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It looks like my “Just Do It!” message has crossover appeal, garnering support from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike. With all this momentum, maybe I should consider a run for something bigger… like the White House? 😉
Seriously, thanks to everyone who voted for me. I will do my darnedest to fulfill all the campaign promises I made, starting first with providing more transparency into the activities of the Board. 2008 looks like it is going to be a great year for the WGA!
Also, thanks to all the members who took the time to vote, and special praise should be given to those who threw their hat in the ring and ran for the Board. Some outstanding candidates did not make the Board, and I hope coming up short this year does not dissuade them from running again in the future. I was also disappointed to see that even with this year’s hotly contested election, the number of members voting actually declined slightly (133 this year vs. 145 last year).
Looks like they put the following code for the arrowhead image at the beginning of the long description HTML. This allows the subsequent text to flow around it (which I think is what you want).
<img align="left" src=
"http://img.geocaching.com/cache/60b7e3b6-8513-457a-b2f5-dd93a9a591e0.jpg"
width="70">You can always reverse engineer what someone did on their cache page by viewing the HTML source for the page in your web browser. Typically you go to View -> Source or View -> Page Source.
Good idea, but I wonder if the larger state parks already have AEDs? The rangers would have the knowledge and tools (trucks, ATVs, access to open locked gates) necessary to get a unit out to a person quickly. It is not likely that a heart attack is going to occur back at base camp (unless someone goes into shock when they learn they won a door prize or something :))… it will probably happen out in the most remote corner of a park.
The WGA might want to ask park officials in advance what we should do in case of various emergencies… and then prepare a mini emergency action plan so all the event organizers would know the right actions to take if something were to occur. The emergency action plan would maybe cover injuries to cachers in the field, along with what we should do in the event of severe weather, etc.
Sorry for the late reply… but yes, when you log into WGA the site, you are given a “cookie” that expires in 30 days. As long as your browser accepts this cookie and you don’t get rid of it, this essentially saves a record of what user was last active on your computer so you don’t have to log on each time you visit.
However, you are only shown as being “active” or in the Who’s Online list if you actually do something (i.e. request a page) within 5 minutes. So you would not have been in the list for 24 hours straight! And there are only certain parts of the website where your activity causes you to be shown as online.
A quick search on geocaching.com for all caches in Wisconsin shows that there are 7730 caches listed… this does not include archived caches, but it does include those that are temporarily disabled.
A museum in eastern Iowa that I found interesting… though it does not have the kind of two wheeled vehicles that you like:
I’d be up for either a 4 or 7 mile round trip hike for an earthcache. I assume you would have to collect information at various points along the route, which would keep the hike interesting and give you various points to stop and take a break.
But such a cache likely will not get many visitors, because (as you already know) some people won’t work that hard for a single smiley. I have my own multicache just across the river and it also requires a decent amount of hiking and there are no other caches nearby… the number of visitors to this cache is incredibly low. Putting out several earthcaches in the same area (even if they are all fairly difficult) would probably drive more visitors there.
The WGA should definitely be involved in community service projects… both to give back to the community in certain areas, and to get more recognition for the WGA among non-geocachers. While many great community service project possibilities have already been mentioned by others, I would focus on these big three:
– Education. Our “mission statement” specifically lists educating the public about geocaching as one of our primary objectives. I think if people knew we had a well designed introductory geocaching program that our members could put on for small groups (scouts, school groups/classes, nature centers) around the state, we’d get several dozen requests for help a year. For this to happen, we’d need to get more organized and create standardized instructional materials. It may also be advantageous to put together presenter kit(s) which would include loaner GPS units for class participants.
– Trail maintenance. Geocachers use trails all the time; so it would be in our best interest to help maintain and construct them. We could use our GPS units to map out trails and create maps for parks that don’t have them yet. We could make or purchase signs or other items (benches, boot brushes, etc.) that would increase user’s enjoyment of trails. I think signs in particular would be a great thing because they could have the WGA name on them and possibly even some information about geocaching for non-caching trail users.
– CITO and Adopt-A-Highway. Any sort of CITO project should be embraced by the WGA. Adopt-A-Highway fits in with theme of “giving back”… geocachers log many miles on state highways driving to and from caches, so maintaining one small section of these highways seems appropriate.
I believe that the WGA should support geocaching and “GPS search games” (where you use a GPS to find something) in general. Terracaching, navicaching, and to some extent waymarking would fall into this general category. While letterboxing does have some similarities to geocaching, it is different enough that the WGA should not attempt to promote or support it. (Though getting letterboxers hooked on geocaching too could be a good thing…)
Right now, geocaching.com is the de facto standard when it comes to listing “GPS search games” and it appears that it will hold this position for the foreseeable future. But there was a time during the early years of geocaching that the longevity/permanence of geocaching.com was not so certain. In fact, one of the reasons for creating the WGA website was so that we had a place to list geocaches in the event that Jeremy Irish pulled the plug. We even considered “stockpiling” cache listing and cache log data just in case such a calamity occurred.
