WCC Fieldhouse Is Complete!
Published: Spring/Summer 2009

After many months of toil by numerous volunteers during the last half of 2008, the WCC fieldhouse at the Weller Natural Preserve is ready for use. In fact, we have already used it for two events! On April 25th the Board of the Western Cave Conservancy held their Spring quarterly meeting there and just a few days ago, on May 16th, NCRC Western Region put on a one day class called "Knots, Anchors and Rigging for the Vertical Caver". Both events were served well by the fieldhouse. With the aid of a small generator, such amenities as overhead lights, computers, and a digital projector were made available, and of course having the cave a mere 150 feet away was so very convenient for the rigging exercises.

As was reported last fall, the framing, siding, roof sheathing, windows, and the door were finished by sometime in September. Then toward the end of that month we began applying the roofing material, installing the skylights and finishing all the trim around the windows, vents, door, and corners. We also counter-sunk all the outside nails in the siding and trim and filled the holes with caulking. This was truly a "pain in the butt" job but sooo worth it after the building was painted. You can t even see where any of the nails are!

Two other September jobs included some additional earthmoving to bring down the grade on the uphill side (required by the county inspector) and having about 10 yards of gravel delivered and spread around the building. This was truly an inspired decision since over the course of the winter and spring through several good storms, this thick layer of gravel has kept the building clean and unstained by the local iron-rich red dirt.

In October it was "painting time." This is always a popular pastime and it was not difficult to get extra volunteers to help out. The exterior was painted a warm light brown with a trim of light greenish-blue. We used a darker brown for the door and vents and some of the window trim.

While all this was going on at the fieldhouse, Jerry Johnson was busy working on what we are now calling the Stool Shed. This has had a variety of monikers, including, but not limited to: Burrito Bungalow, Poop Palace, and the Log Layer. At the Spring Board meeting though, it was unanimously decided that  Stool Shed was the winner. Well, I digress& . Jerry decided that his mission was to make this outhouse into something sturdy, useful, and nice to look at. As you can see from the picture he succeeded. We still want to paint the inside and add some small improvements such as a cabinet for the toilet supplies and a table for people to set things on. A cement entry step is also planned since the floor is pretty high off the ground.

Breaking News! We don t have to make cave burritos at the preserve any more. For the NCRC class Jerry donated a brand new large size RV-style  porta-potty which works sort of like a real toilet. The only down side is that periodically we will have to take it to a dump station or similar setup to dispose of the waste, but that s better than baggies, right? While the bulk of the painting was finished by the beginning of November, finishing all the little fussy trim details and final coats stretched into December. The last things we did were to do a final cleaning of the fieldhouse floor and apply a two-part coating that included a bonding primer and a final coat of a cream-colored cement paint. This finished off a rather ugly cement slab beautifully and the light color greatly helps lighten the interior.

We also have some additional plans for inside the fieldhouse. We will finish the walls, install some cabinets for our tools and other supplies and hopefully do a little wiring and install some outlets so we don t have to run the cord from the generator through an open window and have extension cords running all over the floor. We will also be buying some stackable chairs, maybe a couple of tables and some other supplies that will be useful when people use the building for meetings or other activities.

In addition to finishing the fieldhouse enough that we could begin to use it, we are also very happy to announce that it has been paid off already. The total cost for everything: plans, county permit, building materials, earthmoving, and gravel delivery came to almost exactly $9,000 a bargain possible only through the hundreds of hours of labor donated by volunteers.