St. Louis Area Geocaching Association

MEETING MINUTES 2021

15 March 2021/ 6:30 PM / via Zoom (internet meeting platform)

ATTENDEES

Steve Bromley, Michael Smith, Robert Klemme, Nan Dabler, Melissa Pierce, Jan Salvaggio,  Bill Lange, John Elfrank

Meeting called to order at 6:43 pm.

Motion called to approve January 2021 minutes by Nan, seconded by Michael.

Motion called to approve January 2021 and February 2021 treasurer's reports by Michael, seconded by Melissa.

• Nan has reformatted the treasurer’s report to make it easier to read. Many thanks to Nan.

Retrospective

• Zoom get-togethers were held February 13, 2021, February 25, 2021, and March 9, 2021.
  • Mostly established cachers, did have some first time attendees
  • Forgot to send out a reminder email and set up a Facebook event for the March 9 event
  • Try to get some informational sessions set up
    • Setting up Adventure Labs as one of them with Bill.
      • Melissa will try to set up a day in April for this as well as set up a new format that will work better for this type of meeting.
• GC 101 class is scheduled for March 27, 2021 at the Corporate Pavillion at Queeny Park. Meet there at 9 am.
  • Currently 10 attendees have signed up.
  • There will be power at the pavilion, we may need to have a projector screen, although we can do the presentation without one.
  • Steve, Melissa, Bill, and Patricia Hutchison are the volunteers for the day.
  • We now have the ability to introduce phone caching into the training.
    • Steve and Bill may need to work on that after the training class.
  • Nan asked to get a budget guideline for the after class thank you and feedback lunch.
    • Will try to stick to approximately $10 per person.

      Events

• Would like to schedule an informal spring get together sometime between the end of April and May.
  • Robert suggested 9 Mile Garden food truck park and will look into setting this up. 
  • Spring picnic is also when we traditionally open up officer nominations.
    • How to handle getting that information out. Emails, Facebook announcement.

      Ongoing Business

• 20th Anniversary geocoins
  • Have 79 out of 125 coins left.
    • 5 waiting for pick up currently.
  • Will bring coins to events in order to sell.
    • John Elfrank volunteered to take 25 coins to sell at the events he plans on going attending
      • Will sell them for $15 per coin.
      • Robert will get with John to pass off the coins.
    • Nan and Steve both have cash boxes that they can bring
  • Selling coins on Ebay was brought up however no one wants that responsibility.
• Award Coins and additional achievement awards
  • Chairs and jacket have been sent for embroidery by Dave DeWitt.
• SLAGA Rend Lake CITO
  • Will be held on May 1st, 2021.
  • The current cap on people for outdoor events is 50 per the Illinois reviewer.
  • Further information to be gathered.

New Business

• CITO Coins
  • Adopt-A-Highway organizers no longer have CITO coins for attendance raffles.
    • SLAGA will continue to provide those.
    • Should buy fewer of these in order to get new designs with each order.
      • Estimated 6 coins per order
    • Nan will work with Robert on coin orders.
  • Robert located four additional CITO coins
    • Different design to the ones that were given out at the last event
  • We will use what coins we have already purchased.
• Procedures/Systems
  • Is there a way to streamline our information in order to help with the continuity of officer changeover?
    • A repository for PDFs, pictures, spreadsheets, financial information, etc.
    • Slack does have some of that type of information on it
      • Need to look into that for functionality.
    • Could we use Joomla for this purpose, as we already pay for it?
    • Mircrosoft OneDrive as an alternative as well.
      • Look into the pricing of that.
    • One concern is to try to find a product that won’t be gone in five years. Do not want to have to potentially lose information due to losing storage.
• Officer Responsibilities
  • Some not aware of all responsibilities
  • All responsibilities are on the SLAGA website under the bylaws
    • Responsibilities are somewhat vague so as things come up, expand, or change they are hopefully easier to deal with without needing officer approval with each issue.
• SLAGA finances
  • We are going bankrupt
    • Have some people that only pay for one year of membership but getting high level rewards (example: personalized chair)
    • Should not be losing money on memberships
  • We have both MOGA and SLAGA finances in our accounting
    • Need to reconcile it when MOGA is finalized.
  • Nan is having to reconcile two separate accounts currently
    • Regular account and Paypal
• Paypal
  • Questioned who is responsible for the Paypal account and who has access.
    • Nan is responsible for the account
    • Steve, Kathy DeWitt, and Nan have access
  • There is a large amount of money in the account.
    • Nan to check with David DeWitt to see if there are any automatic bills that are paid from that account
      • After Nan speaks with David, can transfer whatever money she feels is appropriate as the treasurer.
• MOGA 
  • Waiting on $1100 from Jesse Tuttle before being able to finalize the closure of MOGA on our end.
    • Money is for the sale of the ammo cans
  • Will need to reconcile all accounts owed, paid, and collected as well.
    • John lost his receipts, will see what Kathy DeWitt can do to fix that for him.
      • Jan believes she may have received the receipts and paid them already
    • There are MOGA entries in the SLAGA accounts
  • MOGA account holds $365.85

Meeting adjourned at 8:37 pm by Nan, seconded by Robert

NEXT MONTH’S INFORMATION

April 12, 2021 at 6:30 pm.