I am home safe and back at work. I have several things to talk about and will be posting them over the next few days, so please just hit the delete button if you are not interested.
First I would like to thank all the people that volunteered to put on the convention and do all the hard work. Among them were: Buford Pruitt, William Shrewsbury, Marianne Gamble, Emily Davis, Russ Kennedy, and Marsha Bush, but there were many others whose names I didn't learn. I am glad I went to the convention. On a personal level, I wish I could have done my itinerary different; but I feel in hindsight, that I did the best that I could under the circumstances. My trip could have been much worse, as I was not properly prepared for emergencies like a car breakdown. I took a gamble, and I lucked out this time around. I presume now that all the convention activities are over with. I guess with the tropical storm blowing in that the post-convention camp is packing up. I guess the organizers still have some loose ends to tie up? I think holding the NSS Convention in Lake City was fine. There were some good things about this location and quite a few things that were not as good as previous conventions. I think everybody who did the float trip down the Ichetucknee River is glad they went to the convention. The hotel zone was only about 20 minutes from the Ichetucknee River. This is the only convention I recall were the campground was within walking distance of a Walmart and several good restaurants. Zaxby's Restaurant was only about 1/4 mile from the big tree at the campground. This was a benefit to the 3 or 4 people who wanted to spend most of the convention relaxing under the big tree. The noise level in the campground of the city was much less than I expected. The roar of the highway traffic was about a mile away. The lights of the Walmart and other nearby buildings was the negative side effect of having everything convenient. It would have been great if the Mayor could have got everybody in town to dim their lights for the convention. But that is not realistic. In my opinion, the number one problem with the convention was the college campus was too far from the hotel zone and the campground. I think the regular convention attendees who have the schedule ingrained in their memory don't have a problem with this, but to attendees unfamiliar with how an NSS Convention operates, this distance seems inconvenient. I think the number 2 problem was the convention was put on by a small group of people. I believe they were under-staffed. It appeared to me like 3 or 4 people did the brunt of the work. I think the number 3 problem was the campground should have been mowed the week before the convention, at least around the big tree. The outhouses were new and saw little use. [ I want the NSS to require that all outhouses be placed under heavy duty tarps to provide shade and protection from the rain. ] I think there was an ant problem, but the only confirmation I have is that I had lots of ants inside my car, and I was sleeping in my car. I don't know if anybody took showers on campus, but I did. There was no hot water. I didn't mind, because the weather was hot and humid. Also, it took me a while to find the showers. The campground showers might have been adequate for the few number of people that decided to camp, but I only used them once, so I can't verify that. At other conventions, the NSS had sole use of the facilities ( for example, the high school in Indiana ). But there was college activity going on in the main building were many of the vendors and registration was. I thought the location of the self-viewing of the videos was poor. At future conventions, I would like to see this improved. Couches, popcorn, quiet, no traffic, no distractions, big tv, good sound, and someone to go to when the equipment fails. ( I will volunteer to help assist the organizer of this at ICS. I will post more on that later. ) The Bellingham Convention set the standard for the Fine Arts Salon. They put all the artwork in a gallery and had a party with food and drinks. In my opinion, Florida could have been better. [ ICS should challenge Bellingham and set a new standard for the Fine Arts Salon. ] I had trouble in the evenings finding an internet connection. Even with my wi-fi gadget, I had to hunt for a place to check my e-mail. However, this most likely was due to the fact that I was only at the convention 2 days, and never had time to learn were everything was. I only spoke to a few people about the NSS Salon. They seemed to have mixed feelings about it. I would like to commend the person who came up with the idea to put Chinese Olympic music to the slideshow of the award photos. This was ingenious, and is a much bigger improvement on the way it has been done in the past. Kudos to this person. ( Ann Bosted ?? ) Also, Keith Goggin wrote and played music for the Photo Salon. This was great. I would like to someday see live music performed at this with a a symphonic quartet with maybe a harpist and a bass drum and a gong, but not so that it distracts from the photos. In my opinion, the auditorium was not as good as previous conventions. Again, Bellingham set the standard which will probably never be that good again. The lighting along the isles was distracting to the photos. The sound was poor. The slide screen could have been a hair bigger. ( but I was sitting on the last row ). Refreshments should have been provided before the show, during intermission, and after the show. People bolted after the show instead of socializing, or they went somewhere else to socialize such as their hotel, or the campground or a restaurant. [ I am certain that ICS will have a fine salon, but I would like to remind everybody again how great Bellingham was. ] I missed more of the convention than I thought I would. I was really only there 2 days, and during that 2 days, I missed some of the sessions that I wanted to see. I did manage to carefully watch all of the videos. I personally feel that the Award winner did not deserve an award. Not only that, I feel it should not have even been accepted. In my opinion, had it been released 10 years ago, it would have possibly been criticized for glamorizing certain aspects of caving. I believe this video may be shown on TV. Is this really the image that cavers want to project to the general public? It seems to be the general trend of caving programs on TV. ( I bet there might be some old timers out there that agree with me on this. ) I think the quality of Wes Skiles video "Hard Attack" was absolutely incredible. Unfortunately, it was more like a video clip on YouTube. It was not a documentary. Cavers need a new video category for these kind of videos. Everybody at the convention enjoyed the Ezell's Cave video. I have always wanted to visit Ezell's Cave, but now I feel like I have already seen it, and there is no reason ( for me ) to explore it. So kudos to Jean Krejca and Jon Cradit and anybody I failed to mention. The next generation of cavers will probably make videos like that of every significant Texas cave, and they may use the Ezell's Cave video as the bar to follow. This video was for sale at the convention, and will most likely be available at TCR and ICS for $ 20. I sold $ 107 worth of stuff at the Consignment sales. Mostly, 4 LED flashlights that I reviewed last year on Cavetex. The NSS gets about $ 41, unfortunately, some of that money goes to overhead like renting the consignment room at the campus. I presume the Convention lost money. I would only be guessing that it was a loss of $ 600. If that is true, it will need to be replenished from other sources. For me the worst thing that happened on the trip was my daughter's goldfish died. Had I stayed home, and took care of affairs, this most likely could have been prevented. The next worse thing, is that the money, I spent on the trip was this month's car payment. I have less than 48 hours, before the bank puts it in repo status. The weather was an issue. The Maine convention set the standard for awesome weather. I think the NSS needs to plan better for holding events in the rain, and attendees need to accept that it often rains during caving events. [ I would like to propose that someone at ICS bring a barrell full of umbrellas and pass them out for "free" to attendees. If this proposal is acceptable, then I would like to add the following: This barrel could be placed near the main session area. I will donate a few umbrellas to the barrel. Will someone donate a barrel? Will someone volunteer to keep an eye on the barrel? Will someone volunteer to let attendees know about the free umbrellas prior to coming? I will talk about this proposal later in a separate post. ] To be continued ..... David Locklear arm-chair caver in Fort Bend County, Texas
