Details

Written by Patricia Hutchison

Published: February 03 2020

Last Updated: July 13 2020

Hits: 472

St. Louis Area Geocaching Association

MEETING MINUTES 2020

3 February 2020/ 6:00 PM / Grant's View Branch

ATTENDEES

Steve Bromley, Carolyn Jaycox (video conference), Michael Smith, Melissa Pierce, Jan Salvaggio, David DeWitt, John Elfrank, Patricia Hutchison, 

Meeting called to order at 6:05 pm.

Motion Called to approve January 2020 minutes by Jan, seconded by Michael.

Motion called to approve the January 2020 treasurer's report by Melissa,  seconded by Michael.

Retrospective

• Slurpin’ Soup event earned The Village of the Blue Rose over $600.00 on the first weekend alone.
• Winter Potluck had 100 people sign the log, many came to sign then left due to colds. Thank you to all for NOT staying in those instances. 
  • Kitchen duties were taken over by other SLAGA members. Much thanks to Carolyn Halladay, Nan Dabler, and Terri Nealon. 
  • Staff at The Pavilion were thrilled to be able to enjoy the copious amounts of food present and greatly appreciated the fantastic clean up job in the kitchen area. 
  • The duck hunt also seemed to go well. 
  • The reservation for next year's potluck has been made for January 30, 2021. 
• Winter in the Woods went well. Many thanks to the volunteers who came out to help: Bill Lange, Patricia Hutchison, The Bevis’, Missey Vancil, and Jim Green. 
  • We had 31 people sign up to be added to the email listing. 
  • We went out with many groups and spoke to numerous individuals. It did not appear to be as many as last year however.
  • Also had people approach us about doing the same type of activity for other community events later this year in Tower Grove Park and New Haven. We will see if they contact us for further information on these events.
  • We also received an email thanking us for getting a gentleman's children interested in geocaching. 
  • Tent was a good investment and worked well. We were able to hang the banner up for better exposure to those walking past. 
  • Brought the possibility of new GPS receivers needing to be purchased or changing to a mobile format for these types of events/trainings,  as well as updating the flyer that we pass out to include some geocaching apps.
  • Also need to work out how best to take out groups for these small training excursions. In small groups whenever someone is available or at specific times asking people to come back for the next time.

Events

• Community Celebration Event will be hosted by John on July 18, 2020 at the Riverside Pavilion at Cliff Cave Park. This will be in place of the summer picnic. 
  • Cliff Cave will be open that day for tours
• MOGA 2020 GC8F5PX is set for April 4, 2020. John gave updates on the progress thus far. 
  • There are currently 150 “Will Attends” for the MOGA event. Do not believe we will hit the 300 needed to be considered a mega event.
  • GeoCoins and awards have been designed by Jesse Tuttle of AFK Designs. 
    • All 102 awards will be free to MOGA in exchange for Jesse to be able to sell all coins exclusively at a 100% profit to his company.  
    • Due to Coronavirus all factories have been shut down and coins will most likely be delayed.
      • May need alternative for the awards.
  • MOGA t-shirts are up and ready to be pre-ordered on the SLAGA MOGA webpage.
    • Dave to add the t-shirt size chart to the webpage.
  • Carolyn will be disseminating information to other geocaching facebook groups.
    • Will also get a store button placed on the Facebook page for the shirts.

Ongoing Business

• Award Coins for SLAGA have been designed by Jesse Tuttle. Pricing has not been discussed yet.
  • Found error on design: “geocaches” instead of “cache finds”
  • Tony Colter contacted Patricia Hutchison that the custom icon is usually a one time $150 charge and that collectors really enjoy having that.
• 20th Anniversary geocoins - no new information at this time. 
• Jesse Tuttle reached out to Patricia Hutchison about doing a 20th anniversary geocoin also. At this time, with two coins already in the works, we will be declining the offer.
• SLAGA sponsored CITO at Rend Lake will be held on May 9th, 2020.
• Travel Bug Race has been cancelled for next year. Steve spoke with Mark Derr who is amenable to holding off due to both the issues and his current job situation. This year's winner has not picked up the award at this time.

