APRIL SHOWERED IN AN ADVENTURE AWAITS WINNER
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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Congratulations to Dean Meredith, deancmeredith, who's name was drawn to win the $10 gift card and sticker for April's Adventure Awaits Challenge! As prolific of a geocacher as Dean is, it might surprise some to know that he only started geocaching in January 2021, yet to date has over 6900 cache finds ... No Foolin'... he started caching as a way to keep active and entertained during the Covid pandemic, and he caches almost continuosly. He has cached on every day of the calendar, including leap day (366 days) and has found every D/T two times or more (Fizzy challenge). Dean's found caches in 40 states and 10 countries.
As for Adventure Awaits monthly challenges, Dean states, "I enjoy these challenges as they give me something to work towards on my daily caching." For the month of April, Dean chose the following caches with different terrain ratings.
GC4FGF9 Pendleton, Trad T1.5
GCA549 Origins of Alexandria, Virtual T1
GC1V1WR Westledge Mountain: Masters Series #1, Trad T2.5
GC33Z7E Westledge Mountain: Sands of Time [Master Series], Trad T3.5
GCAMQMR CVGA Adopt-A-Highway CITO, Event T2
DEAN MEREDITH
with county-run buddy cootie_man at the CITO Event in Virginia
Part of the enjoyment of geocaching for Dean is taking county caching trips with friends. He says he is 'getting to see every corner of America," and loves it! Besides the monthly challenge, Dean has challenged himself from the start of his caching history in a unique way. In 2021, he found 2021 caches. In 2022, he found 2022 caches. Last year in 2023, he found 2023 caches. Adventure Awaits Dean not only every month, but every year as he continues his personal challenge. I'll let you all guess how many he intends to find this year!
SPRING PICNIC DOWN ON THE FARM
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From a relaxing stroll around the farm visiting the animals, to the hustle and bustle of activities going on at the park shelter, the SLAGA Spring Picnic 2024 was a grand success! The event was held at Willoughby Heritage Farm and Conservation Reserve in Collinsville on a beautiful sunny Saturday (April 20) with cool spring breezes, and was hosted by mathmanbill (William Gottschalk).
SLAGA provided hamburgers, brats, and hotdogs, along with plates, napkins and utensils as always, while attendees brought delicious and varied side dishes, snacks and desserts to share with all. There was the usual silent auction table and the 50/50 raffle, but our host, mathmanbill, also mixed things up a bit. He had a geo-style scavenger hunt around the grounds and a TOTT skills contest too. He also placed two additional caches onsite for those wanting to solve a cypher, take wooded hikes, and use a TOTT to gain their smilies. Plenty of fun for participants indeed!
MARCHed to a WIN (Adventure Awaits)
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CONGRATULATIONS
John Layman, vorlon40,on your SLAGA Adventure Awaits Monthly Challenge win and $10 Gift Card prize!
On 3/20/24, John marched his way to find four of his five geocaches, each with a different difficulty rating, after having attended some D1 events earlier in the month. He found the four on the same day, in the same area, that all fit the challenge. Speaking of a challenge, John stated "I love challenges [and] solving puzzles, although I'm not always good at it. I try to seek out challenge caches that I qualify for or can work towards." He's currently working on completing his fourth FIZZY and his second JASMER! And some of his other geocaching ventures include focusing on completing series of caches like 'Hidden Creatures' and 'Legends of the Sword.'
As for his March Adventure Awaits qualifying caches, John, of course, chose a few 'challenging' caches:
GCAK97T: D1 Event: Tuesday Penguin Event
GC3NTV6: D4 Unknown: Top Ten Christmas Songs - TTCS
GC2M6X7: D3.5 Unknown: The Two Flutes Tree - TFT
GCA3TOA: D3 Traditional: Spanning the River
GCAB7G4: D2.5 Traditional: Duck
John started geocaching in January of 2015 after he and his wife, Cindy, had exhausted their hunt for all the St. Louis 250th birthday celebration cakes in 2014. They were looking for something else to do together to explore the area. Since he'd taken a geocaching class and used a Garmin eTrex GPS, finding some hole punchers hidden in the area, John thought that this outdoor 'game' might be the next fun adventure. So he signed up for a geocaching account under vorlon40 and "found his first cache close to home with a Garmin Nuvi car GPS, but quickly switched to using Cindy’s smartphone, since he didn’t have one at that time. [He] eventually got [his] own smartphone and a GPS." As stated in his SLAGA officer profile also, John mentioned "one of my favorite cache adventures was a 5/5 which involved solving a two stage cypher and then hiking a 6.5 mile, two stage multi up the ski slopes of Copper Mountain, CO from 10,000 to 12,000 feet."
