.
Todd Bryan also got IMO back up and running. Todd and Alex know each other personally so this seemed to be a great fit for technical concerns with IMO.
The search engine for "IO lookup" was not working properly on the new server. Dave Olsen stepped in and fixed it. Apparently most of the code was missing that would make it work properly. It works perfectly now.
The various NSS brochures are being updated on the Web as they come in.
A domain for the NSS Library has been registered as nsspubs.org Paul Stevens is currently in the middle of moving and can not be contacted via e-mail. Tom Evans will be working with Paul on getting the NSS Library up and running. Our hosting for nsspubs.org is with a dedicated Windows 2000 server on Sectorlink.
Some members have requested that the old threads from the old discussion board be turned into an archive. Tom Rea offered to take on the task. I emailed him the CD of all the files, which he saw what a mess and huge project it would be to turn everything into HTML format. The issue last stands as Tom saying that he didn’t have time either to deal with such a huge task.
As reported above I have found a volunteer who is working on this project – T. Rea
The AV order form was modified to let the NSS Office know what format people wanted various titles in. This way Avis doesn’t have to look up every single ordered item to find out the details.
Payment for both the Valueweb and Sectorlink accounts has been switched to be billed automatically through the NSS credit card starting with charges in October. Previously it has been to my personal credit card and Stephanie Searles has been reimbursing me.
caves.org itself is finally getting revamped slowly but surely. A new background has been added with some reformating of the front page. Cheryl Jones re-wrote the intro text. A banner was made with photos I had from the 2003 convention that was submitted by Dave Bunnell among others. The banner is intended to be on the main page and no other pages. Scott Fee has informed me of some missing links from the main page.
The Youth Groups Information website has gone live and had a link added to the main page also.
Plans:
Need to make sure that all areas of caves.org that were
affected by the new background have had their text link color
changed as the light blue is no longer clearly readable.
I will be creating new templates for the discussion board when I have some free time. I’m hoping to have "something for everyone" or at least a style that everyone coming to the boards will like (and stop complaining that other ones exist …)
Problems:
The Great X Page needs a new webmaster. No one has stepped up
to the task yet.
Some people are claiming that the discussion board moderators are playing "favorites," which they’re having a hard time dealing with as they are trying to be as impartial and fair as they can be.
I would really like to get ahold of a clean copy of the NSS logo. Right now I’ve been working with ones that have already been optimized for the web or taken through a webshot which leaves the copy I have to be less-than-ideal.
A clean copy was e-mailed 10/7 – T. Rea
Thomas Evans and Paul Stevens seem to be unable to get ahold of each other. With Paul offline right now, I’m not sure how to resolve this issue. Paul thinks Tom disappeared and Tom thinks that Paul never e-mailed him.
Phil Winkler; 302-984-2698; pwink@dca.net
Progress:
Responded to several requests for statistical data on
membership renewal stuff. Downloaded copies of both databases in
case the hurricane caused major problems. Restored NSSnumber
information for all customer records in LedgerMaster and
corrected bug that caused the loss in the first place.
Plans:
Research modifications needed in NSStrak (considerable) to
support new membership categories if approved by the Board.
Researched and developed modifications needed to accommodate
auto-renewal of membership via credit card similar to model used
by SCCA.
Problems:
None
Debra Young; 321-984-0028; suzyoung@bellsouth.net
Plans:
Currently working on review of the new book, On Caves and
Cameras.
Progress:
Received emails of first three chapters and the entire book on
disk along with publisher quotes and related email. I spoke with
Norm Thompson while out in Colorado and discussed issues. I have
been evaluating prices and content of similar books. Barring
anymore storm systems through this state, I should be ready to
make a recommendation very shortly.
Problems:
None at this time.
Charles Lundquist; 256-883-8926; lundquc@email.uah.edu
September 24, 2004
Progress:
The report of July 6 by the Library Development Commission of
the Huntsville Grotto related that two previously used
fire-retardant security safes had been delivered to the NSS
Library. Since July, one has been cleaned and an initial
selection of valuable books has been stored in it. There is room
for additional items to be put in this safe, as further valuable
items are identified. The second safe is in the cleaning process.
Additional accomplishments include:
Tabulation of duplicate holdings
Retro-design and update of the book database.
Tabulation of vertical files.
