The SFBC has $150 in scholarship available to members who attend an upcoming training seminar this year and are willing to give back to the grotto in the form of a talk, article, training, or other method of your choice.
The next National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC) seminar will be on Cave Rescue Operations and Management 6-13 July in Schoharie New York. Registration costs are $575. More information on this event can be obtained on the NCRC web site:
If you are interested in applying for a SFBC scholarship for this event, send an email to Nick at treasurer.sfbc@gmail.com with your proposal before 1 July 2013 for transferring some of your skills back to the grotto.
“They (SFBC member Nick Schmalenberger) kindly attended one of our meetings, and we, in turn, attended their’s. We were delighted to meet members of the National Speleological Society’s San Francisco Bay Chapter (SFBC) at one of our quarterly coffees in Fremont a while back. Much to our surprise, they saw our New Irvington Tunnel (NIT) blog and became interested in the project. They invited us to speak at one of their future meetings about our man-made ‘cave’. Last week Project Manager David Tsztoo and Geologist Rebecca Fusee made a presentation at the SFBC general meeting and ‘rocked out’ as it were by talking about the NIT Project and the complex geology it passes through.”
The SFBC is hosting the Spring 2013 NSS BOG Meeting. NSS Directors and Officers are not compensated for the time or expenses they incur. Please join your fellow SFBC members and other California Cavers by volunteering to provide lodging and transportation for them. You can download the volunteer forms at http://www.sfbaycaving.org/documents/BOG_Meeting_Housing.pdf. For more information about the BOG Meeting, see http://www.sfbaycaving.org/bog2013.html.
Longtime SFBC member David McClurg took his last breath on Earth 29 November at 10:20AM.
David and his lovely wife Janet were very active and influential in the SFBC Grotto in the 1970s and 80s.
Dave introduced many of us to caving and caving techniques. He was an accomplished cave photographer, wrote several books on caving, and contributed to the Hodag cave ballad movement.
He ran the 1975 NSS FrogTown CA convention, when it was still possible to drive to the Lilburn cabin.
Dave and Janet were awarded lifetime membership in SFBC.
The new Pinnacles National Monument is a unique landscape, just an hour south of the SF Bay Area.
We use the area for vertical climbing practice and enjoy exploring the large talus caves.
The Park Service has just released a draft management plan and is soliciting comments.
It is important for all potential users of this park to review and comment on the proposed options.
The Park Service is required to consider all comments that it receives.
Please join us, Tuesday September 25, at 7:30 pm at our usual spot in the Menlo Park USGS campus for our monthly members meeting. For those who need directions, you can find detailed instructions at: http://blog.sfbcgrotto.org/sfbcinformation/
Walt Vennum will present “Field Geology in Antarctica” which will cover a bit about the geology and, what it is like to live and work in a really remote, inhospitable and (sometimes) beautiful place for an extended period of time.
As a member of Diablo Grotto since the early-mid 90s, he has caved in both the Western and Eastern US as well as Mexico, Guatemala and Cuba. Walt’s interest in big wall rock climbing in Yosemite led him into caving. He earned a PhD in geology from Stanford in the early 1970s after doing a dissertation on the igneous rocks of Castle Crags Wilderness Area in northern California. He has worked for the USGS in SE Alaska, Antarctica and Saudi Arabia and then became a geology professor at Sonoma State University (SSU) near Santa Rosa. He has since retired from SSU.
SFBC can still match $400 of more money for the NSS Headquarters Fund! Please send money! The new headquarters is a really great property, and much needed for the library and other NSS functions including a campground. For more information about the headquarters and the fundraising visit http://www.caves.org/commission/hq/. We can also take donations by Paypal, which we will then include in the check with the matching money (or we can do cash donations that way also). If you write a check, you can make it out directly to the fund and I will mail it with our check. Click the button below to donate with Paypal.