New Business

• SLAGA spring picnic needs a location and host for 2020. 
  • Will send out an email to attempt to find a volunteer. 
  • Can not be held the weekend of May 3rd as that is Mingo Madness and many will not be in the area.
• Steve made the suggestion that we look into gaining additional GPSr units. 
  • Motion was called by Michael, Seconded by Melissa. 
  • The decisions were made to use this next month to research availablility and pricing. Steve will be taking care of this. Would like to keep the total amount to $500-700 for 3-5 units, depending on what the research shows.  
  • We will revisit the cost and total new units in March.
• Would like to find a way to encourage volunteers to work different events. 
  • Suggestions were made to do a raffle for a $25 gift card for the volunteers only at each of the three SLAGA events during the year. 
  • Also would take a seperate picture of the volunteers from the rest of the group. 
  • There was also some discussion about having a party strictly for the volunteers once a year. 
  • The motion to start a volunteer program was called by Michael and seconded by Jan. 
  • We will send out an email asking for those who would like to volunteer to contact us to be placed on a volunteer email listing. 
  • We will also need a tracking system. Melissa will get an excel spreadsheet started to keep track of volunteers and what events they helped in. Volunteers will need to log a will attend, state what they will volunteer for, and follow through with the job to get into the raffles. 
  • We will use events starting in January 2020.

Other Business

• GC 101 class will be taken over by Michael. Bill will be doing the next GC 101 class and training Michael. 
  • Michael to reach out to Bill to get the training material for review. 
  • Steve will update the GPSr units with the current Queeny Park coordinates prior to the next GC 101 class.

Meeting adjourned at 7:57 pm by Michael, seconded by Melissa.

NEXT MONTH’S INFORMATION

6:00 pm, TUESDAY March 3rd, 2020 at the St. Louis County Library Grant’s View Branch, 9700 Musick Avenue, St Louis MO

Details

Written by Patricia Hutchison

Published: January 06 2020

Last Updated: July 13 2020

Hits: 456

St. Louis Area Geocaching Association

MEETING MINUTES 2019

6 January 2020/ 6:00 PM / Grant's View Branch

ATTENDEES

Steve Bromley, Carolyn Jaycox, Michael Smith, Melissa Pierce, Jan Salvaggio, David DeWitt, John Elfrank, Patricia Hutchison, Jason Jaycox, Bill Lange

Meeting called to order at 6:02pm.

Motion Called to approve December 2019 minutes by Carolyn, seconded by Michael.

Motion called to approve December 2019 treasurer's report by Melissa,  seconded by Michael.

