St. Louis Area Geocaching Association

MEETING MINUTES 2021

15th Nov 2021/ 6:30 PM / meet at SmithPro Painting and via Zoom 

ATTENDEES

Steve Bromley, Robert Klemme, John Layman, Nan Dabler, Melissa Pierce, Michael Smith, John Elfrank, Laurie Elfrank

Meeting called to order at 6:10 pm.

The board would like to welcome our new Vice President, John Layman. 

      Motion called to approve October 2021 minutes by Robert, seconded by Nan.

Motion called to approve October 2021 treasurer's reports by Robert, seconded by John.

• Need to set up a way to reflect how many gift cards were given away versus how many were bought.
• Jacket for the 25,000 milestone award went up in price by $12. We will probably be needing one when we ask for the next milestone submissions.
• Brought in $10 for the month of October.

Retrospective

• Fall picnic was held on October 30th. Thank you to Patricia Hutchinson for being the hostess!
  • The lack of name tags was commented on.
    • We have a lot of sticker name tags and pens
    • At one point we had thought about offering personalized, magnetic name tags for sale on the SLAGA store.
  • Gift cards were drawn, however none of the winners were at the event.
    • Winners were: Devin Morgan, Candy Grisham, and John Christensen.
    • Devin Morgan’s will be delivered by Steve.
    • Will send the winners names out in an email blast and let them know they need to pick up within 180 days.
      • This sparked a vote on how to deal with the premium member gift card drawings. 
        • All gift cards need to be picked up within 180 days.
        • Gift cards that are not picked up after 180 days will be reused at that point.
        • Motion to approve called by Nan, seconded by Melissa, all in favor.
    • Decided to get a stockpile of gift cards for 2022 while we can get them in larger groups from Sam’s Club for the denominations available that we need. 
      • Needs: 6 - $25, 4 - $20, 4 - $15, and 15 - $10

       Events

• Holiday event will be held at Fortel’s Pizza Den from 1-3 pm.
  • Will have in the party room that holds 60 people
    • Previous years had 62 and 65 attendees.
  • Will be doing our usual food and toy collection
  • Have a drawing at 2 pm 
    • Will include some of BrawnyBear’s donated coins.
    • People can get up to 3 tickets
      • Attendance, toy donation, food donation.
• Cachemas will start December 13, 2021
  • Amount for the cachemas supplies to be set at $100
    • Motion to approved called by Nan, seconded by Robert. Approved by all.
  • Bonus contains another ornament and 2 coins.
  • John has the supplies and receipts for them.
    • Will turn in the receipts soon, they are for less than $100.
• Winter Potluck will be held on January 29, 2022 from 9 am to 4 pm at The Pavilion at Lemay. Hosts are LFrank and Denmother.
  • We will have the use of the gym and the “tot” room.
    • We will not have kitchen access this year.
    • “Tot” room does have a wet bar and bathroom.
    • It also contains more circuits, lessening the likelihood that we will cause issues with our crockpots and other electrical needs.
    • We can also set up additional tables if needed in the gym.
  • There are no currently enforceable mask rules, however the staff would appreciate it if we wear them when outside of our group’s area.
    • John will also be asking that attendees wear masks while getting food.
  • Agenda has a food set up starting at 9 am
    • Set-up for the tables will be done for us.
      • We will have 15 tables with 8 people per table set up
  • Will take the picture at 1 pm with the meeting portion to follow
  • Will have geobingo, raffle, coins for sale, $3 table, and the 50/50 raffle.

      Ongoing Business

• Milestone Awards
  • Will send out a call for milestones.
    • Due by December 31st, 2021 for Winter Potluck pick up.
  • Hiking sticks were brought up.
    • $110 from geocaching.com store
    • Will need to do more research
• SLAGA store
  • We have preforms to put into the shop
  • Would also like to get some bison tubes and other things for sale.
• Brentwood would like for us to do another GC 101 class with them this spring
  • We will communicate with Allison on dates and review for conflicts.
• We have all of the boxes brought to us from the dissolution of MOGA to go through.
  • We will meet on Monday, December 8th at 6:00 pm to go through the boxes. 
• John spoke with a park ranger for St. Charles County about geocaching and how to get ones placed within the county park system.
  • The ranger seems excited to have caches in the parks
    • Was informed about the GC 101 classes.
    • We need to have Laura MacLeod write down the information that we use to work with St. Louis County.
      • We can then share this info with other counties and municipalities when talking to them about geocaching.
  • Discovered that St. Charles City has their own rules.
• Still need to perform maintenance on Leader of the Pack at West Tyson Park

New Business

• Cache in Greensfelder, Window on Caching, requires a key to access. This is also owned by the SLAGA Board.
  • Who currently has the key?
• SLAGA trailer might have a new storage area, courtesy of Michael. This could happen in 2022.
• SLAGA trailer does need some maintenance and repairs.
  • New tires and spare needed.
  • New tarp, if we are to continue storing it outside.
  • Doors need sandblasting and repair as they are oxidizing.
    • Michael may know someone who could do that.
  • Of note, trailer was purchased used in 2009.
• Another concern that was raised was if SLAGA needed to carry our own liability insurance.
  • Michael spoke with his insurance agent. They feel we do not need to have any.
    • The exception could be the ammo can toss. May want to stop offering it for this reason.
• Maybe we should offer a GC 202 class for premium members going over things such as Project GC, GSAK, and Cachetur.
• Our next GC 101 class at Queeny will be March 26th, 2022.

CLOSED EXECUTIVE MEETING

• None

Meeting adjourned at 9:09 pm by Robert and seconded by Nan.

NEXT MONTH’S INFORMATION

Monday, January 10, 2022 at 6:00 pm at SmithPro Painting, 2655 Metro Blvd., Maryland Heights, MO 63043.  Dinner at 5:30 pm.

map, 10/9/2021 @ 1919

map, 11/15/2021 @ 0949