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I have been watching the membership crawl up to the 1000 mark. Some days there are several new members, then a dry spell.
Really, what I wonder about, is why there are not more members. Being free, and a good source of state info, and contacts, and all, why are not more people signing on?
Not everyone feels the need to sign up. You can still browse the forums without being a member and geocache without being a WGA member. What amazes me is that there is a relatively small amount of people who actually post to the forums.
Speaking for myself, I’ve never attended an event, never met a fellow geocacher (except for buying a used laptop from FlushingGrouse, still working thank you very much) but I’m still proud to be a WGA member.
But I think I should have gotten a WGA badge or at least a refrigerator magnet when I signed up.Gotta find ONE MORE cacher….get it to that century mark. Why??? Dunno…. just because I like even #’s I guess! I know I know…it’s not about the #’s
Hate to bust your bubble but….. POP
I posted a similar topic not to far back which you can read here. Roll Call
That thread link does not answer the original question of why there are not more members.
—>POP
I’m not sure that the number of members as posted has any truth to it.
A large portion of teams in the member list signed in once in past years never to return, yet are still listed there. As cool as it might be to think that we have “1000” members, it would be a false statement.
Hopefully in the future the member list will coincide with each member enrolling or renewing their membership. If they do not renew, they should be removed from the rolls.Would be interesting to learn all the ins and outs of this site. Though I would hate to see any members fall off the list, it would be a more accurate count of active or new od somewhat active members, if IDs fell of the list if not renewed by like the end of February every yr.
More accurate information & numbers, yes… useful…. hmmmm have to think about a second. Reduces clutter for sure and gives other fellow cachers a more up-to-date listing. That could be helpful if someone, especially new cachers are looking for other local cachers to contact/cache with. Nothing like being disappointed in finding someone close by, just to find out they longer participate in the sport
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Originally posted by Cathunter:
A large portion of teams in the member list signed in once in past years never to return, yet are still listed there. As cool as it might be to think that we have “1000” members, it would be a false statement.
Hopefully in the future the member list will coincide with each member enrolling or renewing their membership. If they do not renew, they should be removed from the rolls.
We are only at 440 members when the expired members are removed… so we’ve still got a ways to go before we hit the 1000 member milestone.
Actually the membership list was never supposed to list the expired members. However the query used to generate the list was missing one important filter criteria (not sure if this was my doing or Alan’s), and this caused the expired members to also appear.
It is all fixed now, so the membership list displays an accurate count and only lists active members.
There are a number of other events that can generate a false sense of the size of the membership roll. (1) each member of a caching team is eligible for membership (2) There are several members that do not live in the state (3) members have been enrolling with cache team names that do not match their gc.com team name (4)….
The list goes on. A truthful estimate of active geocaching teams that are Wisconsin residents and members of the WGA is somewhere between 300 & 400. If you look at this as 300+ ambasidors of the sport, this is a huge organization. If you are going to look at our size from the standpoint of not all cachers are members, keep in mind that not all seniors are members of AARP. We need incentives to belong, beyond the fact that it is free.
To many, caching is a private hobby that best remains a simple pleasure. I have a number of friends who are active cachers, yet do not need the distraction of joining yet another club, posting to another forum, etc. Caching is something they do just a quick hobby at times to “get away from it all.”
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Originally posted by jvechinski:
Actually the membership list was never supposed to list the expired members. However the query used to generate the list was missing one important filter criteria (not sure if this was my doing or Alan’s), and this caused the expired members to also appear.It was me. It was a feature I had good intentions of remembering to add in before the first year renewals came due, but I failed to ever actually carry through and add it. Jeremey, thanks for caring for it!
quote:
Originally posted by jvechinski:
We are only at 440 members when the expired members are removed… so we’ve still got a ways to go before we hit the 1000 member milestone.It is all fixed now, so the membership list displays an accurate count and only lists active members.
Wow… that was fast. Just ask and we receive. Thanks Jeremy!! So is it something the site will do on its own now?? Or will you have to manually do it each year???
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Originally posted by CacheCows:
Quote:]It was me. It was a feature I had good intentions of remembering to add in before the first year renewals came due, but I failed to ever actually carry through and add it. Jeremey, thanks for caring for it!Don’t be hard on yourself….we all forget to do stuff. At least it wasn’t something like the WHOLE site NOT renewing at the begining of the year and losing ALL the information and an entire database.
This is a great site!!! Thanks for building!! And Jeremy…thanks for maintaining it.
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