Plans:
A state-of-the-art desktop computer without a monitor has
been donated to the NSS for the Library. This computer, having a
1.5 Mhz processor, 512 Megabytes of RAM and a 40 Gigabyte hard
drive, has been delivered to the Library. A high quality monitor
has been ordered, and it will be delivered by about the first of
October. (The National Speleological Foundation has agreed to
refund the cost of this purchase.) In October, this dedicated
system will be installed in the Library and linked to the
Internet through the NSS Office hub. It can then handle inquiry
and answer traffic for the Librarian. Also, the updated library
catalog and other information will be installed on the computer
for use by patrons in the library.
We will begin to prepare the Library for member visits during the 2005 National Convention.
Problems:
None at the moment.
Richard Downey has stepped down as Library Committee Chairman. I have appointed Charles Lundquest to this position. Charles has been the leader of the Huntsville Grotto Library Development Commission, which has done much to improve the library over the past year. The Commission now becomes the NSS Library Committee. I did not advertise this particular job opening because the replacement was so obvious it would be an insult to suggest I might think there was someone who could do better. –T. Rea
Stephanie Searles; 256-852-1300; manager@caves.org
Progress:
Convention 2004 was held in Marquette, Michigan, July 12–16,
2004. Avis and I arrived on Friday, July 9th. We set-up the
bookstore on Saturday, and thank goodness for all the good help
we had (I won’t mentioned names, but you know who you are).
Sunday, we took a day off to prepare for a busy week.
| Convention 2004 Sales (Mich) vs. Convention 2003 Sales (Calif) | ||||||||
| Date | Orders | Total | Date | Orders | Total | $ Variance | Order Variance | |
| July 12-16, 2004 | 217 |
6,598.97 |
Aug 4-8, 2003 | 242 |
7,219.37 |
(620.40) |
(25) |
|
Top Sellers at Convention
2004:
1958 Speleo Digest – 6
1989 Speleo Digest – 11
2002 Speleo Digest – 7
2003 Convention GB – 6
2004 SERA GB – 11
All-Weather Notebook – 6
Beneath The Surface – 5
Beneath Their Feet – 6
Cave Minerals – 10 (includes 5 vendor sales)
Delving Deeper – 7
Gems of the Golden State – 7
Guide to Cave Mapping – 6
Hidden Beneath the Mountains – 6
Mammoth Cave & the KY Cave Region – 6
On Call (PB & HB) – 10 (includes 5 vendor sales)
On Rope – 10 (includes 8 vendor sales)
On Station – 13 (includes 8 vendor sales)
Song of Hiawatha – 17
Speleogenesis – 6
Taming of the Slough – 12
Hidden World of Caves – 5
Avis and Jim attended Old Timers Reunion in Elkins, West Virginia. As always, Avis works hard to promote the NSS Bookstore during these events.
| OTR Sales YR 2004 vs. 2003 | ||||||
| Year | Sales | Year | Sales | $ Variance | ||
2004 |
2,081.19 |
2003 |
2,246.09 |
(164.90) |
||
Since Cave Minerals of the World price reduction (as of June 2003 the retail price decreased from $70.00 to $45.00), total sales May 2004 – August 2004 = 55, total sales May 2003 – August 2003 = 79. 24 fewer copies sold this period vs. last period.
It had been suggested to me to try to get Cave Minerals in the Smithsonian D.C. bookstore. I sent a letter to the book buyer in June and finally got a response in August. My contact asked me to fill out a vendor form. I completed the vendor form and the Smithsonian in D.C. ordered five copies.
Since the premiere of Taming of the Slough, 326 copies have been sold. This does not include 21 promo mailings and the 163 copies sent out in June as targeted mailings to university and specialty bookstores and recreational book wholesalers (the mailing list and flyer was provided by David McClurg). Included in the mailings:
I took the initiative and sent out promotional copies of Taming. I obtained a list of the American Wholesale Booksellers Association list, which included 15 wholesale members. Also, I used the database to create a query listing all NSS vendors (No caving diving shops where included in the selection criteria).
We received responses from several distributors stating "Taming" does not meet their needs and/or selection criteria. But the good news is we have our foot in the door at Amazon.com, Quality Books, Follett Library Resources and Ginnie Springs Outdoors.
