The Georgia Geocachers Association monthly meeting for June was held on the 11th at Heritage Park just outside McDonough. McDonough is located off I75 a short distance south of Atlanta. Attendance was excellent, with 50 geocachers or geocaching teams signing the event roster at our fourth anniversary meeting.

The first item on the agenda was an excellent presentation on poisonous plants by Rich Reaves of the Atlanta Botanical Society. We learned that in addition to plants poisonous to the touch (contact dermatitis) there are also plants poisonous to ingest. In general anything with a milky sap should be avoided, as should anything blue in color. At this meeting we went a step beyond the "leaves of three leave it be" that we learned to avoid at the previous meeting. Rich also taught us about some of the invasive non-native weeds, shrubs, and trees crowding out the native varieties, pointing out many examples around us in the park.

The group discussed the current controversy regarding caches placed in cemeteries in neighboring South Carolina. All were encouraged to visit, phone, write, or e-mail (in that order) SC State senators, as restrictions on our sport will be voted on in January 2006. We were all admonished to be careful of our logs on cemetery caches. We need to be cognizant of the fact that any logs reflecting behavior that could be construed as disrespectful could be used against us, regardless of which state the cache is in.

On a happier note, Rebel brought the new GGA Geocoins for those who had placed their orders. The coins exceeded expectations, and Rebel also exceeded expectations by having an extra five geocoins available to the lucky five people who won the raffle for those coins.

Speaking of raffles…. Most of the state's allocation of White Jeep Travel Bugs were raffled to the lucky geocaching teams who had the winning tickets. As luck would have it, there were as many WJTBs as there were geocaching teams present for the drawing so no one left empty handed. There were door prizes raffled off, including an extra WJTB donated by Team Pez.

Last but not least, most participants found time before or after the event to hunt for one or more of the geocaches hidden it the park. A good time was had by all.