Why not make copies and post in all of the locations mentioned.
Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: Stephen Fleming
To: Steve Peerman ; Blake N. Jordan ; Kathy Peerman ; NM Caver List
Cc: Lynda & James Sánchez ; 'Aaron Stockton' ; Ron ; Pete Lindsley
Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2012 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: [SWR] Proclamation
Peerman's comments clearly lay out the root of the problem.
One other thing before I continue. This discussion, like a number that
occurred during the 50th planning, started out as a fairly inclusive
conversation which devolved into a discussion among a small group of FSCSP
participants about things that are not FSCSP issues and excluding the larger
interested parties of the SWR. As I have noted before, not everything occurring
at Fort Stanton is the exclusive purview of the FSCSP, or the SWR, or the state
monument or the BLM. Their interests often intersect but often do not. This is
a case where the discussion ought to be (and is returning via this note going
to the list) among the SWR membership. So, the discussion of the resting place
of awards and memorabilia needs to involve the SWR when the artifacts are
related to the organization. That is not happening at the moment. So, the point
of this is the next time you want to discuss this topic, send it to the SWR
list so everyone can see it.
In this instance, I have added the two other SWR officers who were not party
to the earlier rounds on this.
Okay, now I will summarize some of the comments I've received since posting
the proclamation (some were to the list, some to me only). I think all
interested members should have a voice. That probably would mean a large number
would agree with the idea of keeping it in NM, but those wanting such also
should provide feasible and suitable alternatives as to where and how to
display it, not just 'keep it in the state'.
The suggestions so far are these:
NSS
NCKRI
New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources museum, on the campus of
New Mexico Tech
Carlsbad Caverns Visitor Center
Ft Stanton bunk house
BLM refurbished headquarters on the quad
NCA/FSCave Room of the Fort Stanton Museum
As Peerman notes, the SWR membership and interests are far broader than Fort
Stanton and the FSCSP. The FSCSP represents a fraction of NM cavers and most of
them are SWR members. It is a subset of caving in NM, nothing more. The SWR
just happened to be formed at Fort Stanton in 1962 and has no other connotation
relative to the cave and the area than that.
Some comments on the above suggestions.
First, none of the locations is even close to ideal, but some are better than
others.
Veni has said NCKRI would take it and display it, but thinks it more
appropriate for the NSS to have it due to organizational alignments. I agree
with George's view, though I'm not opposed to it going to NCKRI. Plus, it's a
long way out of the mainstream for most to go see it. The only location I am
adamantly opposed to is letting any unit of the NPS touch it. The NPS has done
nothing with or for the SWR compared to other agencies. That said, I also would
not give it to BLM or any other governmental entity. It is not a BLM award, and
putting it in the BLM office at Stanton is tantamount to it disappearing as
access is and will be extremely limited. On that point, access will always be
an issue since no location is convenient to even a small majority of folks that
might be interested in seeing it in person.
The bunkhouse is a no-go due to lack of control of the facility plus, as
Peerman notes, the connection to the FSCSP. Anything put in there can disappear
and such loss would not be apparent for some time due to the limited use of the
building by cavers, but clearly unrestricted access by anyone that cares to
wander in.
The document and other items (the BLM national volunteer award and the
Tularosa banner) need to be in some public facility where they will be secure.
The Fort Stanton museum would qualify, but it has the same issues of access
(unreliable hours being the main one) plus, face it, the cave room is mostly an
afterthought and the facility does not do much other than tolerate its
presence. Plus, the geography issue is the same as for the bunkhouse and the
BLM office. While the proclamation would easily fit, the banner would not. If
we're going to solve this we need to think about all the items now and those
that may accrue in the future.
The NM Tech suggestion qualifies as a public facility that likely has much
more reliable hours of operation than the Fort Stanton museum, plus it clearly
is in a central location. But, would anyone know to go there? Probably not.
Would they even want to display the items? Maybe, but I'm guessing that since
that facility is predominantly a rock shop, paper and fabric would be of little
interest to them.
The overarching concern about where to place these items ought to be
accessibility and security. And by security I mean that it be somewhere that
the archivists understand and appreciate the nature of the items and they do
not someday achieve the status of the Gary Davis painting of Feather Cave which
someone in BLM decided was (framed and matted) trash and was almost lost in the
dumpster had Bilbo not seen and rescued it in a fortuitous alignment of the
stars. If a facility does not have a preservation focus for a particular area,
those items become discardable at some point, as in the Gary Davis instance.
