Advocacy / Outreach

[thepharmgirl]

Q: What do you feel the role of the WGA should be outside the association’s own events?

A: 1) To have a helpful and useful presence and utilize the resources we have to offer (our experience, time, and a large community of people who love to cache) to nurture new cachers, educate non-cachers, and give back to the nature we enjoy by volunteering our time in environmentally-healthy activities (like CITO, weed pulling, etc).

2) To promote the WGA and encourage growth of membership. I have been to many non-WGA events or general community classes in which WGA members have volunteered as educators and/or WGA resources have been utilized (like the downloading equipment), and there was no visible signage that promoted the WGA. EVERY time WGA resources are used, the organization should be visibily taking credit in some way and making sure non-members are fully aware of our existence.

Q: What can the WGA do to become more active in non-WGA events than it already is?

A: Actually, I really like some of the responses already given and would be happy to help see them put into effect:

Labrat_WR’s idea for 100% WGA promotion on WGA member cache pages is great (I have to make sure all of mine have the logo!). We need to make sure we make it easy for people to find and implement the logo (not everyone is familiar with html code!).

Cheeto mentioned that we should organize a forum thread specifically for those seeking help with local community events/projects. Agreed!

Sweetlife suggested that we could write articles about the sport of geocaching in local newspapers at no cost. I think that’s a great way to both educate and recruit people at the same time. I’m sure we have members with great writing skills who would be ideal for this task.

Team Black Cat suggested a Resources link with presentation files and downloadable brochures and articles or tutorials on how to present geocaching information to different types of audiences. I was going to suggest the same thing!! And.. “a list of WGA members that are willing to do local presentations might be an idea worth pursuing.” Yes, definitely!

I’m sure there are many more great suggestions. I’d like to see the WGA’s Community Education/Outreach committee really take some of these on. As of today, I show that the last forum post by this committee was March 18, 2009.

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