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 Member NewsletterDecember 2010 

Happy holidaze! We hope you've found time for some caching and camaraderie at an event in between holiday shopping and festivities. We've already done a bit of fall frolicking, with more to come. Looking ahead to summer already? We've set the date for the 2011 Summer Campout.


WSGA and local cachers have gotten some great publicity recently, thanks to a new PBS documentary and Groundspeak's Latitude 47 blog. Need a gift for your favorite cacher? Consider an APE Trackable. And WSGA recently showed our thanks for Northwest Trails by donating to this worthy mapping project.


As we turn the page on another year, it's time to renew your membership. If you have several geocachers under your account, consider the new Family Membership option. Our thanks to the 2010 Board for their leadership and service during a very busy year, and we're pleased to introduce the 2011 Board of Directors. And if anyone asks you "why join WSGA?", you can share the benefits of membership. Cache on!
  
familyFamily Membership Option Now Available
Our new Family Membership option is now live. When you join/renew, you can select Individual, Family, or Associate on the account page. (And it is time to renew for 2011!)

If you choose Family, be sure to enter the names of the additional family members under the account (there's a text box on the form), so they can receive name tags.

By default, current members are still listed as Full (Individual) members. You can switch to Family when you renew, or if you've already renewed for 2011, contact our Treasurer to upgrade your account ($6 extra).

Footnote: As part of the dues changes, we revised July-December renewals to be handled similarly to new memberships. All memberships are on a calendar-year basis, starting Jan. 1 and expiring Dec. 31. Going forward, if a member waits until July or later to renew for the current year, they will be assessed dues for the following year as well (that is, paying for two years). So if you renew in October, for example, you won't be in arrears again two months later. This should make things easier for bookkeeping as well as our members.
electionWelcome, 2011 Board Members!
Thanks to all our members who voted in the 2011 Board election. The results are in, and congratulations to the members of the 2011 WSGA Board of Directors, the four officers and seven chapter representatives who manage the statewide organization and individual chapters.

Officers
President - Abby Wolfe / hydnsek
Vice President - Al Funk / acfunk
Secretary - Jim Bertrand / jcar
Treasurer - Elaine Edwards / lucymogus

Chapter Representatives

Puget Sound - Chris Brue / mc3cats
48 North - Margaret Dunn / FluteFace
Cache-cadia - Bruce Clark / pazooter
Inland Empire - Lauretta Noll / LLCOOL
South Central WA - Nate Canfield / mazeracer
Southwest WA - Jo Dunn / idajo2
North Olympic Peninsula - Ben Ezzell / ezzell
pbsPBS Documentary Features Local Cachers

In early December, PBS debuted "Brain Fitness: Peak Performance," which includes a segment on geocaching and interviews with local cachers and WSGA members.

Featured cachers include Jeremy and Bryan, TotemLake, W7WT, hydnsek, Timobear, and MonkeyBrad, plus cameos of other cachers. Most of the footage was filmed at GeoWoodstock and our Going APE event.

Watch for it on your local PBS station over the next month or so. "Brain Fitness" is a series, and you want the Peak Performance episode, which opens with an image of the Milky Way. Geocaching is the sixth segment, in the second half of the program.

If you missed the earlier announcements about this project in April and June, check it out. For those cachers interviewed but not featured, note that there is a second, geocaching-specific documentary in production, so stay tuned.
apetrackHoliday Gift Idea: APE Coin or Cachekinz
What are you getting the geocacher on your gift list? How about an APE Trackable - the APE geocoin ($10) and/or APE cachekinz ($5 each, or 5-packs for $22).

The APE trackables celebrate our "Tunnel of Light," the only remaining APE cache in the U.S. The geocoin features the "dancing ape" on the front and the Tunnel of Light (glows in the dark!) on the back. More info.

Cachekinz are trackable aluminum tags with custom icons - way cooler than standard TB tags. Our Going APE cachekinz features the ape and the text on the back reads "Project A.P.E. / Mission 9: Tunnel of Light" with the tracking number. More info.

