MnGCA

[EskoClimber]

My news year resolution was to start the fireside chats every month. Here it is the end of January and I have news for everyone.

I’ll start with the plans to overhaul the voting procedures. We are trying to implement an online voting procedure to eliminate the ongoing problem of getting enough people to have a legal election. We need to have a percentage of the total membership present at the fall event, either in person or by absentee ballot, to have a valid election. As you know, it’s been close several times and last year we didn’t have enough votes to have a valid election. This will require a change to the MnGCA bylaws and an actual way of voting online.

The idea is for every eligible voting MnGCA member to be able to vote online. That would eliminate the problems of getting absentee ballots back and would allow people that can’t make the fall event an easier way of voting.

News about the Geocaching History Challenge which is part of the State Park Sesquicentennial is next up. The second round of picks will be starting in the first week of February. I must say the State Parks are enthusiastic and getting behind the program as more details are being worked out. We will be contacting those that have volunteered for contact information so that the respective Park Managers can contact the geocachers to start the process.

If you know of people from your area that aren’t MnGCA members that would like to participate in the Geocaching History Challenge please encourage them to join the MnGCA or at the very least to contact me directly. The more people involved with this state wide project, the better.

We are going to start a Monthly eNewsletter. We are soliciting pictures from events. They don’t have to be MnGCA events. Any photograph from an event anywhere in the world that a member attends is encouraged for inclusion in the eNewsletter. A quick note about the picture IS necessary.

The Spring Event at Gooseberry Falls State Park is moving forward with some great ideas from the Committee. The members of the Committee are doing a lot of fun things. This is going to be a great time thanks to the efforts of Cookie and crew. The Spring Event 2008 promises to be a lot of fun for everyone.

The GeoNickel project has officially started. Merkman has put a lot of time and effort in this and it shows. Look for the GeoNickels in caches.

There is going to be another GeoTech Event this year. Merkman is still in the planning stages. The last event was fantastic and with the feedback that merkman received the next one promises to be even better.

I want to apologize to everyone about Breakfast Buddies. It is my job to make sure that BB’s get set up and posted so that people can make plans. We’ve got the locations and dates picked for the Breakfast Buddies. Those will be posted on the MnGCA Main Page and as the events get set up the links will be added. That means you can count on a BB at the city and date and as the location gets approved and posted on geocaching.com the link will be updated here.

The last item is about the 2007 GeoCoin samples that were generated during the process of getting that beautiful coin made. There were many ideas kicked around, some of which were giving them to members of the 2007 GeoCoin committee or giving them away at events. The board has decided to sell them on eBay. The board felt this would be the fairest way of giving coin collectors access to these non-trackable coins.

That is the end of this little note. Stay tuned for more news next month.