Therefore, any facility that is not expressly a museum of some type is
suspect and unsuitable in my opinion.
Now, to address the concern that the document stay in NM. Fine, but where?
NCKRI and NMT satisfy the museum standard but are not ideal.
My preference is to send it to the NSS. It will be no more or less accessible
to NM cavers than the items Peerman has been holding, for decades in the case
of the banner. How was that more useful and accessible to cavers? It wasn't and
isn't. I did not even know he had them and I suspect a great majority of other
SWR cavers are likewise in the dark. Well, they may not be at present, but the
memory will recede. It would be better to have the items in a museum where they
can be cared for rather than stored in a closet or wherever. Along those lines
I have a second SWR banner that I bought when we made the current one. It's
slightly smaller and I frequently ask myself why I thought it necessary to get
it. I would send it to the NSS along with the other items.
Face it, most cavers will only ever view these things as graphics on a
website. What exactly do they gain by standing in a room somewhere in NM and
looking at it in a frame? Nothing and they have to make the effort to go there.
The NSS museum arguably will protect it better and it will contribute to the
national caving exposure in a facility expressly dedicated to caving, where it
will not end up in a dumpster someday, or deteriorating in a closet, or
eventually lost to memory.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Stephen Fleming
On 06/02/2012 9:53, Steve Peerman wrote:
Lynda,
It is a problem -- the SWR has no physical headquarters, and we're a
diverse bunch. The people that you see, Lynda, are the ones who participate in
the FSCSP, but there are others whose focus are the gypsum caves in the eastern
and southern parts of the state, and still others whose focus are the great
limestone caves of the Guadalupe Mountains. And there are a great many SWR
members who are "armchair" cavers who no longer actively cave anywhere anymore.
Despite the work project at the fort that we did to get the cafeteria, I don't
think most SWR cavers would feel close ties to the fort.
If the FSCSP had exclusive use of the bunkhouse, I'd have no problem
displaying these awards there, but there would be SWR members who would object
to that because the FSCSP is independent of the SWR. But I have to agree with
those who object to the proclamation going to the NSS archives, because most
SWR members would never see it there.
Perhaps you noticed the banner from the 1986 NSS convention at Tularosa
at the cafeteria last week. Kathy and I have kept that banner since the
convention, because her dad was the one who painted it. We discussed
donating the banner to the NSS archives at one point and we brought it up to
the person who was in charge at the time (but I don't recall who that was). He
recommended against it. He said that they have all kinds of stuff in the
archives, and it sits there gathering dust -- no one ever sees the stuff
because they didn't really have a place to display the materials or the staff
to properly document and organize the stuff. Now the NSS is getting a new
headquarters facility and they may have more resources for the display of such
materials, but until we know that, I would suggest we keep these things in the
area.
On Jun 2, 2012, at 8:20 AM, Lynda & James Sánchez wrote:
Good morning...Well that is also great news Steve, and I agree, it would be
nice to have it, them, displayed. So SWR has two special
awards/proclamations. I would reiterate again what I said below. SWR, because
of the volunteer carpenter project completed on bldg. 9, has a good working
relationship with both BLM and/or State Monuments. The most attractive place
and the area that it will be seen the most would logically be the Museum on the
Quad. BLM is not going to have their building complete for a while, but the
NCA room area would really be nice. Could we ask someone like Knutt Peterson
to help frame them either separately or together and place them on the special
fish line hangers they used for the other cave exhibits/map etc in the NCA room?
If not that, then does anyone else have a thought? Carlsbad would also be
great. Lynda
-----Original Message----- From: Steve Peerman
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2012 9:15 PM
To: Lynda & James Sánchez
Cc: Ron ; 'Stephen Fleming' ; John Corcoran ; 'Aaron Stockton' ; Pete Lindsley
; Wayne Walker
Subject: Re: [SWR] Proclamation
The region also got a national volunteer award from the BLM, which I have at my
house. If there were some place that these things could be displayed it would
be great.
On Jun 1, 2012, at 6:38 PM, Lynda & James Sánchez wrote:
All, you know, I was kind of thinking that too. A good copy could be sent to
NSS back east, but keep the original in NM. Maybe even in the BLM refurbished
headquarters on the quad once it is put in order, and in the meantime at the
Bunkhouse or Carlsbad Visitor Center. But still in NM. And what better place
than at Fort Stanton vicinity. Or, we could have it kept in the NCA/FSCave
Room of the Fort Stanton Museum. That is a really beautiful and historic
location and has photos of the cave. At any rate, I bet we could come up with
a safe place for it right here.
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