Here’s a list of vendor
sales for "Taming" as of 8/31/04:
Quality Books – 30 copies
Amazon – 56 copies
Inner Realm – 10 copies
Speleobooks – 15 copies
Ginnie Springs – 48 copies
Dive Outpost – 10 copies.
We are now out of stock of the Membership Renewal Specials Flyer (Members save 10% on NSS Pubs when they renew their membership at the same time of placing their book order). This is the 4th batch and we began placing this flyer in membership renewals in Dec 2003. The total bookstore sales from December 2003 through August 2004 total $2,178.14.
Sales:
Cave Minerals – 14 copies
Caving Basics – 18 copies
Hidden World of Caves – 12 copies
On Call (HB and PB) – 11 copies
Speleogenesis – 14 copies.
David McClurg and I are working on a new membership renewal specials flyer that will remove the symbolic items from the flyer and replace it with Taming.
| NSS Book Store Sales 2nd Qtr 2004 Comparison 2nd Qtr 2003 | ||||||||
| Month | Orders | Prd $ Total | Month | Orders | Prd $ Total | Order Variance | $ Variance | |
| April 2004 | 143 | 5,937.20 |
April 2003 | 197 | 9,740.73 |
(54) | (3,803.53) |
|
| May 2004 | 135 | 8,428.59 |
May 2003 | 163 | 9,720.53 |
(28) | (1,291.94) |
|
| June 2004 | 140 | 7,470.91 |
June 2003 | 117 | 6,748.33 |
23 | 722.58 |
|
| Qtr Total | 418 | 21,836.70 |
Qtr Total | 477 | 26,209.59 |
(59) | (4,372.89) |
|
Upgraded each workstation to Norton Anti-Virus 2004. Phil reminded me to exclude the network from the virus scan, which would have slowed down the network performance/speed.
We ordered and received a small quantity of membership brochures to last until the end of the year when dues are expected to change. The "general" membership category was changed to "limited" for this run.
I’m currently working with NSS Member Michael Hornung, who works for Northern Merchant Services to try to get a better credit card discount rate. Using "real time."
Northern Merchant Services would process all credit cards received over the Web for book orders and memberships.
Plans:
Possibly upgrade the office operating systems to Microsoft
XP. Phil has confirmed that the database will operate using
Microsoft XP.
Purchase new office scanner to replace the broken one so we can continue to scan book covers for the Website.
Continue to plan ahead so when I take maternity leave, the office will run smoothly.
Problems:
none at present
Due mainly to budget concerns, the office will close at 4:00 P.M. rather than 5:00 P.M. during Stephanie's maternity leave. Avis and Micca will work the following hours:
Annette:
Monday: 12–4
Tuesday: 8–4
Wednesday: 12–4
Thursday: 8–4
Friday: off
Total: 22 hours per week
Micca:
Monday: 8–12
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: 8–12
Thursday: off
Friday: 8–4
Total: 16 hours per week
–T. Rea
Karen Kastning; 540-639-4666; karen@skyhopper.net
additional committee member Ernst H. Kastning)
Plans:
Long-term plans: To establish a detailed database for
research purposes. Very little progress on this during the busy
summer months: Primary focus continues to be the 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 or 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:
Received a few photos donated through the NSS Photo Salon.
Also, 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, although I did
speak with some of them at the convention about potentially
donating a collection in later years. I still need a high
quality scanner for slides and negatives. It would make the
reconditioning work easier, as some of the repairs may be tackled
easier with photo-editing software and tools.
I also need a new scanner to replace the broken one at the office. I have asked Karen for her plans for the scanner in order to make a selection. I will find the money somewhere off budget. –T. Rea
Craig Hindman; 410-792-0742; ctider@us.ibm.com
Progress:
We received three shipping containers 2 feet by 2 feet by 5
feet on wheels, they are fiberglass and watertight; received 27
collections.
Plans:
Take possession of two more collections at the Huntsville
convention.
The on-line Museum will come on-line as time permits. There is a program being developed to enter the pictures and text, as well as sound and motion pictures. But this will take time. I am not sure when this will come to fruition.
Problems:
making contact with a potential donor of display cases.
I don't see any progress on the Web display of the museum collection. This is becoming a vexing problem. I have asked Craig to search for a volunteer to help with the project. –T. Rea
11/2/04