Meeting notes: April 13, 2002

Greetings to all.

On April 13, the Georgia Geocachers Association (GGA) had their eleventh meeting. On this occasion, we met under scattered showers at Tribble Mill Park.

Participation was good, with 6 new attendees and 17 who have attended at least one previous meeting. One of the new faces belonged to Randy Jeffers, our guest speaker, who brought several walking sticks or staffs as examples of his work.

In a word, Randy's work is awesome. He has completed 204 hand made walking sticks, each with it's own character. One was recently hand-delivered to a missionary in Russia, and Randy showed us the one he is taking to Charlotte, NC to leave with the Rev. Billy Graham's people. I continue to be amazed at what a dedicated person or persons can accomplish. Check the pictures mtn-man has uploaded on the cache page.

This meeting consisted of several open discussions, including:

* Status of the Georgia State Parks issue – Erik gave an update on his discussions with Larry Blankenship. Larry has drafted a proposal and has it under review with the park rangers. After the review, Larry will present the proposal to his management for approval. As written, the proposal allows geocaching activity in the parks under some restrictions. As soon as we have approval, the guidelines or restrictions will be posted on the EZBoard forums.

* Editorial Policy – The steering committee has been working on a number of fronts to mature the GGA organization. While we have not had a case of misuse of our mail list or the EZBoard forums, such things have been known to occur elsewhere. Rather than wait for an issue to arise, the steering committee has developed an editorial policy to govern administrative action in the event of some egregious event. The editorial policy will be posted on the EZBoard soon.

* LoCache introduced his wife, an avid bird watcher, and she told us of an upcoming fundraiser for the local Audubon Society. Members of her organization recruit ?sponsors? who agree to donate a particular amount of money for each bird species the member is able to log during a 24-hour period. LoCache will post details on the EZBoard so interested GGA members may choose to participate if they desire to do so.

* In addition, LoCache explained a recent request to train some Girl Scouts on GPS usage and geocaching. This opportunity will also be posted on the EZBoard. This might be a good opportunity for some of our lady members to demonstrate positive role models to the Girl Scouting community.

* Several items sold through Geocaching dot com and Café Press were demonstrated and made available for hands-on evaluation.

* We passed a hat for donations to cover the cost of the pavilion, with good results. Also, several door prizes were awarded, and water bottles were made available to everyone that did not have their number drawn.

* I believe everyone had a good time networking with other geocachers during the break, and we will continue to work breaks into the agendas of upcoming meetings.

* Before closing the meeting, we had a drawing for the door prizes donated by REI and a number of members.

Happy geocaching! Hope to see all of you again on May 4th, if not before.

-Brad

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