Since that beginning, John has found nearly 7100 caches, has hidden (some adopted) 50 caches, has acquired a love for challenging caches, and has already cached in 37 states to date. It's obvious he thoroughly enjoys epic adventures which include his SLAGA area group accomplishments of finding 'The Architect' and 'Mysterious Treasure,' both D5/T5s. These geocaching achievements and goals all point to John being an avid and well-rounded geocacher, who enjoys caching thrills and looks forward to his next adventure. Does Adventure Await you too?
LET THE RACE BEGIN!
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Our SLAGA board is spicing up the game of geocaching by sponsoring a TRACKABLE RACE! The race, which will be monitored by our fellow SLAGA member and volunteer HobbitTaz (Mark Derr) once again, will run from late May 2024 till January 2025. This exciting new addition to our adventurous pastime is definitely a fun little competition that you may want to consider, but first a little explanation of what a trackable is, for those that may not be familiar.
A trackable is a geocaching game piece owned by a geocacher that has a unique six-digit tracking code etched into it. These codes allow you to track its movement on geocaching.com, as other geocachers retrieve and drop it in different caches. They are different than the small swap items or SWAG that you might find in many cache containers, because trackables are moveable and traveling game pieces. They may appear in many shapes, sizes and styles, and owners often attach a meaningful or fun personal 'token' to the trackable, especially if it's a dog tag type 'travel bug.' Owners often set goals for their trackables, as well, like travel to as many beaches as possible. Geocachers, who retrieve a trackable from a cache, try to help move it to another cache that helps fulfill its goal. When a geocacher moves a trackable, the owner gets a notification. Guidelines for 'logging' trackables and protocol for moving them can be found on GC.com. Most importantly, a geocacher should move a trackable and place it in another geocache preferably in line with its mission and within a reasonable timeframe. Besides the dog tag travel bug, there are also trackable geocoins and other uniquely designed trackable pieces, which many geocachers send out into the world. Trackables are popular items at events too, where cachers 'discover' each other's game pieces.
While geocaching certainly is a favorite pastime, the owning, collecting, discovering, retrieving, moving, and racing trackables is another avenue of fun altogether! Placing a new trackable in a race, with prizes for winners, is always an exciting adventure as cachers track their game piece over many months and places, while competing with the other trackables in the race.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For this year's SLAGA Trackable Race, there will be three winners, each receiving a $10 gift card prize. There will be one winner for each of three categories. In case of a tie, the tie is broken and winning trackable determined by the most mileage accumulated. The three race categories (with clarifications) are:
* Greatest distance/miles the trackable has traveled during the race.
* Most geocaches that the trackable was dropped in and remained overnight at least,
with the exception of Event caches in which case they may be retrieved the same day.
(A trackable may not be retrieved from a geocache by a cacher who dropped it in that cache.)
* Most unique 'Regions' visited by a trackable ('Region' as defined on GC.com).
(Example: If a trackable visits Canada it receives one point, and if that's in Ontario province,
it receives another point, but if it is moved to a geocache in Quebec,
then it receives that region's one point, but not one for Canada again.)
Additional SLAGA Race Information:
Any style of trackable is permitted entry into this race, but must have ZERO accumulative miles, be in the hands of the owner and been activated. ONLY ONE trackable per Geocaching account is permitted entry in this race.
All entries need to be in the SLAGA boards hands no later than May 15, 2024, where they will all be taken to a major out-of-town event and released all at once into the geocaching world. Turning over your activated trackable to a board member at the SLAGA Spring Picnic Event on April 20th is ideal, however if you are not in attendance, but wish to enter a trackable, then you must arrange getting it to a board member by May 15th.
For convenience, SLAGA will be selling dog tag style travel bug trackables at the SLAGA Spring Picnic, but you may wish to bring an attachable token, charm or toy to personalize your racing trackable before entering it into the race.
So let the race begin by getting your personal trackable game piece ready and entering it into the SLAGA Trackable Race this spring. You'll be glad you did as you follow its progress and its ranking among the other competing trackables of your fellow SLAGA members.
SLAGA WANTS A MASCOT!
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SLAGA WANTS A MASCOT!
