Peacock Springs CSO Committee Meeting 13 Sept 2003
We held our September meeting on Saturday the 13th. We had a very good turnout of park users to meet Tom Brown our new park manager, Wesley Jones & Ranger West. It was a good meeting and very informative, 6 of 7 the underground trail committee members also present. We enjoyed a covered dish lunch afterwards.
We will hold our New Year's Day raffle again this year to raise money to help pay for interpretive trail. Tom Johnson has graciously agreed to be the raffle coordinator this year. If you would like to donate a prize for the raffle please contact Tom at tj@dayo.com Dive Rite has already donated 2 $500 gift certificates to the committee to raffle off. We will also be placing a memorial plaque on the dressing area at Orange Grove New Year's Day in memory of Chris Henson, who donated time to help us with the building of the dressing area. If the timing is right we have asked Sandra Poucher to have a book signing New Year's Day also. The book Taming of the Slough should be released by then. As you see this will be a very good way to start your New Year. A free lunch will be provided at 1 PM at the Orange Grove pavilion, the time of the drawing.
Tom announced some state park price increases. Diving fee will be $10 a day, day use fees will be $3. A year pass will be $50 & tax per individual and $100 & tax for family. The commercial dive permits will raise to $150 & tax. These prices take effect on November 5, 2003.
Michael Poucher presented a map to the management team of the PSSP cave system with all of the radio locates the volunteers have identified. They will talk to the necessary people such as biologist who need to approve the path we would like our trail to take. We will be walking a proposed trail after the weather has cooled & some of the pesky park mosquitoes have left the area. We can dream about the pests can't we?
We are working on a cave critter identification workshop for the end of the year also. We will have more information on this project soon. We feel this will help for future fauna counts and for cave diver's to be able to make an accurate fauna report after a dive.
We voted to approve a change for membership fees. We now will just have a one time fee of $15 for new members, not a yearly membership fee.
Some events coming up in the near future are:
National Cave & Karst Management Symposium in Gainesville on Oct. 10-13, there will be a field trip to Ichetucknee & Peacock Springs State Parks
NACD Workshop Nov. 21-23 at the Best Western in Gainesville
TDI Workshop December 27th
PSSP CSO Committee A Division of the "Friends of the Ichetucknee"