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Written by Kathy DeWitt

Published: April 30 2014

Last Updated: August 25 2014

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SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes

Meeting date: April 7, 2014

Present: Michael Allison, Sylvia Titgemeyer, Tony Colter, David DeWitt, and Kathy DeWitt

Visitors: John Elfrank and Laurie Elfrank stopped by for a few minutes

Treasurer’s report was tabled till next month.

Minutes were accepted as presented

This was a team building meeting. FTF on (need to put in GC #)

Old Business

· GPS purchase: Dave made the GPS purchase. He also purchased rechargeable batteries, charger and a new case. It was discussed that the old GPS’s will be sold off. Will offer to SLAGA folks first. Will have them at the spring picnic and put a couple on the auction table. We will get the cases from the old GPS’s for possible use for the projector.

· Spring Picnic: Everything is a go. Will meet Saturday at 2 PM to place new caches around the park. Will ask the reviewers to publish May 9^th.

· Credit Card: Will check with the bank to see if we can do the mobile deposits of checks. Will see if there are any fees associated with doing that.

· Geowoodstock:

Playing Cards: SLAGA did win a card at the auction for $25. Dave will make the art work for the card.

Donation: SLAGA will donate a PI coin and an 11-12-13 coin to GeoWoodstok.

· CITO events: Barntole will arrange one at the Missouri Bottoms but, will not be able to host. Michael will find a host. Dave is looking into arranging one at the Corp of Engineers site in Illinois. A host will need to found to host this one also.

· Q & A: Sylvia will arrange to have one at the St. Louis main library.

· Geocaching 101: Forest Park has rooms that we can rent. Dave will check on the availability and cost for a class this fall. Michael and Sylvia will revamp the class to make more interesting.

· Municipal Library Consortium: Nothing new to report

· St. Charles 2014 Family Camp Expo: Saturday Sept 27^th. Nothing new to report.

· Newsletter: Dave and Kathy have some rough articles. Handed over to Sylvia to reduce the size of some of the articles. She will do a meet a cacher article. Will send out early next week.

· Web site: We had a good meeting with Tom. Dave and Tony learned a lot. Will go into more detail at the next meeting.

· Letter of Thanks-Kirkwood park ranger: Kathy sent the thank you card/note

· Memberships: Looking at the different membership names. Some of them are not very user friendly.

· SLAGA Tri-fold Brochure: We have the SLAGA tri-fold brochure and the one that Tom did for GeoWoodstok. She will review each of them and report back next month.

· Girl Scouts: Kathy sent her an e-mail and has not heard back. If she hears back we will pursue at that time

· SLAGA property: Kathy and Dave met up with Wendee and now we have the SLAGA property that was in Wendee’s possession. Kathy did an inventory of all the items. The stump was in some need of repair. John Elfrank will do some repairs on the stump. We are missing the poles for the Geocaching flag. Wendee will look for these. Still need to get credentials for mail chimp and base camp.

New Business

· National Get Outdoors Day: Will be held at the Gateway arch on Saturday June 14. We will do this event again. Kathy will send in the form confirming our participation. Kathy will also get volunteers to work the booth.

· Donation for Glen’s son: Would like to do something for Glen’s son at the picnic. Pass the hat will be done. SLAGA would also like to make a donation but, with our tax status, that would be difficult. A motion was made to hold the 50/50 with the proceeds going to Glen’s son.

Next meeting May 5^th at 6PM at SGTMTA’s home

Meeting Adjourned

The next meeting will be May 5th at 6 PM. At the home of Michael Allison. If you want to attend, please contact one of the officers as seating is limited.

Details

Written by Kathy DeWitt

Published: March 30 2014

Last Updated: August 25 2014

Hits: 924

SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes

Meeting date: March 3, 2014

Present: Michael Allison, Kim Balek, Sylvia Titgemeyer, Tony Colter, David DeWitt, and Kathy DeWitt

Treasurer’s report was accepted as presented.

Minutes were accepted as presented

Old Business

· Wendee Resignation: Have not gotten a formal letter but, we do have her resignation in an e-mail.   We are still working on getting the SLAGA property and credentials from here.   Tony and Kathy are going to try to make arrangement to go by this Thursday to get the property.

· GPS purchase:  The Garmin 450’s are not within our budget.  We can purchase Dakota 20’s and stay within our $2000 budget.  Dave will purchase this week.

· Credit Card: Kim and Kathy went to the bank to add Kathy to the account.  They found out that Mike Griffin was still the owner of the account on the State of Missouri website.  They contacted Mike Griffin and had him send in a letter.  Now Kim is the owner of the account and Kathy now has a debit/credit card for the account.

