I learned caving from my girlfriend while teaching her rock climbing. After that I worked on a number of projects. For several years I avoided grottoes, working with a college caving club instead, because my experiences with the closest grotto were not so good. Words like elitist, controlling, lazy, and self-centered are unfair to some members of said grotto but accurately describe my initial encounters, mainly on regional projects. I vaguely considered the NSS but lack of money and any immediate reason caused me to not really consider joining.
A couple of years later I went to a couple of meetings of a different grotto during a summer internship. I found them to be a friendly group and joined. I've been a member of that grotto ever since, even when I am a long drive away. The active and friendly atmosphere is worth it.
Back to the original NSS question. After caving for about four or five years an envelope showed up in my mail box with my new NSS membership card. What the $%#! is this? I didn't sign up for the NSS. After reading the registration I realized all my personal information was incorrect except name and age. I was immediately suspicious of several of my "established" caving friends who had occasionally badgered me about joining. I asked around and discovered that two of the other better known non-NSS types I caved with had also received memberships out of nowhere. I investigated and none of my regular contacts knew anything about it.
After a while I realized that the only common project I had done recently with the other two cavers that received NSS memberships was a CRF sponsored dig, where the permit required name and age. Although it remains unproven I assume that some CRF type decided we should be NSS members and sent in registration, conveniently forgetting to mention it.
I have since maintained my membership for a couple of reasons. First while I don't do much with the NSS I figure my money is generally well spent on advocating the protection of caves even if I don't like cave politics. Second, I can order books which are NSS member only. And third, at the time I didn't want to lose the NSS number I got which was kind of cool.
Anyway, sorry about the ramble but at the beginning of the thread someone asked...
James