Upcoming Events

• Slurpin’ Soup event is this weekend, January 11, 2020. Caches for the event have been hidden; thank you to John and Laurie Elfrank. There are 21 new caches and will publish Friday night, January 10, 2020
• Winter Potluck, GC8FF4C, will be on January 25, 2020. 
  • There will be new caches placed for the event.
  • “Duck hunt” for the kids. (Adults can participate after kids have all had a chance.) 
    • Will hide 25 total rubber ducks around the event location. Each duck will represent a prize and prizes will be ranked based on how difficult it is to find.
      • 5 lock and lock type containers
        • 5 will contain SLAGA swag
        • 1 will also contain a $10 gift card
      • 20 preforms 
        • Purchasing from MOGA at $0.50 per
• Winter in the Woods, February 1, 2020. Venue will be supplying us with two-8 foot tables and four chairs. 
  • After thorough discussion on the pop up available and the needs of the association, SLAGA will be purchasing their own popup tent along with weights. 
  • Steve and Patricia plan on going out to venue on January 18, 2020 to get coordinates where we will hide 5 temporary caches for the day to show people how geocaching works, similar to the GC101 class.
  • Steve will bring swag and load the coordinates onto the GPSr units.
    • GPSr units are still being used by Laura, planned return on January 25, 2020.
  • Would like to have a minimum of five people working at all times
    • Will put out an email blast for volunteers
    • Will have a sign-up sheet with time slots at the Potluck.
  • Will meet up at 8:00 am on February 1, 2020 to complete set-up
    • Will need to also get the banner
• Community Celebration Event will be hosted by John on July 18, 2020 at the Riverside Pavilion at Cliff Cave Park. This will be in place of the summer picnic. 
  • Reservation has been paid for.
  • Cliff Cave will be open that day for tours
  • Event can be published 6 months in advance
  • COs are encouraged to have games/activities for the Community Celebration Event
    • Thinking of a pinata, ammo can toss.
• MOGA 2020 GC8F5PX is set for April 4, 2020. John gave updates on the progress thus far. 
  • There are currently 128 “Will Attends” for the MOGA event
  • MOGA t-shirt information:
    • Full color design on tan background
      • Per email from Monica Fischer at Schwartzkopf Printing Inc
        • Port and Co Essential 100% cotton tee, light sand
        • Quantity: 72-173 = $5.70 each
        • Additional $2.05 for 2X
        • Additional $2.55 for 3X-5X
        • One time $60 screen charge
        • One time $15 art set fee
    • Plan is to do pre-orders at the Winter Potluck. 
  • Carolyn will be disseminating information to other geocaching facebook groups.

Ongoing Business

• Event checklist still needs some revisions. Will ask John to use this during the Winter Potluck for further input.
• Award Coins are still unavailable at this time. 
  • Currently need 1 - 1,000 and 7 - 5,000 milestone coins.
  • Patricia reached out to Geocaching headquarters and was able to get a response stating that they are hoping to roll out their new coin design by the end of February 2020 to March 2020
  • Further explored the idea of designing our own milestone award coins. Steve will reach out to Jesse Tuttle from AFK Geocaching to discuss pricing and simple designs of a milestone engravable coin.
    • Possibly use one design and different metals to designate between the milestones.
    • Could also sell these to members who have already received their if they would like the new design.
    • Possibly do our own pins as well for the lower milestones. Will check into pricing for that as well.
    • Concerns voiced about what happens to the die: how long is it valid for (1 year, 2 years, possibly more)? How much does it cost?
    • Would it also be possible to to get customized icons for the coins? Cost on this as well?
• 20th Anniversary geocoins are a go.
  • No delivery date is available as of right now.

New Business

• Meeting will be moved to the first Monday of the month, except for when it coincides with a holiday.

Other Business

• GC101 class will be taken over by Michael. Bill will be doing the training.
• SLAGA CITO event between March 1, 2020 - May 31, 2020
  • We were contacted about helping to sponsor an event at Rend Lake, site of the 2011 MOGA for both a CITO and cache maintenance. 
    • We will donate a CITO coin for the event
    • We could do a lunch event after the CITO event as this does NOT constitute “event stacking”
    • Event to take place most probably at the beginning of May.
• Boone’s Lick Road geotrail and geocoins. 
  • Carolyn now has 4 BLR coins. 
    • David believes there may be more. He will be looking into it.
  • New email was received regarding the rules on obtaining the coin. Currently there are some caches in the geotrail that are no longer active and would make fulfilling the requirements difficult.
  • Steve to reach out to the owner of the geotrial to ask if he would be ok with us changing the requirements to claim the coin.
    • New requirement would be to find 75% of the active caches.

Meeting ended at 7:57 pm

NEXT MONTH’S INFORMATION

6:00 pm, February 3rd, 2020 at the St. Louis County Library Grant’s View Branch, 9700 Musick Avenue, St Louis MO

Details

Written by Melissa Pierce

Published: December 05 2019

Last Updated: July 13 2020

Hits: 494

SLAGA Monthly Board Meeting Minutes

Minutes are recorded and posted here by the secretary.

