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Written by Laura Million

Published: April 29 2015

Last Updated: May 13 2015

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April 2015 SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes

April 6, 2015

6pm St. Louis Bread Company

Meeting called to order: 6:09pm

Attendance: Kathy DeWitt, Pete Shaw, Tony Colter, Dave DeWitt, Laura Million, Wendy Neal

The March 6th, 2015 Board Meeting Minutes were read and the following correction was made: Add Pam Mueller’s last name to the March minutes. A motion to approve the March 6^th 2015 SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes with the above correction was made by Pete Shaw and seconded by Tony Colter. Board unanimously approved the minutes.

Treasurer’s Report from March 2015 was read. A motion to approve the Treasurer’s Reports was made by Pete Shaw and seconded by Tony Colter. The Board unanimously approved the February 2015 Treasurer’s Reports.

Richard Janssen sent in a check to pay for membership, but said that he paid cash at the Winter Pot Luck. There is a record that he paid so Wendy will contact Richard and ask if he wants his check back or wants it applied to a second year of membership.

Old Business

Website:

• Family memberships - Dave will be more diligent about watching for family registrations and ensuring that all family members are included.
• Calendars - The Website has 3 calendars. Events have to be added to each calendar: main SLAGA calendar, Road Trips calendar, and Events calendar.
• Milestone registration – Dave will add a “Thank You” message to reply after milestones are submitted.
• Scout Page – Laura will create a page for Boy and Girl Scouts and include what SLAGA can provide for Scout Badges.
• Gear Page – Dave will create a Gear page for SLAGA membership to sell geocaching gear

SLAGA Road Trips:

• Evansville IN Challenge Trip – May 1-3, led by Kathy DeWitt.
• New Geocachers – Group hunt Queeny Park for new cachers. Jim Greene (Strider) will lead it. Date TBA.
• Tom Whelan (trekto) wants to plan a power trail trip to Oklahoma.
• Bob Pratt – Caribbean trip in the fall.

Newsletter:
Newsletter for Spring Picnic will be sent out on May 11^th. Laura needs articles and pictures by Monday, May 4^th.
--Names for Nominations of Officers
-- Evansville Road Trip
--Milestones
--Geocaching 101 & 201 class

Events:

• CITO: 4-25: Missouri Bottom and Lower Meramec County Park. Pete will organize lunch break.
  4-26: Willoboughy Farms and Silver Lake Highland IL. Wendy will organize lunch break.

• Spring Picnic Quail Ridge Park: May 16, 2015 - Pete will put out 10 new caches.
  Prizes: 3 geo-bingo, 2 ammo can toss, photo game, closest to the pin (total 7 prizes)
  -- 3 Premium member drawings - $20 Gift Cards (total $60)
  Tony made a motion to approved the ordering of 12 ammo cans for $119 including shipping. Pete Shaw seconded the motion. The Board unanimously approved the February 2015 Treasurer’s Reports.

• Summer Picnic: Sunday,July 12^th, 2015, 1:30pm
  Cache page will be published after the Spring Picnic.

• Fall Picnic: Date: TBD
  Steve Bachman (Geofly1) will locate a pavilion at Cuivre River State Park.

• Halloween Bash (10-24-15)
  Mike Maryan (TheMadChef) will host at Kirkwood Park. The location still needs to be reserved.

Class Schedule:

• Wherigo Class – No Date for reschedule
• Geocaching 101 & 201 –May 30, 2015 at Columbia Bottoms. Geocaching 101 will be held from 10am – Noon and Geocaching 201 will be held from 1:30pm – 3:30pm. Led by Lena Dowers (brantole)

Pi Event – the Pi Event went well. 1 Pi coin remains. Many left good complements on the place and food.

Milestone:
The following will be milestones reached at the Spring Picnic:
5 – 100 finds pin
6 – 500 finds coin
4 – 1000 finds coin
4– 5000 finds coin
1 – 10,000 finds award

The types of awards to be given for 25,000 finds are the following: walking stick, back-pack, duffle bag, and jacket. All printed with the recipient’s geocaching name.

By-Laws

The following text was discussed to be added to the SLAGA bylaws:

"If the President, for any reason, shall resign, be removed, decline, fail, refuse or be unable to act, then in that event, the Vice President with the longest tenure shall assume the Presidency."

