Our July 2006 meeting was held on the 8th in Columbus, Georgia in cooperation with the newly formed Chattahoochee Valley Cachers. The meeting was held in a nice air conditioned facility in beautiful Flat Rock Park on the north side of the city.

Approximately 65 to 70 were present for the meeting, with the numbers varying as some went in and out to enjoy a smoke or to snag a nearby cache. (More on the caches later.) In terms of geocachers, or geocaching teams, signing in on the roster, there were 40 existing members signing in under 35 geonicks, and 26 new members signing in under 25 geonicks, for a total of 66 geocachers or geocaching teams.

Prior to the start of the meeting many enjoyed barbeque sandwiches and the-worlds-best-banana-pudding complements of team widgeon1178. Yum!

Tarvol acted as master of ceremonies. He welcomed those present, and briefly discussed the format of our meetings, reminded the new members to be sure to go to the members-only section of the GGA discussion forums. Jeff introduced those of his fellow steering committee members who were able to be present, and then introduced MikeGolfJ3, or Clay. Clay welcomed everyone and introduced his two guest speakers.

The first was Dana Weiler with the Columbus Parks and Recreation department. Dana has been instrumental in making geocachers welcome in the city's parks, and a real symbiotic relationship is developing there. The parks have hosted geocaches on their grounds, and the geocachers have assisted with CITO and provide many more pairs of eyes to help keep illicit activities out of the parks. Dana briefly discussed the guidelines for cache placement in Columbus City parks: she asked to be apprised of the locations before the cache is published to ensure that caches are not placed in sensitive areas or areas that may be developed soon, and asked that caches be placed no closer than geocaching.com's guideline of .1 mile. She is also having some stickers printed to be placed on cache containers. This will help prevent park employees from inadvertently discarding or disturbing a cache they chance upon.

Clay's second guest speaker was Dr. Becky Champion with Columbus State University. Becky is the director of the Oxbow Meadows Environmental Learning Center outside Columbus. Her enthusiastic talk was complemented by a well produced PowerPoint presentation with many enticing pictures of the preserve. I think we're now all eager to experience the Canopy Trail forty feet above the ground. I wonder if a hanging cache would be appropriate……? Thanks for a great presentation!

After the two interesting presentations we took a break to socialize, trade geocoins, purchase hiking stick medallions, grab another BBQ sandwich, visit the Travel Bug Corral to make a trade, and socialize some more as erik passed out the obligatory raffle tickets.

Many thanks to all who contributed items to the raffle. Tarvol failed to properly shake the container of ticket stubs before drawing tickets, which resulted in jackmoff and every last member of his family winning a prize. Tarvol finally won one himself, and then dropped the tub of tickets to be sure those that were left were finally properly mixed. (If we can't give the MC a hard time it's not a good meeting.)

Some additional announcements followed the drawing. Rebel (Ed) described the upcoming preview tour of Nash Farm Battlefield Park and the log book and swag he’s sending to a Georgia geocacher in Afghanistan for a cache placement there. Team Pez (Corey) announced that Atlanta geocacher Thorny1’s wife just had a baby. Erik reminded those present that our next GGA meeting will be the 6th annual GGA Snake Presentation being held in Dacula on August 5th.

After the meeting adjourned most of those present stayed to continue the socializing and to hunt many of the fine caches in the park. We were all pleased to find nicely hidden and well maintained/well stocked caches throughout the park. Out of town visitors were very complimentary of the high quality of the caches found in Columbus. Thanks Columbus geocachers!