St. Louis Area Geocaching Association

MEETING MINUTES 2019

5 December 2019 / 6:00 PM / Grant's View Branch

ATTENDEES

Steve Bromley, Carolyn Jaycox, Michael Smith, Melissa Pierce, Jan Salvaggio, David DeWitt, Kathy DeWitt, John Elfrank, Patricia Hutchison, Jason Jaycox, Bill Lange

Meeting called to order at 6:11pm.

Motion Called to approve October 2019 minutes by Steve, seconded by Michael.

Motion called to approve October 2019 treasurer's report by Carolyn, seconded by Michael.

Motion called to approve November 2019 treasurer's report by Michael, seconded by Carolyn.

Upcoming Events

• 2019 SLAGA Christmas Bash, GC8FRJT, is this Saturday December 7th. Location was moved from the original location at Kirkwood Community Center to Fuddruckers in Sunset Hills. Update on needs for the toy and food drive will be announced by the cache owner.
• Cachemas starts next week. There are two geocoins for the final bonus. $100 was allocated for the activity, $88.37 has been spent. Motion for reimbursement was made by Steve, seconded by Michael. 
  • Many thanks to John Elfrank and Pete Shaw for all the hard work.
• Slurpin’ Soup event is upcoming. At the request of the usual host SLAGA will be hosting. No date has been set at this time; usually held the second week of January. Caches for the event have been hidden; thank you to John and Laurie Elfrank. Event has not published yet. 
  • If event has not been published by the next weekend, December 13, the SLAGA geocaching account will do this.
• Winter Potluck, GC8FF4C, will be on January 25, 2020. Items needed for the event are:
  • Schedule of events from the officers 
  • Three-$10 gift cards for the geobingo 
  • Three gift cards, one-$20, one-$15, and one-$10, for the travel bug race
  • Raffle tickets for the 50/50
  • Water bottles 
    • This brought up a tangential conversation on some concerns brought up by other SLAGA members about finding other, more sustainable solutions.
• Winter in the Woods, February 1, 2020. Pop up tent is available thanks to Carolyn. Venue will be supplying us with two-8 foot tables and four chairs. Steve will bring swag.
• MOGA 2020 GC8F5PX is set for April 4, 2020. John gave updates on the progress thus far. 
  • Ammo cans have been picked up and dinner was provided for those that helped. 
  • MOGA has paid for and received the artwork. Will use this for t-shirts again. 
    • David will pass on his vendor information to Michael. David will also get the sizes, quantities, and the prices charged from last year to Michael as well. 
    • Plan is to do pre-orders at the Winter Potluck. 
  • Per conversations with the awards venue, we overpaid last year. We will be using them again this year and due to the overpayment, they have waived a deposit fee.

Ongoing Business

• Event checklist still needs some revisions. Will ask John to use this during the Winter Potluck for further input.
• Geocaching Merit Badge Skill Center appears to have stalled at this time.
• Award Coins are still unavailable at this time. Carolyn has contacted Geocaching.com with no response at this time about when they may be available again. Carolyn also reached out to Lisa from CacheAdvance about them. 
  • Idea to explore designing our own milestone award coins was brought up. Steve will reach out to Jesse Tuttle from AFK Geocaching to discuss pricing and simple designs of a 1,000 and 5,000 engravable coin. Possibly pins as well for the lower milestones. 
  • John will try reaching out to Geocaching.com about this as well. 
  • Milestones need to be turned in by December 15th in order to receive them by the Winter Potluck. Melissa will send out an email blast on Friday, December 6th.