Tony Colter motioned for the text to be included in the SLAGA Bylaws. Pete Shaw seconded the motion. Board unanimously approved.

New Business

Elections/Fall Picnic – Announcements for Call for Nominations for SLAGA officers will be made at the Spring picnic. The call for nominations will end at the Summer Picnic. The President will collect the names and give the names to Steve Bromley. Steve will get the approval by the nominees and then notify the SLAGA board if any positions are missing. The President will organize the ballot and return to Steve. Steve will send an email blast to SLAGA membership and count the vote. Winners will be announced at the Fall picnic. Dave DeWitt will create a form for the nominations.

PO Box – Kathy paid for the SLAGA Post Office box. The price is has increased to $360 for the year, with and additional  4 months free.

Adjourned: 7:50pm

Next Meeting: May 4, 2015, 6pm at St. Louis Bread Company, South Grand, St. Louis.

Details

Written by Laura Million

Published: April 02 2015

Last Updated: April 29 2015

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March 2015 SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes

March 6, 2015

6pm Panera

Meeting called to order: 6:20pm

Attendance: Kathy DeWitt, Pete Shaw, Tony Colter, Dave DeWitt, Laura Million, Wendy Neil, guest Pam Mueller

The February 2nd, 2015 Board Meeting Minutes were read and the following correction was made: Tony Colter will teach the Cache Publishing Class. A motion to approve the February 2^, 2015 SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes with the above correction was made by Kathy DeWitt and seconded by Pete Shaw. Board unanimously approved the minutes.

Treasurer’s Report from February 2015 was read. A motion to approve the Treasurer’s Reports was made by Tony Colter and seconded by Kathy DeWitt. The Board unanimously approved the February 2015 Treasurer’s Reports.

Old Business

Website: Dave DeWitt added web pages for Classes, Guess the Cache, SLAGA Road Trips, and Pictures. He asked that we send him pictures to add. Laura Million asked for a page for Scouts to promote what we provide for Boy and Girl Scout Geocaching badges.

There is currently an issue with upgrading membership. When a member upgrades their membership, the original reoccurring payment in PayPal is not cancelled. Dave will keep track of people that upgrade and cancel their previous PayPal payment.

The SLAGA User List has been updated and all SLAGA Premium members can access member’s profile information.

Dave DeWitt mentioned that there was a paid feature on our website that would enhance the photo gallery. It would add the ability for users to add comments and link the photos to articles within the website. The cost would be $69 + tax. Pete Shaw motioned that we should purchase this add-on for the website. Tony Colter seconded the motion. The Board unanimously approved the purchase.

Cafepress: Laura will check the SLAGA Cafepress sight for the current logo and will update new merchandise with the SLAGA logo.

SLAGA Road Trips: Kathy DeWitt has created stamps for teams to sign logs for SLAGA Road Trips. She has plans ready to publish for the Evansville trip in May. Jim Greene (Strider) wants to plan a day trip to Queeny Park for new cachers. Tom Whelan (Trec2) wants to plan a power trail trip to Oklahoma.

Newsletter: Laura needs all the articles for the Spring newsletter by Monday, March 9^th.

Events:

CITO:
All four CITOs are published:

Saturday 4-25, 10am – Noon, Missouri Bottoms, hosted by Lena Dowers (brantole).
Saturday 4-25, (2pm – 5pm), Lower Meramec MO Park (I-55 & Meramec river), hosted by Laura McCleod (Korriaan).
Sunday 4-26, 9am – 11am, Willoughby Heritage Farms, hosted by Wendy Neil.
Sunday 4-26, (1pm – 3pm), Highland IL Parks, hosted by Laura Million (2_cats).

Wendy and Laura will organize a location for lunch between Sunday events.

Spring Picnic Quail Ridge Park: May 16, 2015 - The cache page is published. Pete needs someone to BBQ. He has a volunteer section on the cache page. Dave DeWitt will run the Travel Bug race. Wendy will purchase more travel bugs to sell at the event.

Summer Picnic: Sunday,July 12^th, 2015, 1:30pm – 4pm at Willoughby Heritage Farms in Collinsville IL. There is no cost to SLAGA to rent this site. Wendy will sign the paperwork soon.

