2024 Community Volunteers have Fun DisObeying

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Written by Terri Nealon

Published: June 28 2024

Last Updated: June 28 2024

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{This article was written by Laurie and John Elfrank and submitted here on their behalf with some minor additions and  editing.}

Geocaching is a community driven game, and it relies on the support of more than 400 community volunteers. The volunteers are a diverse and dedicated group from over 35 countries who give their time to translate content, moderate forums and review cache pages on behalf of the global geocaching community.  Community volunteers are required to adhere to Geocaching HQ’s guidelines and are said to “Obey the Frog” (Signal the FROG is the geocaching.com’s mascot).

In the early 2000s, Groundspeak hosted a reviewer event, and it was called Obey, as in "Obey the Frog."  But as the number of volunteers grew, HQ stopped hosting the event, and instead let the volunteers take over hosting in different cities. In North America, they changed the name to (Dis)Obey.  

In June 2024, around 30 community volunteers descended upon St. Louis for their annual multi-day gathering in North America, hosted by Missouri reviewer MrHarmonica. Attendees included community volunteers from all over the U.S. and Canada, one from Germany, their families, and a Lackey WatermanHQ (a Geocaching HQ employee from Seattle). They started arriving on June 19, and spent the next four days enjoying activities that appealed to the volunteers and families.  MrHarmonica’s schedule included a guided tour of Bellefontaine Cemetery, mini golf at Swing-A-Round Fun Town, a hike at West Tyson County Park, an evening at Breakout Games escape rooms, a tour of  St. Louis craft breweries, and time sampling the local cuisine.

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SLAGA WANTS A MASCOT!

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Written by Terri Nealon

Published: March 10 2024

Last Updated: April 27 2024

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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!'

LET THE RACE BEGIN!

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Written by Terri Nealon

Published: March 19 2024

Last Updated: March 19 2024

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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.  

HO HO HOoray to the December 2023 Winner!

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Written by Terri Nealon

Published: January 09 2024

Last Updated: January 09 2024

Hits: 2388

Santa Cachemas got a Christmas gift too! SLAGA's very own VP, Geokid12 (Robert Klemme), is the winner of the December 2023 Adventure Awaits challenge!  The officers had to laugh, during their monthly meeting, when the random number generator happened to draw Robert's number. Obviously the task of qualifying was easy enough for him given his 12 Days of Cachemas duties, since nine of the caches were hidden by elves, so he was able to find them along with other geocachers this past month. 

As a SLAGA officer, Robert feels that it's good to set an example by participating in the monthly challenge, and as one of the brains behind Adventure Awaits, he also believes it's a great way to drive community engagement within SLAGA. Besides Cachemas caches, Robert chose the SLAGA Christmas party event as an entry because he felt it thematically tied into the December qualifications. His entries were:  

GCADHZ6 Day 6 - 2023 Cachemas in STL

GCAE56C Day 7 - 2023 Cachemas in STL

GCAEBQV Day 8 - 2023 Cachemas in STL

*GCAFWP9 SLAGA-land Christmas Bash. Event*

If you've ever wondered how a geocacher chooses their caching name, here's Geokid12's back story. In 2007, when Robert was just 12 years old, he was introduced to geocaching on a Boy Scout troop outing at Whitecliff Park. He was enthralled by entering coordinates into a Garmen eTrex Legend, then being able to hunt and find a cache container at ground zero.  So he bought his own eTrex, decided he'd register with GC.com and chose the username Geokid12, since he was a 12 year old kid who was now a 'Geo'cacher too. 

Young Robert didn't start off as an avid cacher though, due to his schooling, scouting, non-driving lifestyle, followed by intense college studies. But once he graduated all that changed. His 575-day caching hiatus (Aug 2014 - Feb 2016) and only 400 total finds would soon be a thing of the past.

Starting in 2017, as a driving, employed young man, Robert got back into geocaching and became involved socially in SLAGA, which was a huge geocaching motivator. Since then he hasn't stopped. To date, he has over 10,800 finds and is working on conquering that 575 no-find streak of his with an even greater find streak. Adventure definitely awaits Robert on his geocaching quest!