St. Louis Area Geocaching Association

MEETING MINUTES 2020

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

ATTENDEES

Steve Bromley, Michael Smith, Melissa Pierce, Jan Salvaggio, David DeWitt, John Elfrank, Bill Lange 

Meeting called to order at 6:14 pm.

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

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

• There was a question raised about a recent email from Pathtags regarding credit to our account from Michael. SLAGA gets a kickback when our design is used on the back of any pathtag created and can use this credit to create our own organization pathtag. Steve believes there is about $150 worth of credit in that account.

Events

• MOGA 2020 GC8F5PX is set for April 4, 2020. John gave updates on the progress thus far. 
  • There are currently 167 “Will Attends” for the MOGA event. We did not hit the 300 needed to be considered a mega event.
  • Caches, 70 total,  will be placed this Saturday, March 7th. There are about 15-20 people that are going to go and help get this done.
    •  Lunch will be provided after and will probably be the biggest expense for MOGA. 
    • Geocaching pages are already completed. Layout of caches will be done prior to Saturday’s placement. 
    • Punches will be placed in the caches on March 21, 2020.
  • Steve and Peter Shaw are planning to help load GPS units with the coordinates on competition day. John will help as well. Possibly David if not competing. 
    • May need more help in this area.
  • An adventure lab has been awarded to John and will be set up in time for MOGA. It is a 1920's gangster/mob theme. Bill will help John with the set up
  • Kids Caches will be set up and run by Jeff and Michelle Stephenson. 
  • Uncertain if MOGA will break even this year. It is funded by t-shirt and competition sales. 
    • There is still enough money to fund for another couple years even if we do not break even this year. Although next year MOGA will have to buy swag for the caches. The last of what was available was used for this year's hides.
  • 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.  
    • Coins and awards should be on time. Jesse has yet to put up the coin for sale.
  • 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.
    • Sales on shirts are down this year. We got a late start on selling the shirts and the coins are not available yet to help drive traffic to the shirts.
    • The money for the shirts has been deposited to the SLAGA account and will be transferred to the MOGA account.
    • Dave put announcements about the shirts on multiple Facebook geocaching related pages.
    • John will make an announcement on the MOGA event page about the t-shirts as well as send out additional emails.
  • Carolyn will be disseminating information about MOGA to other geocaching facebook groups.
    • Will also get a store button placed on the Facebook page for the shirts.
• 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. GC8HMMJ
  • Cliff Cave will be open that day for tours
• SLAGA sponsored CITO at Rend Lake will be held on May 9th, 2020. GC8MAZN 
  • Melissa will add to the email blasts.
• SLAGA spring picnic to be held at Lewis and Clark State Park in Hartford, Illinois on April 25, 2020.
  • Will send out an email to attempt to find a volunteer host
  • 3 shelters have been reserved. 

Ongoing Business

• Award Coins for SLAGA have been designed by Jesse Tuttle. 
  • Pricing has not been discussed yet. Steve will email Jesse on this.
  • Found error on design: “geocaches” instead of “cache finds”
  • Did hear from Jesse on February 24th that the factory has reopened.
• 20th Anniversary geocoins. Should still be on schedule as the factory has reopened. 
  • We gave permission for the organizer to have an extra coin made for his personal collection. It will be at no cost to us. Stipulation from SLAGA is that it may not be put up for sale. 
• Steve looked for additional GPSr units like we currently have. No luck finding enough at a price resonable cost. Will continue to look at options. 
• Would like to find a way to encourage volunteers to work different events. 
  • There were many ideas floated last month.
  • Would like to do something as a “thank you” not as a bribe. And for going above and beyond with helping out on SLAGA events. 

Other Business

• GC 101 class will be taken over by Michael. Bill will be doing the next GC 101 class and training Michael. 
  • Latest material is available on slack. Michael and Melissa do not have access to that at this time.
  • As of January 1, 2020 geocaching.com users must be 16 or older for their own accounts. Younger users can have accounts, but they must be managed by the parents.
  • Steve will update the GPSr units with the current Queeny Park coordinates prior to the next GC 101 class. And will ensure the rechargeable batteries are ready to go as well.
  • Steve will send out an email for volunteers for this specific event. We would like to have 2-3 adults per group. We currently have 10-12 enrolled.

Meeting adjourned at 7:30 pm by Michael, seconded by Melissa.

NEXT MONTH’S INFORMATION

6:00 pm, Monday, April 13th, 2020 at the St. Louis County Library Grant’s View Branch, 9700 Musick Avenue, St Louis MO