Fall Picnic: Ed (N0WNV) has stated that he still wants to host the Fall Picnic but has not contacted SLAGA with any details. Kathy will contact Ed about getting the pavilion reserved.

Class Schedule:

Publishing Caches – April 11, 2015 9am –Noon at St. Louis Library, Carpenter Branch, led by Tony Colter
Wherigo Class – Forest-Ghost cancelled the Wherigo class but will reschedule it at a later time.
Geocaching 101 & 201 –May 30, 2015 at Columbia Bottoms. Geocaching 101 will be held from 10am – Noon and Geocaching 201 will be held from 1:30pm – 3:30pm. Led by Lena Dowers (brantole)

Milestones: A discussion was held about what to give geocachers that have reached milestones over 10,000. It was suggested that at the 25,000 milestone, the cacher be given a choice of gifts such as a walking stick, jacket, duffle bag, etc.

Bylaws: The question was raised with the new Board terms, what would happen if the President vacates the office within the first year of the two year term. The Board decided that the Vice President with the most seniority becomes president and a new Vice President is appointed.

MOGA – SLAGA purchased swag for the kids’ caches and it has been taken to MOGA. Wendy will purchase more. SLAGA will keep any kids’ sway that MOGA does not use.

New Business

Bills – Kathy will pay the Post Office box bill and the Premium membership account at Geocaching.com.

SLAGA Business Cards – Wendy will price the cost of business cards. These cards are for SLAGA members to hand out and place in geocaches as a way to advertise the organization.

Square for Credit Card Processing for Mobile Devices – the board approved the purchase three Square credit card readers for credit card processing for SLAGA. Square charges $.50 for every $10 we spend. This is cheaper than the PayPal card swipe.  

Domain Registration – SLAGA is maintaining the geostl.org domain name for one year to ensure that everything has transferred to slaga.org.

Adjourned: 8:35pm

Next Meeting: April 6, 2015, 6pm at Panera’s, South Grand, St. Louis.

Details

Written by Laura Million

Published: March 23 2015

Last Updated: March 23 2015

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February 2015 SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes
February 2, 2015
6pm Panera

Meeting called to order: 6:15pm

Attendance: Kathy Dewitt, Pete Shaw, Tony Colter, Dave Dewitt, Laura Million, Wendy Neil

The January 5, 2015 Board Meeting Minutes were read and the following correction was made: Tony Colter will teach the Cache Publishing Class. A motion to approve January 5, 2015 Board Meeting Minutes with the above correction was made by Tony Colter and seconded by Pete Shaw. Board unanimously approved the minutes.

Treasurer's Reports from December 2014 and January 2015 were read. A motion to approve both Treasurer's Reports was made by Pete Shaw and seconded by Tony Colter. The Board unanimously approved the December 2014 and January 2015 Treasurer's Reports.