And get this: One of our APE Cachekinz is now in Mission 4: Southern Bowl in Brazil! Check it out.
photosFall Frolicking
lat47Groundspeak Highlights WSGA's Work with National Parks
Groundspeak's Latitude 47 blog for Dec. 8, 2010, featured hydnsek's work with North Cascades NP, including the first physical caches in a western national park. Great publicity for WSGA, and they hope our success will encourage other cachers to work with national parks in their areas.
campoutInland Empire Hosts 2011 Campout

The 2011 Summer Campout will be Aug. 5-7 at Chief Timothy Park (Asotin County), hosted by the Inland Empire Chapter, with Quadsinthemudd as Campout host. More info.

And, thanks to acfunk, we now have a Campout Planning Guide, which should be an invaluable resource for future campout hosts.
whyWhy Join WSGA?

What does our organization do? How do we support geocaching? What benefits do members receive?

If you've been asked these questions, or wondered yourself, check out our WSGA Benefits flyer. Feel free to distribute this document - you can print it for events, or forward it to others.

Or maybe you need a handout to explain geocaching itself for an event booth or presentation. WSGA now has a customized version of Groundspeak's Guide to Geocaching brochure, available in b/w and color.
nwtWSGA Supports Northwest Trails

WSGA has donated $100 to Northwest Trails, the public-domain mapping effort by Moun10Bike, a founding member of WSGA. The Northwest Trails mapset, which is free to download and use, is an invaluable resource for those with Garmin GPS receivers and we feel it deserves our support. More info.

Northwest Trails relies heavily on volunteer mappers, so consider mapping and contributing some trail data as part of the community effort.
eventsUpcoming Events
Join WSGA
Your annual dues help support geocaching in Washington.
From the President's Desk
hydnsek
 

As 2010 draws to a close, I'd like to thank the Board and our members for making WSGA so successful this year.


WSGA accomplished a great deal, and from our Going APE event to our work with parks, we made a difference. Hey, we must be doing something right - we have nearly 100 more members than a year ago!


Thanks to our 358 members for your support, and here's to even more caching success in 2011. I hope to see you at a geocaching event soon!


Contact hydnsek

Activation Codes  for Trackables

Looking for the activation codes for the WSGA coin,  APE coin or cachekinz? Here they are:

APE cachekinz - CACHE
APE coin - TUNNEL
WSGA 2010 coin - SALMON

Board Minutes

The Minutes of Board meetings are accessible from the WSGA home page (lower left column), and an archive of Board Minutes back to 2007 is also available.

Board Meetings
for 2010

WSGA's Board of Directors meetings are open to all members. The meetings are normally held online the 4th Thursday each quarter at 7:00 p.m., plus an annual general meeting at the Summer Campout. To join an online meeting, simply click Live Chat in the menu bar on the WSGA site.

For 2010, the Board meetings were:
  • Jan. 28
  • April 22
  • June 10
  • Aug. 14 (Campout)
  • Sept. 9
  • Oct. 28
Questions and agenda items may be sent to the President up to one week before each meeting.

boardContact WSGA Board Members
Who We Are

WSGA LogoThe Washington State Geocaching Association was founded in September 2002 to support geocachers and geocaching throughout the state of Washington.

The WSGA exists to:
  • Promote geocaching as a fun, family-oriented activity that increases awareness of the outdoors and our parks and trails.
  • Provide opportunities for the community to enjoy geocaching and to socialize with other geocachers.
  • Increase awareness and support of geocaching through interaction with other outdoor groups, geocaching clubs, and the public.
  • Educate geocachers about low-impact geocaching and promote stewardship of our natural resources.
  • Represent geocaching interests in public forums and to land managers.
  • Promote CITO activities to help maintain parks and trail systems.
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Washington State Geocaching Association | P.O. Box 850 | Marysville | WA | 98270