Thanks to Bennett Lee for the article in the new Texas Caver summarizing Texas caving organizations. However, the TSS, TCMA, and TCC are no more independent of the NSS than grottos and regions are. The organization of the NSS is confusing, in that there are "Internal Organizations" and there are "Activities." See http://caves.org/info/nss-orgs.shtml. IOs are grottos (chapters), regions, sections, surveys, and a mysterious entity called an affinity group. Activities are projects, cave conservancies, expeditions, and conservation task forces. To add to the confusion, a number of actual surveys are NSS projects (Activities), not NSS surveys (Internal Organizations). This all badly needs to be rationalized, and Bennett can easily be excused for not knowing the details. The new NSS members manual for 2015 contains lists of projects and CTFs but not other Activities, for some reason.
Neither IOs nor Activities get NSS funding automatically, but of course they can apply for various grants. Activities are, however, a bit more closely related to the NSS than IOs are, in that the NSS office can accept donations earmarked for Activities on their behalf. This means that donations to Activities that do not have their own tax-deductible status can be run though the NSS's books, in case the IRS questions them. You'd have to dig pretty deeply into the members' area on the NSS web site to discover this. Anyway, the Texas Speleological Survey is a project of the NSS (as is the Association for Mexican Cave Studies in Austin), and both the Texas Cave Conservancy and the Texas Cave Management Association are conservancies of the NSS. -- Bill Mixon ---------------------------------------- The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. ---------------------------------------- You may "reply" to the address this message (unless it's a TexasCavers list post) came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu AMCS: a...@mexicancaves.org or sa...@mexicancaves.org _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