Old Business

• Website: Website is live. Pete Shaw requested a page for the SLAGA Road Trips and a Calendar to list upcoming events. Dave Dewitt will create those.
• SLAGA Credit card: The credit card account is closed and $75 from that account was deposited to SLAGA's account.
• SLAGA T-shirts: We will keep selling SLAGA T-shirts.
• Brochure: Tabled.
• SLAGA Road Trips: Kathy Dewitt is organizing a trip to Evansville IN for the weekend of May 1st, 2015. Pete Shaw will promote the SLAGA Road trips more.
• Events:
  • 2-1-15 Winter Pot Luck : The Winter Potluck went off well. It was a good turnout considering the venue and date change. Some discussion was held on the possibility of holding the event at the same location next year.
  • Pi Event: 3-14-15 at Eckert's in Bellville IL. Sarah asked SLAGA to pay for some Pi t-shirts to use as giveaways. SLAGA Board agreed to donate 2 coins or $25 gift certificate in lieu of the t-shirts. Tony motioned to donate 2 Pi Coins or $25 gift certificate. Wendy seconded the motion. The board unanimously approved the motion.
  • CITO:
    • Saturday 4-25, 10am – Noon, Missouri Bottoms, hosted by Lena Dowers (Brantole)
    • Saturday 4-25, (time TBA), Lower Meramec MO Park (I-55 & Meramec river), Hosted by Laura McCleod (Korriaan)
    • Sunday 4-26, 9am – 11am, Willoughby Heritage Farms, Hosted by Wendy Neil
    • Sunday 4-26, (Time TBA), Highland IL Parks, hosted by Laura Million (2_cats More details will follow.
  • 5-16-15 Spring Picnic Quail Ridge Park: Pete Shaw asked that this be put on the calendar on the SLAGA website. Pete will put out caches and create the cache pages for the event. SLAGA will provide the hotdogs, hamburgers, and buns. Premium members pay $5; basic members pay $7; all kids 3 years old – 12 years old pay $3. Kids under 3 are free. Nominations for officers will be announced.
  • Summer Picnic: Sunday, July 12th, 2015, 1:30pm – 4pm at Willoughby Heritage Farms in Collinsville IL. This will be a get-together event, no cost, no games, no awards, and people will bring their own food and chairs. Wendy Neil will bring extra tables. Willoughby Farms has a small grill but others may bring grills if desired.
  • Fall Picnic: Ed (N0WNV) offered to host the Fall Picnic at Cuivre River State Park. No date has been set. Ed will be asked to scout out a pavilion that is large enough to hold about 100 people.
  • 10-24-15 Halloween Bash: TheMadChef will organize this in Kirkwood park
• SLAGA Challenges: Fizzy: has been published.
• Class Schedule:
  • Publishing Caches – Tony Colter will teach it tentatively April 11. No location chosen yet.
  • Wherigo Class – Forest-Ghost agreed to teach a Wherigo class. Date and location TBA. Geocaching 101 –Lena Dowers will teach it on May 30th at Columbia Bottoms.
• Scout flyers: Tabled
• Milestones: Pete has several milestone coins for people that have not come to events. Some of the coins can be hand delivered. Those that cannot will be mailed. Tony made a motion to mail the coins and Wendy seconded the motion. The Board unanimously approved the motion.
• Newsletter: The Winter newsletter went out to membership before the Winter Potluck. The next newsletter will be delivered on March 16. Laura has asked for all material for the newsletter to be emailed to her no later than March 9th.

New Business

• Officer's Terms: The board discussed several items related to SLAGA Officers terms.
  • Appointment of a new position for Caching Director to organize caching trips. This new position will be appointed for the next board.
  • The extension of officers terms from 1 year to 2 years. It was felt that a one year term is not enough time to learn the office. A two year term is common in many organizations.
  • Staggering the election of officers. It was felt that staggering the election of the officers will guarantee that the SLAGA board will always include some experienced members.
    • President, one Vice-President, Treasurer will be elected in the even years beginning with the 2016 election.
    • One Vice-President and Secretary will be elected on the odd years beginning with the 2017 election.
    • 2015 Election: All Officers will continue with 1 year term.
    • 2016 Election: President, one Vice-President, and Treasurer will be elected to 2-year term. One Vice-President and Secretary will be elected to 1 year.
    • 2017 Election: One Vice-President and Secretary will be elected to 2 year term.
    • 2018 Election: President, one Vice-President, Treasurer will be elected to 2-year term.
• MOGA: MOGA requested SLAGA's help with the Raffle items, swag for kid's caches, paper towel rolls, and more volunteers. Wendy will purchase the kids swag items and deliver them to MOGA. Any swag remaining after MOGA will be returned to SLAGA. An email blast will be sent out asking SLAGA members for volunteers and paper towel rolls.
• SLAGA Facebook page: Shirley Derr announced at the Winter Potluck that she was making the SLAGA Facebook page "private" due to inappropriate postings. Private means that anyone can see the page, but only "approved" members can post.

Adjourned: 8:27pm

Next Meeting: March 2, 2015, 6pm at Panera's, South Grand, St. Louis.

Details

Written by Laura Million

Published: January 26 2015

Last Updated: February 18 2015

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January 2015 SLAGA Meeting Minutes
January 5, 2015
6pm Panera

Meeting called to order: 6:15pm

Attendance: Kathy Dewitt, Pete Shaw, Tony Colter, Dave Dewitt, Laura Million

A Motion to approve December, 8, 2014 Board Meeting Minutes was made by Tony Colter and seconded by Pete Shaw. Board unanimously approved the minutes.

