Georgia Geocachers Association
May 2004 Meeting Minutes


The May GGA Meeting was held May 8, 2004, at the Dauset Trails Nature Center near Jackson, Georgia. There were 9 new members and 28 current members present.

Prior to the meeting, several members met at the Fresh Air BBQ in Jackson for a geomunch. That put everyone in a smiley mood.

Rebel opened the meeting with a welcome to everyone. He told a bit about the Dauset Center (their website is www.dausettrails.com), including a little history, a description of the animals on display and in the area and the trail system. The Center is truly a delightful place where everyone of all ages can explore nature and wildlife in a relaxing, peaceful setting. We should note that the Dauset Center waived their normal $80 fee for the meeting pavilion in exchange for our teaching a GPS 101 class later this fall.

We were also treated to the first official appearance of the GGA “Cash Cache,” a 50 cal. ammo can for donations, contributions, “hat passing” and the like. The cache was designed and built by Rebel.

The program’s focus was on the various perils of the woods. Mtn-man spoke about insects and insect repellent as well as the care to be taken while hiking and caching. He told about the best way to remove ticks and passed out fact sheets provided by Rebel about repellents and tick removal.

Next Mtn-man described the special botanical risks of Poison Ivy and Poison Oak. He had some live plants for all to see and learn to identify, and provided another fact sheet. He also provided this list of web sites about poisonous plants:

http://www.caf.wvu.edu/~forage/library/poisonous/content.htm
http://www.life-assist.com/plantguide.html
http://www.georgiapoisoncenter.org/poisonous_plants.html
http://www.vth.colostate.edu/poisonous_plants/report/search.cfm

The discussion touched on snakes, but it was kept short as next month’s meeting will be all about snakes. This is a popular meeting topic every year.

As a final “peril” topic, Mtn-man gave advice about how to act around bears and wild boars.

Next came the break and those who didn’t mill around discussing geocaching hustled out for a quick find of one of the nearby caches.

After the break, Mtn-man told about the Yellow Jeep Travel Bugs and the general online contest and how it would all work. There will be a lot more on the contest as well as the TB raffle (hopefully) at the June meeting.

Next came the ever-popular raffle for door prizes. Lots of TB’s and “stuff.”

The meeting broke up and many folks headed out to find the caches along the trails and nearby. The attendees were especially complimentary to Rebel for his organizing the location and meeting, and Mtn-man for another of his always-excellent presentations.

June’s meeting will be June 12, 2004, at the Lanier Museum of Natural History near Lake Lanier. See you then!