· Geowoodstock:

Meet and Greet:  The web page is up and was submitted to be published.  Was published before the end of the meeting

                        Cito Event:  There was some confusion on this and we are not hosting this event.

                        Playing Cards:  SLAGA will be bidding on a playing card with a max bid of $50.  Kathy will take care of the bidding.

· Spring Picnic: Michael Rogers offered to host the spring picnic.  He sent a list of possible locations and dates.   After some discussion we booked Spanish Lake.  The cost is $125 and the shelter holds 300 people.  

· CITO events:  April 26^th and 27th.  We have someone to arrange one at Columbia Bottoms but, will have to have someone there that day.   Dave will check with the Corp of Engineers to see if we can do a CITO event on their property.   Michael will contact last year’s CITO event hosts to see if they would like to host again this year.   Michael will check on getting more shirts made.   We believe that there are still shirts left from last year.

· Q & A: Downtown library, Wednesday April 2.  Sylvia will set up.

· Geocaching 101: Will need to redo to make it more interesting.   Geocaching has some good videos that we might want to use.   Possibly doing this fall.

· Municipal Library Consortium:  Nothing new to report

· St. Charles 2014 Family Camp Expo:  Saturday Sept 27^th.   Indian Camp Creek Park, they are expecting up to 200 participants.  They had 101 participants last year.   We will do an educational class.

· Newsletter: Will do one month prior to our major events.   Need to get the Mail Chimp credentials from Wendee.   Will reach out to Brad to get something to put in the newsletter for Geowoodstock.

· Web site:  Tony, Dave and Kathy will be meeting with Tom Wolpert this Thursday.   Tom has been great for answering questions.  Did get a list of the credentials that he had given Wendee when she took office.   A couple of them had been changed so, we will have to get them from Wendee.

· Letter of Thanks-Kirkwood park ranger:  Kathy has not finished the letter yet. 

New Business

· Memberships:  Lifetime members were getting e-mails stating their memberships were expired.   Dave found where the e-mails were being generated in the web site and fixed the problem.

· SLAGA Tri-fold Brochure:  We found that the SLAGA brochures are not printing correctly.   Tom Wolpert will make new tri-fold brochures.    

· Girl Scouts: We received an e-mail from a Girl Scout troop leader in Farmington, MO.  She is asking for help to teach the girls about geocaching.  Kathy will reach out to Jones crew to see if they could help them out.

Meeting Adjourned

The next meeting will be April 7th at 6 PM. At the home of Michael Allison. If you want to attend, please contact one of the officers as seating is limited.

Details

Written by Kathy DeWitt

Published: February 27 2014

Last Updated: August 25 2014

Hits: 930

SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes

Meeting date:   February 3, 2014

Present:  Michael Allison, Kim Balek, Sylvia Titgemeyer, Tony Colter, David DeWitt, Elonka Dunin and Kathy DeWitt

Treasurer’s report was accepted as presented. 

Minutes were accepted as presented

Old Business

·         Basecamp:  Cost of $20 per month.   Voted to terminate the service.

·         12/5/13 Christmas Party event:   Successful event.   

·         Winter Pot Luck:   Another successful event.    Fun was had by all.  Smaller venue but, worked out well.   Bridget Griffin offered to host next year.    

·         New Year’s Day Hike:  Breakfast and hike went well.  

·         Milestones:   Have had very good luck ordering thru Coins and Pins.   They have always been very helpful.   Michael did a great job getting them all the milestones together.   We do need to get one milestone remade.

·         GPS:   Have had no luck getting assistance from Garmin to get a deal on the GPS’s.    Some discussion was made on the type to get.   It was decided to get the Garmin 450’s.  He will order 10 of them.   With a budget of $2000

·         Website:  We spent some time going over different areas of the web site.  Was a good learning session.   We will continue working on learning more of the website. 

New Business

·         Meet-up:   Elonka has been running this for the past 1 ½ years.   She asked us to take it over.   There are approx. 140 people on the meet-up group.  We did recognize a lot of the members.   Elonka did say that the site does push dates for events.   Geocaching.com also sends out e-mails for events.  The cost is $144 per year.  We don’t feel that it is a wise expense for us.  Voted to reimburse Elonka for the past 1 ½ years of fees.   Kim will get with Elonka to get receipts and issue a check.

·         Wendee resignation:    She told the board at the Winter Pot Luck that she is resigning.   A formal resignation letter was to follow.   She was unable to attend tonight’s meeting.   .   Per the SLAGA by-laws Michael and Tony will share the president’s duties,   Kathy will touch base with Wendee to get the SLAGA items that she still has and any info that we might need.    Will need to change all the e-mail that goes to SLAGA officers.    Need to also look at changing the outbound e-mails for membership expiration and renewal.  