No Treasurer’s Report due to Wendy Neil’s absence.

Old Business

Website: Need to test payment before release. The default URL will be www.slaga.org, although http://www.geostl.com will redirect to the default URL.

SLAGA Credit card: The credit card account has not closed yet - Wendy and Kathy will open a new account with Regions bank.

SLAGA T-shirts: Kathy will place the order for the pre-ordered T-shirts and additional t-shirts for sale at the Winter Pot Luck.

12-13-14 Event: A few coins were left over from the 12-13-14 event. SLAGA will sell them at the Winter Potluck - $10 - premiums, $12 - Regular members. SLAGA members donated 489 lb. of food to St. Louis Area Food bank (399 meals). Lots of toys were also donated.

Willoughby Heritage Farm: tabled

Brochure: tabled

SLAGA Road Trips: Pete will prepare an email blast for Caching Director - organizing caching trips. Kathy & Laura will plan first trip to Evansville – Challenges for sometime in the spring. Pete will plan a Float trip for sometime in Summer.

Events:

1-1-15 Highland Silver Lake (Team_state): good event, weather good
1-31-15 - Winter Pot Luck (editor‘s note: the date and location have changed for the Winter Potluck now being held on Sunday, Feb. 2nd. See http://coord.info/GC5G3XC for location change and details): Volunteers are needed. Contact Mrs. RGS to volunteer. Kathy will order milestones. The travel bug race will end, with gift cards for prizes. Cost for the gift cards was approved by board: BINGO -three - $10 gift cards, Premium Member drawing three-$20 gift cards. Attendance Prices will be cache containers and Pete will take care of them.
4-25 and 4-26 - CITO – Two locations so far, a park in Highland IL and MO Bottoms. Pete will organize a St. Charles County park. Tony is still working on a location.
5-16-15 Spring Picnic Quail Ridge Park: Pete will put out 10 new caches for this event.
Summer Picnic: No date or location selected - tabled o Fall Picnic: No date or location selected - tabled
10-24-15 Halloween Bash: TheMadChef will organize this in Kirkwood park

SLAGA Challenges: Jasmer: has been logged by several cachers. Fizzy: has been submitted again but not yet approved.

Class Schedule:

Geocaching 101 – Pete will contact Lena Dowers about a date and location.
Publishing Caches – Pete will contact o Wherigo Class – Pete will contact Forest-Ghost about date and location. (How to find a Wherigo and how to create a Wherigo).

New Business
Pi Event 3.14.15: Board approved the purchase of Pi Event coins, but are still looking for venue.

Scout flyers: Laura distributed the prototype of the flyers to be handed out to Boy Scout and Girl Scout Councils for Geocaching. Board suggests not to include a phone number but to add the SLAGA website.

Milestones: A SLAGA Premium Membership is not a Geocaching.com Premium membership. Being a geocaching.com Premium member does not make one a SLAGA premium member and vice-versa. A SLAGA member pays small dues to become a Premium member.

Rule 1: Only SLAGA Premium Members are eligible to receive milestone awards; and that membership must be active (paid up) at the time of milestone achievement.
Rule 2: Although the board will make every effort to track members’ achievements, we must be notified when a member’s find count has reached a milestone award level. It makes no difference who notifies the board, but we must be informed of the achievement, including both the geocaching.com and SLAGA account names (since many members do not use the same username on both geocaching.com and SLAGA, making it difficult to track and verify their count).
Rule 3: The Board will verify through Geocaching.com that an eligible member’s find count has reached the milestone level.
Rule 4: An Individual Premium Membership will receive one (1) Milestone Award for each award level attained.
Rule 5: A Household Premium Membership consisting of one (1) geocaching.com caching name that caches and signs logs under that single caching name will receive no more than two (2) milestone awards regardless of the number of SLAGA members associated with that caching name. For example: Quailman2 has a Premium Household membership consisting of Jim and Susie Nelson. They find and sign the logs as Quailman2. That single caching name, Quailman2, has reached the 10,000 finds milestone. Consequently, they will receive two (2) chairs.
Rule 6: If an active Household Premium Membership consists of members that cache under different names, then each of the Geocaching.com caching names will be awarded a separate milestone when that caching name reaches the award level. For example, Ken and Loretta Auld have a Family Membership. Ken caches under the name Cycle Ken and has recently received his 5,000 finds coin. Loretta caches under the name Crazy4Moose and is very close to 5,000, but not there yet. Each of them log caches separately, so even though they have one Premium Household Membership, they will receive their coins separately when each qualifies.
Rule 7: A Milestone Award will be given to qualifying members when they attain the following number of cache finds:
100 finds:  "100 finds" pin
500 finds: "500 finds" pin
1,000 finds:  "1,000 Finds" Geocoin with Caching Name Engraved
5,000 finds: "5,000 Finds" Geocoin with Caching Name Engraved
10,000 finds: Captain’s Chair with Caching Name Emblazoned on Chair
Laura made a motioned to approve the new rules and Tony second. The board unanimously approved.

