Georgia Geocachers Association
January 2004 Meeting Minutes

The meeting was held at Perimeter REI January 10, 2004. There were 70 registered attendees – our best attendance ever!

Mtn-man acted as Master of Ceremonies and welcomed the SRO crowd. Special welcome went to LoCache who was in attendance after an extended absence. Some good-natured kidding was passed around, and then we went back to the agenda. Expecting a number of new members, the agenda was tuned a little for new members and served as a refresher for the others.

Mtn-man led a discussion on the GGA, membership and the GGA website. He described the various forums and information available on the site as well as geocaching.com.

Mtn-man highlighted that the two new GGA Calendars are available through cafeshops.com. They are nicely done and a little of the purchase money comes back to GGA.

Next, a review of the items for a geocacher to take when hunting a cache was presented. Obvious items like water, hiking stick, cell phone were included as well as less remembered things like plastic bags for electronic gear, a first aid kit and leaving a “flight plan” with a friend or relative in case you are not back on time.

Then came a presentation on general practices when hunting a geocache. A handout was available with hints and helps for when one is hunting a cache. Also, Da Rebel had prepared some cards with the “GGA Members’ 911” number to call if you have trouble or are in trouble. Johnnie Lacy, who can get help for the cache hunter in most cases, normally guards the number. It was noted you should be nice, Johnnie has caller ID!

We then took a break and lots of greeting and good discussion, kidding and shopping ensued.

After the break, the drawing was held. There were several Travel Bugs picked up along with a variety of geocaching items.

Da Rebel then presented the 2003 Outstanding Cache winners and had a handout of he winners, the runners-up and the “GC” numbers for them. There were over 100 nominations, with 13 categories. There were 11 winners, with “Rock Town” and “Starhopping” winning in two categories each.

Next, Mtn-man touched briefly on paperless geocaching. This topic will be discussed in depth again at a future meeting. There are many new developments in this aspect of geocaching.

The next major topic was about good practices and guidelines for hiding a cache. Things to put or not put in caches, signature items, travel bugs, dos and don’ts in placement location, etc. were reviewed. There was then some discussion on adopting caches and archiving caches.

The meeting then was adjourned and many headed out into the remaining daylight to find some caches. Others stayed in the store to hunt for neat gear. Thanks to REI for allowing use of their space for our meeting!