SLAGA Board Meeting Minutes
Meeting date: March 2, 2011
Present: John and Laurie Elfrank, Jim Greene, Mike Henthorn, Rich Sheffold, Yvonne Von Der Ahe, Tom Wolpert
The board expressed its sympathy to Yvonne Von Der Ahe on the loss of her brother. The board approved a donation in his memory to his favorite charity. SLAGA will reimburse John Elfrank for the donation.
John Elfrank reported that there had been a fraudulent charge on his SLAGA card. The card has been cancelled, a new card will be issued, and the SLAGA account will be credited for the charge.
The board accepted the treasurer’s report. Other than the fraudulent charge, there were no unusual items on the report.
John Elfrank reported that he has booked the pavilion at Cliff Cave County Park for the fall picnic, which he and Laurie will host. The picnic date has been changed to Sunday, September 11, 2011 because the pavilion was unavailable on any suitable Saturday. John has already updated the SLAGA calendar. SLAGA will pay a reasonable fee for the use of the pavilion.
Dennis from St. Louis County Parks is sending the necessary forms to book the Grant Shelter for the January, 2012 potluck.
Rich Sheffold reported that he has checked with the Missouri reviewers. They will permit the inclusion of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s QR codes on the cache pages associated with the Tree-mendous series of caches.
Tom Wolpert reported that he reviewed the approximate locations of the six trees for which Sheila Voss has provided coordinates. There are most likely proximity problems with at least 3 of the 6. The consensus was that simple, two-stage multi-caches are the best way to handle this issue. Post-meeting: Tom Wolpert relayed that information to Sheila Voss and encouraged her to get us the remaining coordinates as quickly as possible so as to make it more likely that we will be able to meet her April 1 launch date. No response so far.
John Elfrank reported that no one attended the premium member training class (GSAK Q&A with Steve Bromley) on February 16, 2011. Nevertheless, we will leave the St. Charles edition of this class on the calendar for Monday, March 14, 2011.
John Elfrank reported that the Cliff Cave library facilities are not as nice as those at the Tesson Ferry branch, but that they are satisfactory.
After discussion, the board decided to try something different for the class scheduled for Wednesday, April 20, 2011. This will be a panel discussion/Q&A on general geocaching topics. It will be open to all geocachers, whether or not they are members/premium members of SLAGA. SLAGA will host a meet and greet event in conjunction with this class. Jim Greene will handle the event page.
After discussion, the board decided to defer library reservations for fall classes pending the outcome of the panel discussion/Q&A. We hope that this will generate suggestions for additional topics.
Jim Green reported that it is still too early to check on attendees for the upcoming Complete GPS class.
Rich Sheffold reported finding some better prices for folding tables. John Elfrank will check the Dollar Store to see if the sale is still on.
Mike Henthorn reported that he and John Elfrank still have not had time to work on the trailer jack.
At John Elfrank’s suggestion, the board approved the purchase of 250 promotional pens/carbiners imprinted with the SLAGA web site URL.
Laurie Elfrank reported that arrangements for the SLAGA spring picnic are still not definite. We will include a call for hosts and a location in the next newsletter.
There was discussion of random web site errors encountered by members while attempting to renew their paid SLAGA memberships. We really don’t have enough details to do much about it.
We have a request from Melanie Palmer, the Director of Adult Development for the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, to assist in the creation of a geocaching training course for adult volunteers. Tom Wolpert has been in touch with Melanie and will handle the discussion. The board approved giving the Girls Scouts a copy of the Geocaching 101 PowerPoint deck. Post-meeting: Tom Wolpert is scheduled to meet with Melanie Palmer on Tuesday, March 8, 2011.
Tom Wolpert reported that St. Louis County Parks has not made any suggestions regarding CITO locations for spring, 2011. The consensus was that we should contact John Vogel at the Missouri Department of Conservation for suggestions regarding a CITO at Busch Wildlife.
We have a request from Phillip Whitehead at St. Mary’s Middle School in Alton to put on a program during the school day. Since we don’t have the resources to handle this type of request, Tom Wolpert will respond with general guidelines for this type of event, an invitation to the upcoming Geocaching 101 class, and an offer to ask for volunteers in the newsletter if they can provide us with specific dates. Post-meeting: Tom Wolpert sent e-mail and has received no response.
Meeting adjourned.