Newsletter: Next newsletter will come out January 26th. Announcement for Geowoodstock will be included in the newsletter.

Adjourned: 8:05pm

Next Meeting: February 2, 2015, 6pm at Panera’s, South Grand, St. Louis.

Details

Written by Laura Million

Published: January 05 2015

Last Updated: February 18 2015

Hits: 955

SLAGA Board Meeting

December 8, 2014

6 pm Panera Bread Company

In attendance; Kathy Dewitt, Dave Dewitt, Wendy Neal, Pete Shaw, Tony Colter, and Laura Million

Meeting called to order: 6:20pm

Treasures report: Tony motioned to accept, Pete seconded the motion. All approved. Last meeting’s minutes: Wendy noted that the dates had been changed on the Treasurer’s report. Pete motioned to accept, Tony seconded the motion. All approved.

Old Business

• Website: Dave stated that the website is on tract for Jan 1. The calendar will be update and he will send the officers link to preview webpage.
• Credit card: Kathy will talk to bank to close. Wendy talked to Regions Bank. They will need SLAGA paperwork to open the account. Kathy will gather the paperwork needed.
• SLAGA t-shirts: ordered more with extras to sell at the Christmas party.
• 12-13-14 event: Dave will add “Premium” to members name tag for Christmas Party. There will be a Food drive and toy drive and attendance prizes. Coins will be sold-premium members $10 - regular $12. Members can buy one at the door and buy more later in the day.
• Willoughby Heritage Farms: possible for Summer picnic, second weekend July.
• World Wide Flash Mob: June 13 Tony will organize it
• Brochures: Pete has half done will send to Dave to finish
• Posters: Laura will ask Amanda to create a geocaching poster for Boy Scout and Girl Scout Council offices
• SLAGA road trips: Information will be distributed in 2 future email blasts and announcement at the Winter Potluck.
• Milestones: Pete will order milestone coins and pins, and will make second order closer to Potluck.
• New Years Day Event: SLAGA has rented the Pavilion. Cache Owner has not responded so SLAGA will make a hike to maintain existing caches.
• Winter Pot Luck: No other detail.
• CITO: no response from Mark Derr about pet cemetery. Highland would like us to do park. Willobey Heritage Farms would like clean up and trail repair. Tony and Pete will check in their communities about CITO events.
• Spring Picnic: will be held at Quail Ridge have Pavillion #6
• Summer Picnic: Wendy will check about Willoughby Heritage Farms
• Fall picnic: Will be held on September 19. Location will be someplace in Franklin County
• Halloween Bash: 10-24-15 - TheMadChef - Kirkwood Park to be reserved after the first of the year.
• SLAGA challenges: Jasmer placed and published Fizzy is still in the works
• Class schedule:
  • Publishing Caches
  • Wherigo: Ethan Rogers (Forest Ghost)
  • Rappelling: Scott Griffin & Pete Shaw will work on an event
  • GSAK Beginning & Intermediate: Pete Shaw
• Amazing Race type event is being planned for the morning of Spring Picnic
• SLAGA Banner: Dave showed the board the current SLAGA banner. It was decided not to purchase another one.

New Business

• World Wide Flash mob: June 13. More details will be published when decided
• Boy scout merit badge & Girl Scout badge: Laura will be the contact person for both badges
• Girl Scouts Geocaching presentation: Laura will hold on March 28 at Creve Couer Park. More details will follow closer to the event.

Meeting adjourned 8pm

Next Meeting, January 5, 2015