SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes

 Meeting date: February 9, 2011

Present: John and Laurie Elfrank, Jim Greene, Mike Henthorn, Rich Sheffold, Yvonne Von Der Ahe, Tom Wolpert

Guest: Sheila Voss (Missouri Botanical Garden education department)

Sheila Voss gave a brief presentation about the Botanical Garden’s upcoming Great St. Louis Tree Hunt program, which will run from April 1 through November, 2011. This is a scavenger hunt which involves locating 20 to 30 designated “Treemendous” trees located throughout the greater St. Louis metropolitan area. The Garden wants to encourage both low-tech and high-tech means to locate and visit the trees in question. As part of the high-tech approach, the Garden would like someone to place caches at as many locations as possible. After lengthy discussion, the Board concluded that the best approach would be to recruit volunteers to place a “Treemendous” series of caches where feasible.

Next steps: Sheila Voss will provide the coordinates of the trees as they become available. SLAGA will check locations with an eye toward cache placement and recruit volunteers as needed.

The board voted to reimburse John Elfrank for the cost of the special award coins presented at the potluck. John passed the receipts to Yvonne Von Der Ahe for reimbursement. Yvonne reimbursed Rich Sheffold for expenses related to the potluck.

The board accepted the treasurer’s report.

Mike Henthorn reported that he contacted Brittany Ruess (Lifestyle editor for the Webster University paper The Journal) twice in response to her request for assistance with a class article. She failed to return his e-mails. No further action.

Mike Griffin volunteered to handle the request from Eric Mircsov for a geocaching presentation and/or activity at the Fall Fun Rally on Saturday, September 24, 2011 at Beaumont Reservation. This is a BSA Venture crew activity and is not open to the public.  Post meeting: SLAGA calendar has been updated with a placeholder.

John Elfrank reviewed action items from the January minutes.  Results were as follows.

·         Jim Greene reported that he had filed the paperwork with County Parks to finalize the (revised) dates for the Complete GPS and Geocaching 101 courses.

·         John Elfrank reported that he did investigate the availability and cost of tables and chairs.  Both were prohibitively expensive.

·         John Elfrank reported that he and Mike Henthorn had not had the opportunity to discuss the tongue jack for the trailer. 

·         John Elfrank reported that he did confirm the February and March premium member training classes with Steve Bromley, who will do his GSAK Q&A for both sessions.

·         John Elfrank reported that he did check on marketing materials with the SLAGA logo. The consensus was that we should go with stubby pens. John will price and report back. Post-meeting information: John forwarded quotes for a combined carabiner/stubby pen to the board.

Rich Sheffold reported that he updated the posters in St. Louis County Parks facilities with the revised class dates.

Rich Sheffold reported that he had not received confirmation of a discounted rate for the Grant Pavilion for the potluck in 2012. Rich will check on this through official channels at County Parks. The board also discussed possible alternative locations should the Grant Shelter prove to be too expensive.  The date for the next potluck will be Saturday, January 28, 2012.  Post meeting: SLAGA calendar has been updated with a placeholder.

Mike Henthorn confirmed the continued availability of space at his office for the St. Charles edition of premium member training classes.

Additional dates for training classes are as follows. Tom Wolpert will book library space for the additional St. Louis County dates and update the SLAGA calendar accordingly.  Post-meeting: Future classes tabled because there were no attendees at the February GSAK session. No reservations or calendar entries made.

·         Monday, March 14, St. Charles. Second edition of Steve Bromley’s GSAK Q&A.

·         Monday May 16, St. Charles.

·         Wednesday, September 14, St. Louis County.

·         Monday, October 17, St. Charles.

·         Wednesday, November 16, St. Louis County

The board reviewed the contents of the upcoming newsletter.

John and Laurie Elfrank volunteered to host the SLAGA fall picnic at Cliff Cave County Park on Saturday, September 10, 2011. Date and location are tentative. Post meeting: SLAGA calendar has been updated with a placeholder.