·         Newsletter:  Will do a quarterly newsletter that will be done before each of SLAGA’s major events.    We have appointed Sylvia Titgemeyer as editor.   David DeWitt will do the e-mailings.   Need to get the mail chimp info from Wendee.

·         E-mail to SLAGA officers:  Kathy will answer all the e-mails addressed to SLAGA officers.   If she needs assistance, will ask one of the other officers/advisors. 

·         Municipal Library:  Tony is working with them.   There event is in May and more info to follow.

·         Checking account:  We need to have a second person with a credit/debit card.   Kathy will be added to the checking account.   Kim and Kathy will go to the bank and get her added.

·         Woodstock:   We are asked to do a meet and greet.   Will need to get coordinates from Bridget and Mike.  We will need to get the cache page set up.   Need to get the SLAGA geocaching log in info.    Also was asked to help find someone to possibly host or co-host the CITO event.  Tony will reach out to possibly Major 134 or rainman

·         Spring Picnic:  Kim will check on getting a venue and see what dates are available. 

·         Cito events:   April 26^th and 27^th.    Would like to do multiple locations again.   Need to reach out to last year’s event host and see if we can get them to host again.   Will check into doing t-shirts again.  Should still have more shirts left from last year.   Michael will reach out to last year’s host.

·         Q&A’s: Geocaching 101.   Kim will check into the University City Library. 

·         PI event:   3-14-14 Tony will check into doing an event.  

·         Family Camp Exp:  9-27-14 educational training.   Tony is working with them.  

·         Thank you letter:  Kathy will send a thank you letter to Kirkwood Park for all their continued support.  They also have asked us to put more caches in the parks.  

Meeting Adjourned

The next meeting will be March 3rd at 6 PM. At the home of Michael Allison.   If you want to attend, please contact one of the officers as seating is limited.

Details

Written by Kathy DeWitt

Published: February 27 2014

Last Updated: August 25 2014

Hits: 1016

January meeting was cancelled due to weather

Details

Written by Kathy DeWitt

Published: January 18 2014

Last Updated: August 25 2014

Hits: 991

SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes

Meeting date: December 2, 2013

Present: Michael Allison, Kim Balek, Sylvia Titgemeyer, Tony Colter, David DeWitt

Treasurer’s report was accepted as presented.

Minutes were accepted with spelling correction to Sylvia Titgemeyer

Old Business

• 11/12/13 event: Everything went great.

• 12/5/13 Christmas Party event: Tony says he has everything ready.

• Winter Pot Luck: Need to get ahold of the host of the event and make sure everything is on track. Will see if there is anything they need from us.

• New Years Day Hike: Wendee left word she has everything in hand.

• Milestones: Michael will be putting out a reminder on Slaga.org, Free list and Facebook with a list of awards that he has already received.

• GPS: We had more discussed about purchasing new GPS’s. Wendee said her contact did not return here call. David received call from Jim Green during meeting, Jim said he also had a contact with garmin and would call about a bulk purchase of GPSr. David had found the Garmin Oregon 450model as low as $170s and came up with a nice set of rechargeable batteries and charger, He will also get case to hold the equipment securely.

• Inventory: Kathy purchased new supplies for future events.

• Website: Dave and Tony to work on the web site.

   

New Business

• Caching with Pets : Received email looking your info about caching with Pets. We left this in Jim Greens hands to get a hold of Mixbreed and Bluedaisy to give there experience on this topic.

• Basecamp: Discussed value of basecamp. Table discussion till next meeting.

• Future Q & A’s: Need to setup locations for future Q & A’s. Decided that these should be held in the months of January, February, & March. Hopeful locations include Downtown St. Louis library, Illinois, South County.

• Announcing Slaga meeting: Need to place notice of next month’s meeting on calendar. (Michael says ok to post his address and home cords, when meeting is there)

• News Letter: Talked about moving on with the Slaga newsletter, making it quarterly issues. Decided that it should come out not on a perfect 90 cycle but approximately 2 weeks prior to each major Slaga picnic event. Figured on 8 topics that could be put into each newsletter. Not in any certain order:

  • Preview of upcoming events

  • Message from the president

  • Review of past events

  • TB race

  • Recount of milestones/ reminder to report you new milestones

  • Cool new caches /Classic old cache

  • Interview “meet your fellow geocacher” / special interest story

  • The best of caches (this would be a great piece for elonka)

     

    Meeting Adjourned

    The next meeting will be January 6th at 6 PM. At the home of Michael Allison. If you want to attend, please contact one of the officers as seating is limited.