[Acre_and_Dale]

There are so many options that this question opens up that it’s hard to pick where to begin! As such, I will just share the first ones that popped into my mind.

I think it would be fun to have more WI Geo-Tours, especially as Wisconsin gets most of its income from the tourism industry. It could be paired with other attractions in Wisconsin towns, such as food or drink establishments. I am from Eau Claire, and I know that a Geo-Tour would fit very nicely with the downtown area.

I also think it could be fun to get a school program going that helped schools develop geocaching clubs at the Middle and High School levels. I was introduced to geocaching by two of my teachers who loved geocaching and started a summer school class, and that was well received! They printed off the geocaching rules, helped us set up our accounts, and then took us out to find some caches nearby the school grounds. I know their teacher friend in the neighboring town also did this, and my husband and I have found some of the caches they hid as a club. In high school our club took many weekend trips together, and those were some of my fondest high school memories.

I think this would have the dual benefit of providing guidance to new cachers regarding cache etiquette, what a cache can look like and how it might be hidden, and also provide opportunities to both find and hide caches. This will help to grow the community and keep bringing in younger generations, who tend to be quite enthusiastic based on my observations.

[Acre_and_Dale]

I must say, Mrs. Book Lover has summed this up very eloquently, and reminds me of what my husband tells me when he talks about organizing events (as that as something he has experience in). I remember when we were planning our backyard wedding, and my personal experience has been that giving volunteers very specific and quantifiable tasks has the biggest success! Sometimes that looks like telling the heavy hitters to go grab a drink of water and sit for a minute so they don’t pass out, and sometimes it looks like turning the work into a lighthearted game or competition amongst helpers.

I think a big part of this is planning ahead of time what exactly needs to get done on a workday, and determining a realistic number for how many people do it. That way you know how many people to recruit and can get them started on a project right away!

[Acre_and_Dale]

Thank you for asking this question, as it is a very important consideration and I am glad to have a place to be transparent about my availability!

I will be honest that this is the portion that caused me to hesitate when determining if I would accept the nomination to run for the board. While I love investing in the geocaching community, I am also currently working a full time job while taking online classes to complete my Associate’s Degree in Mechanical Design. My husband is also in school, as he is doing a 24 month program for his Master’s Degree in Public Health. We are also involved in our church community as well. Thus, There are seasons when I do not have much free time available. Fortunately we are not parents yet and have no pets, which does allow us some more flexibility.

Late August is my birthday/our wedding anniversary back-to-back, but it seems to fall after the Cache Bash. This year we have a family member’s wedding to attend on the 16th, so that makes me unsure if I would be available to assist on site with the Cache Bash this year.

I do believe that I could be helpful for other events throughout the year though, especially in between the spring and fall semesters for school.

[Acre_and_Dale]

99% of the meetings that I participate in at work are remote via Microsoft Teams. I am also familiar with other virtual meeting tools such as Zoom. I would say I am fairly comfortable, and tend to just search the internet for answers when I am unsure how to do something with an application.

I am very good with phone calls, though one drawback is that I am not a frequent emailer/texter (I know how well enough, I just do not check them frequently). If I know communications are coming I can make more intentional efforts to keep an eye out for those though.

[Acre_and_Dale]

I am very familiar with Microsoft Office applications due to using them frequently at work, though I do not have as much experience with Excel. I use teams every day to both message with others as well as participate in meetings. Everything we do at work tends to be on the cloud as well so I am familiar with that. I am fairly good at learning new tools as well if I have a chance to play around with them for a bit.

[Acre_and_Dale]

I could see how it would be easy for event locations to be unevenly dispersed if there are more board members from one portion of the state, but it also sounds like there are some good ideas in place to help keep everyone within reach of WGA events.

I think that access to events is key to getting new members and helping continuing members make deeper connections within the community. Additionally, Wisconsin is a state with such a varied and beautiful landscape that it would be a shame for WI geocachers to miss out on everything our area has to offer! Part of why I placed the Cache Across America – Wisconsin cache in Thorp was to help it be more centrally located, so that visitors would be able to discover more of what makes us all happy to call this place home.

I think a functional way to make sure we rotate through areas is to keep a record of what county each event has been held in for the year. If there is an area that looks like it is not getting much activity, we could prioritize that. This could be done with where we hold bigger events, or trying to help facilitate smaller member-led events. We could even track this data over the years to see how even the spread is over time.

This is a great question I hadn’t previously considered, thanks for asking!

[Acre_and_Dale]

I would say that a strength of mine is public speaking, as contrary to most people I love to do it! I am extremely outgoing and can make friends with almost anyone, and I really work hard to make sure that I see people are included and having a good time at any event I am at. I really enjoy being artistic and creative, which gives me a good eye for designing things from communications material, logos, to geocache hide ideas. I am decent with social media (as is evidenced through my @acre_and_dale Instagram), though not as perfectly curated as some out there. I also have a degree in writing where I focused on creating organizational and technical documentation, so documentation organization is my strong suit! I am also good at coming up with ideas for things, as I am usually pretty good at sharing what I think. I am also someone who will try to make sure I understand the main ideas of what a person shares with me so I know we are both on the same page.

 

I would say some a notable area of struggle for me is responding quickly to email or texts. I also tend to struggle to be mindful that I don’t bite off more than I can chew with the projects I take on. I tend to dream big, and sometimes the execution requires more outside help or a more realistic timeline than I give myself. I can also struggle when it comes to choosing one direction for a project and committing to it 100%, because I hate the opportunity cost that comes with it. I tend to like having a second opinion on things, but I am learning that sometimes you just have to try something and see if it works. 🙂 I have been working on improving in these areas though through thoughtfully considering what it takes to get a project off the ground, and I have seen solid growth in those efforts.

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