The board is asking for members' help to give SLAGA it's own named mascot. A mascot is anything including an animal, person, character, or object, that is adopted by a group as a symbolic figure. Mascot characters for organizations help engage the community and can create an inviting and fun atmosphere when they appear on organizational announcements, social media, and promotional merchandise too. Mascots are terrific advertising tools. Our own Geocaching.com has "Signal the Frog," and other caching organizations have mascots as well. So if your creative, artful, clever, or not, and want to participate in the SLAGA mascot design and mascot name competition, keep reading.
For this friendly competition, members may submit either a design Or a name Or both, since these two catergories will be voted on separately. More than one entry is permissable from members so we have a variety of options from which to choose. All entries must comply with the following guidelines.
- Mascot design/artwork must be 2-dimensional ORIGINAL work only (to avoid copyright infringement). Any submission that is intellectual property of another company or sports entity will automatically be disqualified
- Mascot design/artwork entry must be submitted without a name on the image, because design entries are separate from name entries. And since there are two separate voting categories for this competition, design and name, it is possible that the chosen design entry could end up with a different chosen name than one that may have been submitted by the winning design creator. Please be aware of this.
- Mascot design and mascot name entries must be FAMILY-FRIENDLY.
- Mascot design and mascot name should reflect some aspect(s) of SLAGA or SLAGAland, or geocaching in general.
- The winning/chosen mascot design and mascot name will become the sole property of SLAGA.
- All entries must be in the hands of the SLAGA Officers no later than midnight May 19, 2024 via email or snail mail attachment.
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mailing Address:
SLAGA
101 W. Argonne Dr.
PMB226
Kirkwood, MO 63122
If you are artistically challenged, but have a creative design idea, you are encouraged to join up with another more 'artistic' geocacher to submit your mascot design as a team.
All entries received by May 19 will be presented for voting purposes via email to all members with photos of the design entries and the name entries along with a ballot for voting for your favorites. Voting instructions and the 'respond by' date will be included in the email. This will be conducted similarly to the voting for board officers every term. After the votes are tallied, sometime in early summer, the board will announce the winning design and winning name. Note that final approval of the SLAGA mascot and name will be by the SLAGA board. The winner(s) award will be the recognition, thanks, and notoriety for years to come for having created the SLAGA mascot.
Our geocaching organization's mascot should stand out, entertain, engage and be fun! They should be designed with merchandise like pathtags, trackables, and apparel in mind especially. So get your creative juices flowing and submit your mascot entry by May 19, and give SLAGA a new 'face!'
Leapin' into an Adventure Awaits Win
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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Java1369 (Nikki) leaped, or as you'll find out-maybe rolled, into action this February and was rewarded by becoming our next Adventure Awaits winner. Logging all of her qualifying caches on Leap Day itself means she just snuck into the running for the drawing. Nikki was halfway through her caching day when she remembered that there was a monthly challenge, and looked over the caches she'd done and realized that she qualified. "It was a good time, and next time I will come at it with more planning." Her challenge geocaches (four different sizes with one event) are:
GC8AQPZ (Regular) Regular Ol' Cache
GC842DF (Large) Swamp's Edge
GCA465M (Small) Dial P for Penguin
GCAJ10E (Other- Event) Leap Day Lunch
To date, Nikki has found 775 caches. She started geocaching in September 2008, just before her second son was born, because she wanted a fun activity to do with her oldest. Being the young muggle that he was, however, he was "utterly uninterested in treasure hunting and to this day prefers chucking rocks into lakes" instead. So caching has become a solo activity for Nikki and besides giving her time in nature, away from the house, it has also brought her to places she would not have otherwise gone. Although she had almost a 3 year slump at one point, this Leap year Nikki is trying to get as many caches as she can. She said, "originally I wanted one a day, but after a couple of 'off' days, now I'm aiming for 1000 by the end of the year."
Besides her geocaching hobby, Nikki keeps plenty busy as a school bus driver, a wife and mother. But if that's not enough, her extensive list of arts and crafts keep her occupied, as well as her really awesome hobby of roller derby. Yes! You read that right. Nikki skates for the Confluence Crush roller derby on the B Team. Her derby name is Java Sparkles, because it was her kids' favorite choice from a provided list. And her derby number is 1369, which she claims is because she is a particulary unlucky person. So now you know why her geoname is Java1369. But Nikki...with this February Adventure Awaits win, I think your luck has changed.
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