New Business

• Travelbug race rules. There has been some discussion about this year's race. While the race is being conducted as per the rules that were set, SLAGA officers have been contacted by other members about how it is being done. 
  • A motion for an official vote to discontinue the travel bug race for at least one year was brought by Steve, approved by Carolyn, and seconded by Michael. We will re-examine in a year. 
  • Steve will also be talking to Mark Derr about this decision and the issues surrounding it. Mark is welcome to continue to do this activity on his own, however SLAGA will not be backing it for the next year.
• 20th Anniversary geocoins. We have been approached to design our own version of this coin. We will be doing this as per email discussions. 
  • We will order 125 coins in order to take advantage of the discount. 
  • We will be doing pre-sales on these starting with the 2019 Christmas Bash. 
  • At this point we will have three levels of presale: Premium members 1 coin individual, 2 for family at $12 each, Standard members up to 1 coin at $15 each, and the general public 1 coin for $20 each. 
  • Hoping to have the coins available by the spring picnic for pick up. Otherwise pick up at later events or will charge a $5 shipping and handling fee to mail.
• Community Celebration Event will be hosted by John on July 18, 2020 at the Riverside Pavilion at Cliff Cave Park. This will be in place of the summer picnic. 
  • SLAGA will pay for the park reservation.

Other Business

• GIFF was brought up by Michael. Location was great and had a good time overall. There was concern that the memorial section at the event was not well adressed. Suggestion was made to discuss with the event host, as well as future event hosts, in hopes to avoid this at future events.
• Boone’s Lick Road geotrail and geocoins. Responsibility of this has been passed on to Carolyn as she is in charge of the geocoins. David will get Carolyn the answers for the geotrail as well.
• Name tags for events were also brought up. We will be discontinuing the use of the ones we currently have. May do sticker name tags. Another option that was brought up was to buy the reusable name tags to sell for members. 
  • Steve will look into cost.

Motion to adjourn was called by Carolyn, seconded by Melissa at 8:14 pm. 

NEXT MONTH’S INFORMATION

6:00 pm, January 6th, 2020 at the St. Louis County Library Grant’s View Branch, 9700 Musick Avenue, St Louis MO

Details

Written by Patricia Hutchison

Published: October 21 2019

Last Updated: October 21 2019

Hits: 515

SLAGA Board Meeting

October 17, 2019

6:00 PM

Chemical Interchange

Attendees – Steve Bromley, Bill Lange, Patricia Hutchison, Jan Salvaggio, Carolyn Jaycox, Jason Jaycox, Melissa Pierce, Dave DeWitt

                The meeting was called to order at 5:44 PM.

                Motion to approve the September minutes was made by Bill, seconded by Carolyn. The minutes were unanimously approved.

                Motion to approve the September treasurer’s report was made by Patricia, seconded by Bill. The treasurer’s report was unanimously approved.         

Old Business

• Newsletter/Email blast
  • Updated event email needs to go out.

• Upcoming Events:
  • 2019 SLAGA Fall Picnic – 10/19/19. GC8AC95, Officer Snyder Park (formerly Clydesdale Park) – Steve is picking up the gift cards and meat for the event. Tickets are on hand in the trailer.

Ongoing

• New Banner – Dave brought in the new SLAGA banner. The board agreed that it looks great!

• Event Checklist – Ongoing discussion about updating the checklist.

• New PA System –Steve will test the new equipment at the SLAGA Fall Picnic prior to the setup of the main event.

• Geocaching Merit Badge Skill Center – No updates at this time.

• Milestone Awards
  • Patricia informed the board that the order from Worldcaching.com has been voided. The vendor never responded to messages and PayPal finally ruled in Patricia’s favor, refunding the purchase price.
  • Because the 5,000 finds coins are no longer available, those who have submitted their information for milestones will receive a certificate of achievement. The board will order the new design coins when they become available and present them to those who qualify but did not receive coins.

New Business

• Christmas party – 12/7/19, Kirkwood Community Center, 2-4 pm. Event cache to be published. The board discussed the possibility of hiring a food truck for the event but ultimately decided that the cost was prohibitive. Instead, SLAGA will provide cookies and beverages for the event.

• New Meeting Location – There will be no November meeting. If issues arise between the October and December meetings, they will be addressed via Slack, email and/or other messaging means. The December meeting will be held at the Grant’s View branch of the St. Louis County.

• GIFF Event – Patricia messaged Michelle Stephenson during the meeting for an update on the GIFF event but received no response. There is a GIFF event scheduled in Edwardsville, IL, (GC8E0A6) for November 15, 2019 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm at the library.

