Thanks, Cheryl. I hope everyone enjoys it, and I'm sorry it took so long to get it out. I had intended to have it out by the end of last year, but health problems prevented that.
I would have responded sooner, but I was up in Virginia working and teaching at the NCRC seminar from the 13th until the 24th. I got home late Sunday night after helping with the site clean-up work most of the day Sunday.
After much consideration, I have decided that it is time for me to step down as ACA Editor and let a new person take over and bring fresh ideas and perspective to the publication. I have been producing the ACA for almost 11 years, and would like to hand the editorship off to a capable person and focus other projects. I will give my full support to whomever the Board appoints to the position, and would like to remain on the ACA committee to support the new editor and help ensure that the next issue containing the 2006 reports gets published before the end of the year. I would also like to work on other projects related to ACA, such as an expansion of the ACA web page on the NSS site and the publication of back issues of ACA in electronic form.
I have enjoyed being ACA editor and I hope that the next editor will be able to achieve one thing that I was not able to accomplish - get the ACA back on an annual publication schedule. The next one should be out by the end of the year, which is a bit tight considering that the EVP will have to advertise the position, review candidates, and nominate a candidate to the BOG so that they can appoint a new editor. In the meantime, I will be working on the 2006 reports as much as I can to smooth the transition and make sure the new editor can get it done by December.
I would like to thank all the people who have helped me with ACA over the 11 years I have been producing it. They are too many to list, but they know who they are, and I deeply appreciate their support.
Please remember that the value of ACA to the caving community stems from our willingness to report accidents and safety incidents so that others may learn from our experiences. If you have not looked at the ACA web page recently, please review the lists of reported incidents at
http://www.caves.org/pub/aca and report any that you know of that are not listed.
Thanks again to all who have supported me these last 11 years,
Bill