Meeting notes: November 10, 2001
November 10 marked the sixth Georgia Geocachers Association meeting! Over 17 members returned and 11 new members made their first appearance. The GGA has enjoyed tremendous growth in its first six months and has a very bright future. This email contains notes from the meeting for the benefit of those who couldn't attend and is a reference for those who attended.
The meeting started with a demonstration of the GPS windshield mounts made by Erik88l-r. Erik has created a suction cup mount designed to hold most popular Garmin and Magellan models securely to your car's windshield. Erik donated one as a door prize and is selling the rest for a nominal fee of $6 to cover the cost of materials. One dollar from each item sold will be donated to the GGA. Thanks Erik! If you would like to purchase a windshield mount you can contact Erik through the EZ Board forum (see address below).
Greg (mtn-man) discussed how the U.S. Forest Service classifies its lands. In brief, there are four main classifications: Wilderness, Scenic Areas, Wildlife Management Areas (WMA's), and then regular Forest Service lands. Right now Wilderness lands is the only Forest Service land upon which we cannot geocache.
Greg also discussed his experiences as a volunteer for the Forest Service. The possibility of combining a meeting with a Forest Service volunteering day was mentioned.
Greg next showed some examples of the print quality of the GGA T-Shirts and other items available from the GGA's Cafe Press site ( www.cafepress.com/_GGA ). Membership in the GGA is free and to support the club we receive two dollars from the sale of each GGA item sold through Cafe Press. When funds run short the GGA supplements the Cafe Press money by passing the hat at meetings.
Lewis (Big Doggie) next spoke about the December GGA Breakfast. While there will be no formal meeting in December we will be meeting for breakfast in early December. An event cache will be posted this weekend with more details but for now, the meeting will be a family buffet restaurant and coordinates will be posted to Geocaching.com. Breakfast is $7.50 for adults and $5 for children. Both prices include a $1 room fee/gratuity. The restaurant is in a cache rich area and throughout the morning several more experienced members will lead any interested newbies on guided cache hunts. Interested parties will travel in their own vehicle to a nearby cache and have the opportunity to learn from more experienced cachers.
George (LoCache) told everyone about a likely location for one or more meetings this winter. REI has offered to allow the GGA to use its meeting facilities. In addition, REI will help promote the GGA by announcing our meeting within the store for a few days preceding our meeting. Also, REI has asked if interested GGA members would conduct an in-store demonstration of GPS receivers. More details about this will be posted to the EZ Board.
George has also been working on the revised GGAOnline.org website and announced that it will soon be completed. The new site will feature on-going effort to offer the geocaching community with content of interest to cachers of all levels.
The meeting wound down with a drawing for door prizes provided by Erik, Bent_Twigs and Allen Lacy. After the drawing several members led others on a guided cache hunt to Erik's Zig Zag cache located within the park.
Hopefully everyone had a good time and enjoyed a cool fall day in the outdoors. Keep an eye out for the December GGA Breakfast event cache and our next formal meeting on January 12, 2002 from 2 - 4 in the afternoon.
Happy Caching!
Jess
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