The June meeting was held at Amicalola Falls State Park. We had 65 to 70 people present, including 18 new members using 14 new Geo nicks, and 45 members using 42 Geo nicks

We began the meeting with a surprise. Mtn-man asked one of the park staff/naturalist's who was doing a demonstration on a Great Horned Owl to stop by our meeting.

Some interesting Owl Facts that were shared with us:

The owl has offset ears, the talons at the top of the owls head, which are often mistaken as his ears, are actually there as a mechanism to intimidate other creatures.
The owl has a very thin neck, despite the fact that his neck looks thick, this is only due to the amount of feathers.
The owl's neck can move farther side to side than humans can because they have 14 vertebras instead of the 7 that humans have.
Owl's are mainly nocturnal, during the day; the owl will face the tree and snuggle in, the feathers along his back act as camouflage thus allowing him to blend in with the tree.
The owl that was at our meeting survived a car accident though he still has a broken tail and therefore cannot survive on his own in the wild as he cannot control his decent with precision.
The Great Horned Owl has been known to prey on cats and small dogs, but his main prey are mice and other small woodland creatures.
Owls demonstrate intelligence, the presenter mentioned that in the morning when he went into the shelter, the owl seemed a bit agitated, but once he took off his sunglasses he calmed down, as if he had recognized his staff friend.

After the Owl presentation we began our meeting. We started with a Birthday celebration story of how the first GGA meeting went, and thus how the GGA was formed. Can you believe it; the GGA was founded 5 years ago! Happy Birthday GGA!! Then, each of us, in turn, gave a brief synopsis of who we are, how we began geocaching, and how long we have been playing. The meeting was followed up with Birthday cake, and socializing.