St. Louis Area Geocaching Association

MEETING MINUTES 2020

3 February 2020/ 6:00 PM / Grant's View Branch

ATTENDEES

Steve Bromley, Carolyn Jaycox (video conference), Michael Smith, Melissa Pierce, Jan Salvaggio, David DeWitt, John Elfrank, Patricia Hutchison, 

Meeting called to order at 6:05 pm.

Motion Called to approve January 2020 minutes by Jan, seconded by Michael.

Motion called to approve the January 2020 treasurer's report by Melissa,  seconded by Michael.

Retrospective

• Slurpin’ Soup event earned The Village of the Blue Rose over $600.00 on the first weekend alone.
• Winter Potluck had 100 people sign the log, many came to sign then left due to colds. Thank you to all for NOT staying in those instances. 
  • Kitchen duties were taken over by other SLAGA members. Much thanks to Carolyn Halladay, Nan Dabler, and Terri Nealon. 
  • Staff at The Pavilion were thrilled to be able to enjoy the copious amounts of food present and greatly appreciated the fantastic clean up job in the kitchen area. 
  • The duck hunt also seemed to go well. 
  • The reservation for next year's potluck has been made for January 30, 2021. 
• Winter in the Woods went well. Many thanks to the volunteers who came out to help: Bill Lange, Patricia Hutchison, The Bevis’, Missey Vancil, and Jim Green. 
  • We had 31 people sign up to be added to the email listing. 
  • We went out with many groups and spoke to numerous individuals. It did not appear to be as many as last year however.
  • Also had people approach us about doing the same type of activity for other community events later this year in Tower Grove Park and New Haven. We will see if they contact us for further information on these events.
  • We also received an email thanking us for getting a gentleman's children interested in geocaching. 
  • Tent was a good investment and worked well. We were able to hang the banner up for better exposure to those walking past. 
  • Brought the possibility of new GPS receivers needing to be purchased or changing to a mobile format for these types of events/trainings,  as well as updating the flyer that we pass out to include some geocaching apps.
  • Also need to work out how best to take out groups for these small training excursions. In small groups whenever someone is available or at specific times asking people to come back for the next time.

Events

• Community Celebration Event will be hosted by John on July 18, 2020 at the Riverside Pavilion at Cliff Cave Park. This will be in place of the summer picnic. 
  • Cliff Cave will be open that day for tours
• MOGA 2020 GC8F5PX is set for April 4, 2020. John gave updates on the progress thus far. 
  • There are currently 150 “Will Attends” for the MOGA event. Do not believe we will hit the 300 needed to be considered a mega event.
  • GeoCoins and awards have been designed by Jesse Tuttle of AFK Designs. 
    • All 102 awards will be free to MOGA in exchange for Jesse to be able to sell all coins exclusively at a 100% profit to his company.  
    • Due to Coronavirus all factories have been shut down and coins will most likely be delayed.
      • May need alternative for the awards.
  • MOGA t-shirts are up and ready to be pre-ordered on the SLAGA MOGA webpage.
    • Dave to add the t-shirt size chart to the webpage.
  • Carolyn will be disseminating information to other geocaching facebook groups.
    • Will also get a store button placed on the Facebook page for the shirts.

Ongoing Business

• Award Coins for SLAGA have been designed by Jesse Tuttle. Pricing has not been discussed yet.
  • Found error on design: “geocaches” instead of “cache finds”
  • Tony Colter contacted Patricia Hutchison that the custom icon is usually a one time $150 charge and that collectors really enjoy having that.
• 20th Anniversary geocoins - no new information at this time. 
• Jesse Tuttle reached out to Patricia Hutchison about doing a 20th anniversary geocoin also. At this time, with two coins already in the works, we will be declining the offer.
• SLAGA sponsored CITO at Rend Lake will be held on May 9th, 2020.
• Travel Bug Race has been cancelled for next year. Steve spoke with Mark Derr who is amenable to holding off due to both the issues and his current job situation. This year's winner has not picked up the award at this time.

New Business

• SLAGA spring picnic needs a location and host for 2020. 
  • Will send out an email to attempt to find a volunteer. 
  • Can not be held the weekend of May 3rd as that is Mingo Madness and many will not be in the area.
• Steve made the suggestion that we look into gaining additional GPSr units. 
  • Motion was called by Michael, Seconded by Melissa. 
  • The decisions were made to use this next month to research availablility and pricing. Steve will be taking care of this. Would like to keep the total amount to $500-700 for 3-5 units, depending on what the research shows.  
  • We will revisit the cost and total new units in March.
• Would like to find a way to encourage volunteers to work different events. 
  • Suggestions were made to do a raffle for a $25 gift card for the volunteers only at each of the three SLAGA events during the year. 
  • Also would take a seperate picture of the volunteers from the rest of the group. 
  • There was also some discussion about having a party strictly for the volunteers once a year. 
  • The motion to start a volunteer program was called by Michael and seconded by Jan. 
  • We will send out an email asking for those who would like to volunteer to contact us to be placed on a volunteer email listing. 
  • We will also need a tracking system. Melissa will get an excel spreadsheet started to keep track of volunteers and what events they helped in. Volunteers will need to log a will attend, state what they will volunteer for, and follow through with the job to get into the raffles. 
  • We will use events starting in January 2020.

Other Business

• GC 101 class will be taken over by Michael. Bill will be doing the next GC 101 class and training Michael. 
  • Michael to reach out to Bill to get the training material for review. 
  • Steve will update the GPSr units with the current Queeny Park coordinates prior to the next GC 101 class.

Meeting adjourned at 7:57 pm by Michael, seconded by Melissa.

NEXT MONTH’S INFORMATION

6:00 pm, TUESDAY March 3rd, 2020 at the St. Louis County Library Grant’s View Branch, 9700 Musick Avenue, St Louis MO