Next Meeting

• The next meeting will be held December 5, 2019 at the Grant’s View branch of the St. Louis County Library, 9700 Musick Avenue, at 6:00 pm.
• Adjournment – Motion to adjourn was made by Carolyn, seconded by Jan and passed. Meeting adjourned at 6:32 pm.

Details

Written by Patricia Hutchison

Published: September 23 2019

Last Updated: October 02 2019

Hits: 533

SLAGA Board Meeting

September 19, 2019

6:00 PM

Chemical Interchange

Attendees – Steve Bromley, Bill Lange, Patricia Hutchison, Jan Salvaggio, Carolyn Jaycox, Jason Jaycox, Michael Smith, Melissa Pierce

                The meeting was called to order at 6:02 PM.

                Motion to approve the August minutes was made by Carolyn, seconded by Bill. The minutes were unanimously approved.

                Motion to approve the August treasurer’s report was made by Bill, seconded by Patricia. The treasurer’s report was unanimously approved.

Old Business

• Newsletter/Email blast
  • Updated event email needs to go out.

• Upcoming Events:
  • 2019 Grave Hop – 10/12/19. Location has been determined but is a secret at this time.
  • 2019 SLAGA Fall Picnic – 10/19/19. GC8AC95, Officer Snyder Park (formerly Clydesdale Park)

Ongoing

• New Banners – On hold.

• Event Checklist – Ongoing discussion about updating the checklist.

• Paypal – Steve has obtained documents to help change the SLAGA Paypal account over to himself as the primary contact for the duration of his tenure as president.

• Lab Caches and Related Event – Discussion on the success of the new and previous Adventure Labs. At the time of this writing, 16 participants have completed the Adventure Labs and left high ratings.

• Web Page Changes – Cacher stats have been corrected as far as accessibility on SLAGA’s website.

• New PA System – Steve has the new PA system in his possession. Bill and Steve will test the new equipment at the SLAGA Fall Picnic prior to the setup of the main event.

• Milestone Awards
  • The deadline for milestone submissions has passed. Carolyn ran into difficulty in obtaining 5000 milestone coins because that design has been discontinued. After much discussion and a thorough web search, Patricia found a supplier in Canada indicating it has stock. She ordered a quantity of five, which is the number needed to present awards at the Fall Picnic.

• Geocaching Merit Badge Skill Center – No new activity reported on this issue. The board is waiting for more information from Mickie Gallagher.

• Welcome New Officers Cake – Patricia provided the attendees with a cake to welcome the incoming officers, who were invited to attend ahead of their official recognition as new officers so they could observe a typical meeting. As his first act of responsibility in his position as the incoming Vice President, Michael was put in charge of cutting the cake. His fellow board members agreed that he did a fine job of slicing and distributing the cake.

New Business

• GIFF Event – 11/19/19 at a location to be determined, hosted by Jeff and Michelle Stephenson. Details will be announced shortly.

• Bylaw Review – Discussion of corrections and updates to be made. Jan had input on an inconsistency in the wording and identified a few typos. This included discussion of the availability of the Treasurer’s Report at the Spring Picnic. The financial information in the monthly report is available to members who express an interest in knowing the information but it was decided that it is not something that needs to be announced.

• New Meeting Location – Discussion of potential sites for board business meetings after October. The November meeting may be at the Grant’s View branch of the St. Louis County Library, dependent upon availability.

• Geocaching Etiquette – Discussion of etiquette and ways to enhance the game of geocaching. Bill reminded the board that we had some plastic cards outlining rules and etiquette for geocaching. Carolyn had one in hand and passed it around. Bill motioned that SLAGA obtain more cards and Carolyn seconded. Motion passed. Michael ordered more cards to be distributed at classes and promotional events.

Next Meeting

• The next meeting will be held October 17, 2019 at Chemical Interchange at 6:00 pm.
• Adjournment – Motion to adjourn was made by Carolyn, seconded by Bill and passed. Meeting adjourned at 8:28 pm.