Meeting notes: January , 2003

Greetings to all.

On January 11 the Georgia Geocachers Association held its 20th meeting at
Indian Springs State Park in Flovilla, GA. There were 33 members in
attendance, plus 12 two-legged new members, a four-legged new member, and
assorted youngsters.

The main agenda item was a presentation by artifact hunter Mark Pollard.
Mr. Pollard is a board member of the State History Committee, past commander
of the Henry county Sons of Confederate Veterans, and past president of the
Georgia Historical Artifacts and Research Group. He has won the Georgia
Civil War Relic Hunter of the Year award from 1994 to 2002, and will be
placing six new historical markers in Clayton and Henry counties for the
Georgia Civil War Heritage Trails.

Mark spoke at length of his artifact hunting experiences, and displayed
several cases of items including belt buckles, buttons, lead bullets,
harmonica reed frames, etc. Considerable research is required to locate
potentially good hunting sites, and Mark described many of the resources he
has used in this work. In addition, his discussion of conduct with property
owners and respect for the environment struck a common theme with
geocaching.

Mr. Pollard also explained that artifacts in many parks and historic sites
are protected by law, and warned of the risks of taking items when you are
not absolutely sure it is OK to do so. If you find an artifact and want to
report its presence to someone, please record a waypoint and pass the
information on to a GGA steering committee member. We can pass the
information on to Mr. Pollard and let you know if the area is protected.

The meeting break was extended to accommodate the desire of the members to
peruse and discuss Mr. Pollard?s artifact display. Following the break,
Erik gave an update on the GGA?s progress in working with various
authorities to have geocaching recognized as a legitimate activity in parks
and recreation areas. Mtn-man also provided an update on his work with
wilderness area administrators.

Many door prizes were donated by members for distribution at the end of the
meeting. Thank you for your generosity and thanks to DaRebel for engaging
the shelter for the meeting. We neglected to pass the hat for donations to
offset the fee, so we will try to catch up on that at the next meeting.

The fullness of the agenda made it necessary to hold the Rino discussion
following closure of the meeting. The integration of GPS and FRS
technologies is gaining a significant following in geocaching circles, and
we are sure to have more discussion and activities related to this topic
soon.

The next meeting is on February 8th. The event cache page has already been
posted on the geocaching web site. See waypoint GCC3A0.

Happy geocaching!

—Brad