The February 2008 GGA meeting was held on February 9th in Locust Grove at the Cubihatcha Nature Center. Thanks go to Rebel for securing the location and doing much of the organizational work that made the meeting such a success. In attendance were about 80 people. With 66 old members under 56 geonicks and 11 new members under 8 geonicks.

This month the meeting was the 3rd Annual GGA “Chili Cook-off!”. There were 11 entrants to the competition, many of the entrants provided goodies in addition to the chili. Yummy…mmmm….peanut butter balls….corn muffins…chocolate…mmmm…..yummy. The GGA provided some additional desserts and water for all in attendance.

The judges for this competition were Jason of ParentsofSAM, poppoppig and PigPen4X4, and got to sample all 11 entrees with a discerning pallet while the rest of us just pigged out. Thanks go out to Papageorgia for organizing the judges.

We enjoyed the chili and socializing, and after appropriate fanfare the winners were announced:
Third place: St. Michael
Second place: Bamadaisy5 (reigning 2007 Champion)
First place: phat.bak

This year we had a new category that had nothing to do with the taste of the chili. The Presentation Category, the participants decorated their chili areas in various themes and the attendees voted for the one they liked best. The winner of the Presentation trophy was phat.bak with his Swamp Droppings theme, complete with voodoo dolls, moss, swamp mist, sound effects and pigs of course!

Each winner received a great trophy procured by Rebel.

After all the attendees had finished sampling all the chili’s and voting for their favorite presentation we had a short informational program about Travel Bug and Geocoin logging by Mertat. You can see some of the notes, hints and tips from this presentation here: http://ggaonline.org/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2601061553/m/2721024984

Our next meeting will be held on March 8th in Fayetteville. See you there!