How do you view the members of the WGA general membership?   To me, it’s a website driven membership which promotes opportunities for geocachers and geocaching.

How would you as a BOD member promote and utilize their talents to benefit the entire organization and its goals?     In 2008 I joined the WGA, but did not really become involved until a few years later.  Any organization is only as good as it’s members make it.  It was an email/phone call from Walking Adventure to ask me to hide the Big Bay State Park Series cache that started me on the path to volunteering to assist the WGA.

Considering this question and keeping WGA “relevant” in the age of social media developments to me means an even greater emphasis on making personal contacts with face-to face meetings and contact through phone calls. Personal contacts with WGA members and potential members is the way to keep relevancy to spread the word and keep the WGA active in Wisconsin and our borders.  We can view all of our WGA members to become potential volunteers or more active participants, just as we can view all “Muggles” as potential “Geocachers.”   How do you convert a muggle to a geocacher?   Don’t you have to take them under your guidance and take them caching?   We can do the same for our fellow geocachers and give them some WGA guidance and listen to them to keep relevant to what they want the WGA to do for them.

After getting into the “Candidate Forums” on-line, I saw this was a great way to introduce me to another aspect of the WGA website and of course the future change coming to the WGA Board.     So, an idea came to my mind, why not take the WGA Forums in person out to the state as a series of new events.   Schedule special relevant events in each of the WGA regions, perhaps focusing where the concentration of WGA members lie within that area.    This would take some early notification and talking it up for success.   There could be several in a region hosted by a local BOD member of other WGA member and perhaps have “themes” to benefit the entire WGA.     The following are only examples:
Social Media theme – Facebook in Person with the WGA
Listening theme – Meet and Greet Your WGA BOD
Recruitment theme – Bring a Muggle to the WGA?
Connecting with the WGA website – WGA Live on the WEB
The forum themes could be endless.    It may also be beneficial to have a short write-up of the results posted to the WGA website to keep the energy going of these themes, and keeping them active with the on-line forum format.

Surveys or personal interviews with cachers could be done at all WGA events for in-person response to these relevant themes as well.  Especially at the well-established Spring and Fall events, West Bend Cache Ba$h, etc.

Another idea would be to circulate WGA Laminated Business cards in geocaches.    Any WGA member could do this for the emphasis of promoting the WGA.   WGA member cache hiders do this electronically with the WGA logo weblink on the cache page.   Let’s take this another step to a contact through the hardcopy avenue.   I have picked up the WGA card at an event, but the WGA could reach more cachers via the physical cache opportunity.

Is there another State type of series the WGA could promote similar to the State Park Series and ask members to hide caches?   State Forests?   State Trails?    The WGA is becoming more visible and active with our state partner – the WDNR.    This is just another way to promote the WGA and our partnership.

Can we develop other partnerships within Wisconsin Counties?   Can we foster partnerships with Federal agencies –Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and the US Fish and Wildife?

Of course, any ideas are only as good as the WGA members have time to participate.  However, an organization is only as good as it’s ACTIVE members.   So let’s get ACTIVE – GET OUT THERE!

The Board of Directors consists of nine people

 

That being said, I have firsthand knowledge that those nine folks cannot do it all. While we may come up with some ideas, plan some details, and try to pull it all together, we cannot make the WGA what it is without our members.
I have always encouraged those who have run for the board and not made it to directorship to stay involved and run again if the opportunity exists. The best way I know of to get exposure in the WGA is to volunteer in the WGA. We have some amazing people out there and they are indispensable. We must maintain an active membership and for the BOD to have open minds when members bring something forward for consideration, we need to be able to evaluate the ideas and seek advice from the membership to see if those ideas are something desired by a majority or how it can impact the organization.

The BOD cannot reach the entire state all the time but we can support the efforts of the membership in those instances that come up.
If someone wants to host a CITO in the far reaches of the state (or the not so far reaches) the WGA BOD has had a standing motion to support a certain number of CITO events.

The WGA is its Members, not the BOD. We need to promote the WGA to the cachers of the state.

How do you view the members of the WGA general membership- I see an unbalanced representation of the general membership. The more heavily populated areas of Wisconsin seem to have the greatest voice in the WGA, as would be expected since there is a larger concentration of cachers in these areas. Unfortunately, the less populated areas are some of the jewels of Wisconsin and don’t get the attention from the geocaching community that they deserve. Most members from these beautiful parts of the state don’t seem to be well known by the rest of the WGA community unless there is a WGA event that will bring you to these areas which there aren’t many events except the 4 events the WGA supports. 

How would you as a BOD member promote and utilize their talents to benefit the entire organization and its goals?-Bringing a voice to all members of the WGA should be a major goal of the BOD. Asking members from every corner of the state (in a more direct manner) for their input on how to help build events that will showcase the highlights of our great state and finding out where our members would like to visit would help to enhance the experience of the WGA events. The WGA should be bringing cachers to caches, instead of caches to the cachers. Personally reach out to the WGA members and see what they would like the WGA to do in their area. If it hadn’t been for someone from the WGA reaching out to me, I personally would not have become as involved as I have been. It’s the reach and the personal connections that I think would mean a lot to the entire WGA community. We are all here to have fun, learn, and grow as a community. Developing multiple lines of communication would be a great help to all involved in the WGA. Our demographics are going to change and we need to keep up with the times.