If in the future geocaching.com folds or a better site appears that our members migrate to, the organization should shift to embrace the change.
Ralph, did you EAT at each of the Cracker Barrels that you found caches at?
If so, I’d be much more ashamed of that. 😀 And I’d suggest getting your cholesterol checked ASAP and carrying an AED in your cachemobile. 🙂
I think giving up the ability to place any caches in SNAs was a fair trade off for the reasonable rules regarding geocaching we got from the DNR. Regaining the ability to place virtual caches or stages in less sensitive areas was a pleasant surprise. I agree with the DNR that some of the SNAs are special places and should not be visited by large numbers of people (geocachers included). So I would not support going to the DNR at this moment and asking for permission for physical caches in SNAs.
But at some point this may be desirable. The DNR keeps adding more and more existing public land to the State Natural Areas program. And it seems that a lot of the new land being acquired by the state is immediately designated as a SNA. I question whether this classification is being too broadly applied, as obviously some of these locations could easily support geocaching without serious damage, and are not that sensitive. A lot of this new land is former forest crop / paper company or farm land, so it is far from being in a pristine “natural” state that deserves particular protection.
I’m not prejudiced; I like any micro I can find regardless of color.
Sometimes I get frustrated and feel that anything smaller than a film can should be spray painted neon pink or orange for easier identification. Or at least use temperature sensitive paint that changes to an easier to spot color in below freezing weather so folks don’t have to spend a lot of time freezing their buns off looking for a nano. 🙂
I have never had a problem finding time to devote to the WGA. I’m probably a little more occupied with work and other activities than when I served on the Board last, but still feel I would be able to easily handle the added burden of being a Board member in addition to what I currently do for the WGA on the website.
I check the forums multiple times per day (gotta make sure those thread stealers haven’t crashed the server ;)), so keeping up with Board business would also not be a problem for me.
Yes, minutes of Board meetings should be published in a timely manner.
However, one of the problems is that the bulk of Board discussions and decisions occur in the private Board forum, not at in-person or virtual meetings. This makes it difficult to put together minutes or a recap of Board actions, because things are so scattered and the discussion jumps around and never really ends. Imagine trying to summarize everything that was posted in the Off-Topic forum in the past month in a concise yet meaningful way. 🙂 It’s a challenge.
Also, Board member votes on resolutions should be made public. I believe that having an electronic voting system for the Board is critical, because it would ensure all votes get recorded and would make it easy to publish the votes to the membership.
@Team Deejay wrote:
I am guessing that this passage was probably copied from some other organization’s bylaws, without a lot of thought. Can someone who was involved in the original drafting of the bylaws shed some light on this? Was the intent to not require the minutes be published, or was this just not a consideration at the time?
We examined the bylaws of several different organizations before selecting a base set that best matched what we wanted. Each article in the bylaws was discussed and modified as needed. We did not pull some generic bylaws out of a law book or off the Internet and rubber stamp them.
The intent of the bylaws was never to have the actions of the Board remain secret… it was assumed the secretary would publish the minutes. I remember typing up and posting minutes for Board meetings myself when I was secretary, and I know minutes were also made available by other Boards. For example:
Minutes from 2005 Board
Minutes from 2006 BoardIt wouldn’t hurt to modify the bylaws to require that minutes be made available to the membership, just as summaries of the WGA’s finances are made available.
Yes, I think this election definitely has a more serious tone than those in the last few years. The candidates are putting more effort into articulating their positions and answering questions, possibly because there are so many great people running and few Board positions available. And more importantly (and encouragingly) WGA members are questioning the candidates about their plans for the future and are giving serious thought to who they will vote for.
In the past, we were always worried about the Board elections turning into a popularity contest or Board positions simply being seen as a way to honor those cachers with the most finds. I’m happy to report that is not currently NOT the case and that our members appear committed to selecting the people who will do the best job.
This race and the organization in general are definitely not political. I’ve communicated with almost all the candidates since the start of the race, and the overall feeling is that no matter who wins, the WGA will be in good hands and some positive changes will take place in ’08. I pretty sure there will be no political backstabbing in an effort to win votes. (Justin, put that knife down. :))
As soon as Board members have to deal with “spin”, political posturing, working out back room “deals” to get things done, appeasing special interests, etc. I’m going to cut all ties with the WGA. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon, and would strongly resist anyone who tries to take the organization in that direction (user accounts can mysteriously get deleted you know ;)).
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