Ms. Humphrey,

Your note is well considered. It asks relevant questions for which I don't have
answers, but I can comment on a couple of things:

>I do not know about all the Florida politics.  Frankly,
>I do not care unless it affects the diving I do.  Up
>to this point, I have found all the cave instructors of
>all the agencies I have come into contact with to be
>concerned and competent.  I have not met Mr. Rennaker,
>so I have no opinion.  I have met a lot of cave divers
>and with few exceptions have found them to again to be
>great people to know, who are competent, concerned divers.

Many of the people who dive and with and have been associated with the CDS are
indeed great folks. Many believe that they can work internally and effect
change there--I thought so. I was wrong and I recently spoke with more than one
recent board member who also believed that they could do the same, but learned
through bitter experience that the CDS is under the control of forces that are
unaffected year-to-year by elections--their words. The CDS HAS done good things
and will likely continue to do so in the future, but are a few good works
enough when your mandate is to represent cave divers and promote safety and you
aren't really doing that effectively?

>I do not know if money was stolen from the NSS or not.
>If it was, I assume the guilty are being prosecuted;
>if not, then maybe it was not taken.  

The money was stolen, twice--the Board refused to have an external audit for a
long time even after the second theft. I have to wonder at that. Why would a
volunteer organization that controls tens of thousands of their members dollars
and equipment be afraid of an external, independent audit?

UWS is a good publication generally, but you have no idea of the duress under
which it has been published, even today. It gets published in spite of the
Board of Directors, not because of them. The current editor, Beth, has done a
superb job just getting it out. The last three editors have had very little
good to say about their respective boards and the organization that supports
them.

>Frankly, I do not care unless it affects the diving I do.  

This is the real problem and what these groups count on and promote: apathy. So
long as you don't care, they have no incentive to make any positive changes. 

If you _really_ don't care, why don't you quit the CDS? You can always get UWS
by subscription.

Later,

JoeL
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