2024 Community Volunteers have Fun DisObeying
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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{This article was written by Laurie and John Elfrank and submitted here on their behalf with some minor additions and editing.}
Geocaching is a community driven game, and it relies on the support of more than 400 community volunteers. The volunteers are a diverse and dedicated group from over 35 countries who give their time to translate content, moderate forums and review cache pages on behalf of the global geocaching community. Community volunteers are required to adhere to Geocaching HQ’s guidelines and are said to “Obey the Frog” (Signal the FROG is the geocaching.com’s mascot).
In the early 2000s, Groundspeak hosted a reviewer event, and it was called Obey, as in "Obey the Frog." But as the number of volunteers grew, HQ stopped hosting the event, and instead let the volunteers take over hosting in different cities. In North America, they changed the name to (Dis)Obey.
In June 2024, around 30 community volunteers descended upon St. Louis for their annual multi-day gathering in North America, hosted by Missouri reviewer MrHarmonica. Attendees included community volunteers from all over the U.S. and Canada, one from Germany, their families, and a Lackey WatermanHQ (a Geocaching HQ employee from Seattle). They started arriving on June 19, and spent the next four days enjoying activities that appealed to the volunteers and families. MrHarmonica’s schedule included a guided tour of Bellefontaine Cemetery, mini golf at Swing-A-Round Fun Town, a hike at West Tyson County Park, an evening at Breakout Games escape rooms, a tour of St. Louis craft breweries, and time sampling the local cuisine.
2024 SLAGA Travel Bug Race June Update
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- Written by Robert Klemme
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The travel bug race is underway! We're only one month in and we're seeing some good movement so far! It's very early in the race though so it's still anyone's game! Here's how things currently stand:
May's Awaited Winner
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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Reflections of a Lake CITO
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- Written by Terri Nealon
- Hits: 1862
To sit on the shore of a beautiful lake that reflects the landscape and sky above, or paddle your watercraft smoothly across its cool rippling waters is a completely satisfying and peaceful experience. It puts you in the center of nature and "carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable." (Wordsworth) But...what if the shoreline of that lake is littered with garbage and debris?
Dumped debris along the shoreline and trash that floats into the lake with every high water event or from littering needs to be removed periodically, and who better to give back to the community and to nature than geocachers who enjoy the many caches in community parks. Events like the recent St. Louis County CITO - with canoes!! (GCAQ5KY) hosted by SLAGA's own StormRider22 (Laura MacLeod), on May 22, 2024 at Simpson Park lake, are essential in helping clean up our waters.
About fourteen geocachers attended the CITO, on the gorgeous May evening, and collected numerous bags of trash full of plastic and glass bottles, cups, straws, cans, styrofoam pieces, balls, bags, buckets, fishing bobbers/line, and more. A tire, a chair, some wood planks, and other large debris were also collected. A few cachers helped clean up the shorelines on foot, while the majority took to the water in canoes, a kayak, and a paddleboard. Surprisingly, what has always looked from afar to be a clean shoreline, across the lake, soon was discovered to be heavily littered, when approached by watercraft. While the removal and collection made a significant difference, there are still larger items, like a tin drum and a turbine engine, as well as other unreachable debris, that still need removal.
APRIL SHOWERED IN AN ADVENTURE AWAITS WINNER
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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Congratulations to Dean Meredith, deancmeredith, who's name was drawn to win the $10 gift card and sticker for April's Adventure Awaits Challenge! As prolific of a geocacher as Dean is, it might surprise some to know that he only started geocaching in January 2021, yet to date has over 6900 cache finds ... No Foolin'... he started caching as a way to keep active and entertained during the Covid pandemic, and he caches almost continuosly. He has cached on every day of the calendar, including leap day (366 days) and has found every D/T two times or more (Fizzy challenge). Dean's found caches in 40 states and 10 countries.
As for Adventure Awaits monthly challenges, Dean states, "I enjoy these challenges as they give me something to work towards on my daily caching." For the month of April, Dean chose the following caches with different terrain ratings.
GC4FGF9 Pendleton, Trad T1.5
GCA549 Origins of Alexandria, Virtual T1
GC1V1WR Westledge Mountain: Masters Series #1, Trad T2.5
GC33Z7E Westledge Mountain: Sands of Time [Master Series], Trad T3.5
GCAMQMR CVGA Adopt-A-Highway CITO, Event T2
DEAN MEREDITH
with county-run buddy cootie_man at the CITO Event in Virginia
Part of the enjoyment of geocaching for Dean is taking county caching trips with friends. He says he is 'getting to see every corner of America," and loves it! Besides the monthly challenge, Dean has challenged himself from the start of his caching history in a unique way. In 2021, he found 2021 caches. In 2022, he found 2022 caches. Last year in 2023, he found 2023 caches. Adventure Awaits Dean not only every month, but every year as he continues his personal challenge. I'll let you all guess how many he intends to find this year!
SPRING PICNIC DOWN ON THE FARM
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- Written by Terri Nealon
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From a relaxing stroll around the farm visiting the animals, to the hustle and bustle of activities going on at the park shelter, the SLAGA Spring Picnic 2024 was a grand success! The event was held at Willoughby Heritage Farm and Conservation Reserve in Collinsville on a beautiful sunny Saturday (April 20) with cool spring breezes, and was hosted by mathmanbill (William Gottschalk).
SLAGA provided hamburgers, brats, and hotdogs, along with plates, napkins and utensils as always, while attendees brought delicious and varied side dishes, snacks and desserts to share with all. There was the usual silent auction table and the 50/50 raffle, but our host, mathmanbill, also mixed things up a bit. He had a geo-style scavenger hunt around the grounds and a TOTT skills contest too. He also placed two additional caches onsite for those wanting to solve a cypher, take wooded hikes, and use a TOTT to gain their smilies. Plenty of fun for participants indeed!
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