Georgia Geocachers Association - Officers & Club History

GGA Officers -- The Steering Committee

The GGA is administered by a group of fellow geocachers elected by the membership. We use a Steering Committee (SC) to get the business for the GGA accomplished. We prefer to use a committee rather than elected officers. All SC members are equal and share the tasks that come up. Anyone who is a member of the GGA may run for SC office.

As of 2011 the terms were changed to two years. Now each year three members come up for election and serve a two year term while in office. The election process starts in late October and ends with the election in late November each year. Special elections can be held at any time if a member of the SC needs to leave office for any reason.

The chart below shows the past and sitting Steering Committee positions by year served.

Club History

The GGA was the first official geocaching organization. It was born out of an odd set of events. Two geocachers met on the trail one day. They talked about how interesting it would be to meet other cachers. They decided to list a new type of cache, an "event" cache. They listed it and others joined in to help organize a location and such. Right before the event, GA Geocachers suffered a blow of sorts as caches were banned in GA State Parks. We suddenly had an actual serious agenda at this meeting. Still, it was a great meeting. TJBowers' and LoCache's event went off great and the event cache is now a staple in geocaching. Over the next month, we discussed names and logos for our newly forming organization. At our next meeting we chose a name for our group. The Georgia Geocachers Association began the tradition of monthly event caches and became the first geocachers association. At our fourth meeting (Sept. 2001), several people who were working behind the scenes decided to form a management committee, or the Steering Committee (SC). More details are above.

It was almost a year later in June of 2002 before the GGA convinced the GA State Parks to allow us to geocache in our parks. It is a limited policy, but at least we were able to place some caches back in the parks again. Late in 2002, we decided to update our web site and forums. We went with a new provider, which turned out to be a good decision. Sometime later, EZBoard suffered a massive online attack. Almost all of their forums were wiped out, including the old historical GGA Discussion Forums there. Fortunately the SC had copied all relevant topics over to the new forums into their proper place. Later that year we held our first election for new SC members. We also began the tradition of our selections of the Outstanding Caches in GA. The GGA came up with the idea for a Challenge Event, which has continued as a tradition in our state. We held it in the summer, which taught us a good lesson. It's hot!

Moving into 2003, March saw the first CITO events worldwide. Unfortunately, it was after Earth Day instead of before it so many parks across the world were pretty clean. The GGA saw the exception to that rule for sure. The GGA was proud to hold an event at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. We had 26 members in attendance and we were assisted by Susan Joffre of the Chattahoochee River NRA. We cleaned up the very heavily impacted Island Ford trailhead area on the east side of the river just below Buford Dam. There was a lot of junk along the trail but it extended down the trail almost a mile down to the flat areas down by the river. Some large items were brought up from the bottom of that trail, including a dryer and a water heater tank. We also got about 70 tires out of the Chattahoochee River NRA. It was a great event and I think we impressed them with our tremendous effort. You can see more on the Event Cache Page! Be sure to look at the photos in the log entries. Our second Challenge Event was a huge success as well! We have also made a tradition of going to Savannah in November since our first meeting there in 2003.

In 2004, we completed two CITO events. This year the GGA went to Rockdale County for our CITO event, which was once again celebrated by geocachers around the globe. The second CITO event in September was a huge success helping out the US Army Corps of Engineers around Lake Lanier. More information can be found on the cache page. They even fed the GGA and gave out certificates! We had our third annual challenge event in the place of our October monthly meeting this year. Our thanks to the Elachee Nature Center for allowing us to have the event in their preserve. More info can be found on this cache page.

In 2004 and 2005, GA Geocachers were hit with a moratorium on geocaches in the Chattahoochee National Forest, run by the USDA Forest Service. 2006 brought us back into the Chattahoochee National Forest again. The GGA has obtained a blanket permit that allows caches back in the National Forest areas again. Wilderness Areas are still off limits, but at least the other 80 to 90 percent of the forest is now open again. In 2005 we also thought we were going to see the last year for the annual snake show event since the Lanier Museum of Natural History closed in September shortly after our event. Much to our surprise, Dr. Mark Patterson made a special effort to hold the presentation again in 2006. What a great time the snake show is. The GGA also continues its annual Challenge Event. The event has now moved to October and has replaced the normal monthly event. In 2005 we went to the Dausett Trails Nature Center in Middle GA for our challenge event. Once again in 2006, we returned to Elachee for another great event!

Thanks for your support and interest in the GGA!