January 2007 GGA Meeting Notes

Let’s start the new year with slightly different meeting minutes. Let’s start with two riddles. See if you can answer them. (Ans. at the end of the notes)
1) How can a geocacher sign and date a log before finding the cache he’s hunting, after having attended the meeting?
2) How can two geocachers who purchased batteries at the same store at the same time have this experience over the course of four years of geocaching?: One geocacher saved considerably by using rechargeable batteries, the second saved by using alkaline batteries instead of rechargeables.

While you’re pondering those riddles, some stats about the meeting:
The meeting was held January 13th at the REI store on the I85 access road. Seventy seven people were counted as the meeting started, which is possibly a record for a GGA meeting. Some additional people joined after the meeting started, and at the end of the day we had 21 new members signed in under 18 geonicks and 60 old members signed in under 53 geonicks.

Mtn-man served as master of ceremonies, and later as raffle announcer. There were two excellent presentations:

First CharlieP presented “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Batteries, and more”. He explained the differences between the three types of batteries commonly used in GPS receivers, digital cameras, and other electronics. These are alkaline cells, Nickel Metal Hydride cells, and Lithium cells. Charlie explained the attributes of each, and where one type might be preferable to another. Did you know that alkaline batteries have a very short life in digital cameras, but after they will no longer operate a camera can still provide perfectly satisfactory service in a GPS? Did you know that lithium batteries have a shelf life of ten years, but that Nickel Metal Hydride rechargeables loose 10% of their power in a week at normal room temperature, twice as much if it’s 100° F?
There was certainly a lot of very valuable information in CharlieP’s presentation and handout.

Our second presenter, Jobids, discussed something he’d developed: Tender Loving Cache Care (TLCC) Kits. Not only did Joe explain what the kits consisted of, he’d made enough of the kits to give to everyone who wanted one. With Joe’s kit a geocacher can perform emergency field maintenance to a cache that is damaged, or has an unusable log book. This kit is a very handy addition to any geocachers backpack or fanny pack.
Great job Joe!

After the presentations Mtn-man introduced the newest members of our steering committee: Jobids and Cymbaline, and displayed some of the GGA items (such as the new 2007 calendars) available from the CafePress stoere. We then took a break for socializing and geocoin trading, followed by the raffling of door prizes. A good time was had by all.

Oh, the riddles: 1) Having the TLCC kit, you can search for a cache that the last few people reported has a soaked log book, and have a replacement signed, dated, and in a new baggy ready to put in that cache to replace the wet one - as I did with cache GCPXW2 the day after the meeting.
2) A heavy GPS user (80 hours per month) can go through $209 worth of alkaline batteries, or $13 - $48 worth of rechageables, in 4 years. A light user (10 hrs/mo) would spend only $26 on alkalines but the same amount on rechargeables as the heavy user over the same 4 year period. Believe it or not!

Hope to see you all at the next meeting!

Excellent notes. The meeting agenda was great and informative and was also well attended.