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Just as a piece of info… I am a member in good standing of the Michigan Geocaching Assoc (MiGO). I’ve been a WI resident my entire life, but when our two kids lived in the U.P., we got up there quite a bit and found a whole bunch of caches. Our residency was never questioned.
We never expressed any interest in their politics, BOD elections, etc. Our only forum postings were in regard to specific caches, areas we wanted to cache hunt in, etc. I guess we’ve been pretty much closet members of MiGO, and only signed on, as I recall, so we could use the forums. We consider our ‘real’ GeoCaching membership to be with WGA.
It seems to me we also hold membership in another state geo-organization… maybe Florida??? Same reason, so we could communicate through their forums prior to a trip down there when some geocaching was anticipated.
Some states make it pretty easy to sign up. Is this just to jump their numbers? But it would water down their memberships as well.
I do like the point that right now, the way we have it in the WGA, it can be stated that WGA truly represents WISCONSIN GeoCachers. Per my personal experience, neither Michigan or Florida can make that claim…
cYa, Grandpa Jim
@Gram&Gramps wrote:
Just as a piece of info… I am a member in good standing of the Michigan Geocaching Assoc (MiGO).
You are correct, you are a member in good standing with MiGO, but you are not a voting member. A “member” in MiGO is the equivalent of being a “friend” in the WGA. A “voting member” in MiGO is the equivalent of being a “member” in the WGA.
@MiGO Bylaws wrote:
Section 2. Membership
Active Member. Membership in MiGO shall remain open to all interested persons who support the goals as described in the Mission Statement. Each applicant for membership shall be required to register online at the MiGO website, thereby providing the Organization with name, address, phone, email address and geocaching alias, as well as other information deemed necessary for contact and identification of a candidate. Once the applicant has provided the above information, the applicant shall be considered a member of MiGO.Voting Member. Any Active Member who is at least 18 years of age and a resident of the State of Michigan will be eligible to vote.
@Gram&Gramps wrote:
Some states make it pretty easy to sign up. Is this just to jump their numbers? But it would water down their memberships as well.
Basically, (in my mind) both organizations work the same way, they only allow citizens of the state the organization represents to vote in the elections and have a say in how the organization is run. They both allow people who reside outside of the given state’s borders to log in and use the features of the web site (which I greatly appreciate since we cache so often in WI). The only difference is in the terminology used.
I do know that when MiGO approaches organizations about partnerships, they use the voting member (equivalent of WGA Member) numbers, not the active member (equivalent of WGA Friend) numbers.
I can’t speak for what is done in the Florida association.
@Gram&Gramps wrote:
I do like the point that right now, the way we have it in the WGA, it can be stated that WGA truly represents WISCONSIN GeoCachers. Per my personal experience, neither Michigan or Florida can make that claim…
I vehemently disagree with you on this point, for reasons outlined in my above posting.
Define ‘a Wisconsin geo-cacher’.
A Wisconsin geocacher is someone who geocaches in Wisconsin. I am a Wisconsin geocacher and an Illinois geocacher.
I am also a geocacher who lives in Wisconsin.
When it comes to issues in Illinois, I will provide my input in their forums as a non-voting member, but I will leave it to them to make the final decisions for their own state.
I work and drive and spend about ten hours a day in Illinois, and while I do pay attention to what goes on in the state, I have never had a desire to vote for the Illinois governor, or senators, or the Lake County Executive or anything like that. I’m a resident of Wisconsin, so that’s where I vote.
If you’re from out-of-state, you’re free to voice your geocaching opinions here, and political opinions in other areas, but in both cases, it’s the state residents who hae the final say in what goes on in the state.
It’s not an exact correlation, but think of the thousands of people who tow in their boats/snowmobiles/etc. from other states. Would you want them voting in Wisconsin elections? Especially if their opinions tend to run the opposite direction as yours and their input sways the results the other way?
With that out of the way, how about three classes of memberships?
I’ll use myself as an example…
I am a member of the WGA, GONIL, and MiGO.
As a Wisconsin resident, I expect to have full membership rights in the WGA.
As an active cacher, but a non-resident of Illinois, I consider myself an “interested party” in what goes on in that state. While I would not expect to be allowed to vote in GONIL elections, it would be nice to have that “frequent cacher” status so that others know that I’m not really an outsider, even though I live north of the border. And every now and then, maybe an issue would come up where it would be reasonable to have not just residents, but also frequent cachers be able to vote.
As for MiGO, there were a couple threads in their forums that I was interested in viewing and posting to. I don’t cache much in Michigan, so I really have no interest in the MiGO organization. So I’m just a “MiGO friend”.
The sticky question would be, where do you draw the line between “interested party” and “friend”? Obviously, you would need to have found caches in Wisconsin, but how many? 10%? 25%? Would you have to live in one of the surrounding states?
Maybe it’s like porn. “I can’t say what it is, but I know it when I see it!”
People from out-of-state would initially register as a WGA friend, but click a checkbox to indicate they want to be considered as an “interested party”. Someone would look at that and decide yea or nay.
And what would you call it? “WGA Interested Party” sounds kind of silly…
For the most part, the difference between “friend” and “interested party” would only be a different forum title. That way if you see a post from them about a Wisconsin-related topic from them, you might give their opinion a little more weight than Apu, the WGA Friend from Zimbabwe. Or maybe you wouldn’t. But by having a different status in the database, perhaps some areas of the site could be opened to them that wouldn’t be open to a “WGA Friend”.
What about treating nonresidents kind of like a U.S. territory. They could become members and have a representative on the board but have no voting power. They would be able to make suggestions and voice their opinions. When wanting to put the best product you can out there, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have more viewpoints. There are a lot of good perspectives out there and I kind of agree with all of them. Unfortunately, you cannot keep everyone happy all of the time.
As for the 16 years of age or older, I’m not sure.
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