[GeoStL] SLAGA Administration
- From: "Jack Konecker" <jackkonecker@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 20:46:05 -0500
If someone were to nominate me for the position of
SLAGA president and I accepted, this is what I would
try to accomplish during the time in my position:
CHANGE THE BY-LAWS
They have been a good starting point, but don't
quite fit the wish of our members to remain
a 'semi-formal' group. The by-laws even state in
Article 11. Amendments: "These bylaws may be
altered, amended or repealed and new bylaws may be
adopted ..."
If I weren't able to change them, I would decline the
nomination.
a) The 2-year tenures should be changed to 1-year. I
can easily see why people who are geocaching as a
hobby don't want volunteer for a 2-year committment.
1-year is more than reasonable. If someone does a good
job one year and they want to continue, then we provide
the means in the by-laws to do that.
b) The by-laws about membership are for a more
mature association. Right now, we have the barn doors
wide open to joining. We can clamp down on the
rules when the time is right, but for now, they hinder
our ability to move in the direction that *I* think is
the next step for SLAGA.
c) Membership Dues: Haven't needed them so far. We
have been living within our means. Our means have been:
- event fees and silent auction at organized picnics
- event fees at MOGA
- fees for attend geocaching training sessions
- free-will donations
The decision to charge annual membership dues could
change in the future, but we currently don't have a process
in place to manage dues (especially registration and
passwords on our web site). And, would it be two-tier:
- Free (what benefits go along with that?)
- Due-based (what benefits go along with that?)
Dues may be in our future. This year, we should consider
fund raisers, if necessary. I personally don't think we are
ready to chargedues because we don't have enough in
place to offer something for their money.
d) The by-laws confuse me when it comes to the
definition of Members at Large and Advisory Committee.
There seems to be some redundency, there.
I would though, change the by-laws to make it clear that
previous year's officers do not automatically become
members of the Advisory Board for the next two years.
If we were to make that an automatic process, it would
essentially mean that people would be volunteering (4)
years of their free time to the association! As I stated
before, I would change it so that no term is more than
1-year.
This doesn't mean that the current president couldn't ask
former officers for their help on a project. Because many
of us who are very active in SLAGA activities know by now
that less than 5% of the entire SLAGA 'membership' will
volunteer for anything. (I'm not being mean - just stating
the facts.)
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
I would publish a simple, yearly calendar of events. In the
past, these events have only been staffed by volunteers, so
if we don't get enough volunteers, the event doesn't happen.
We also won't commit to any 3rd-party event until we have
enough volunteers (the number to be determined early
enough to gather volunteers). This basically means we have
to plan ahead to get volunteers before committing.
The calendar would be something like:
* 1 organized CITO / year
* 2 organized association picnic / year (Spring, Fall)
* x number of geocaching training sessions / year
* MOGA 20xx (if we have enough money, time and volunteers)
* Quarterly newsletters to all our members
Something not necessarily schedulable (not a word) is when
RGS is asked to do an unplanned training event. SLAGA
should support him in any way possible because they are
one of the best ways to get the word out and show those
afraid of us that we're a harmless and friendly bunch.
Besides, money collected from these training sessions is
quite often put into the SLAGA coffers.
Additional picnics or CITOs can be suggested/sponsored
by anyone and don't need the official sponsorship of SLAGA.
However, if money is needed, it could be proposed to the
board for consideration. This year's summer picnic was
not meant to be an organized SLAGA event (although it ended
up being pretty close anyway). It was a success because
RGS suggested it and people showed up with their own
food and others volunteered to place event caches. Of
course, group hunts can be organized by anyone at anytime
without the formal sponsorship of SLAGA.
WEB SITE / WEB HOST
I strongly feel we need a new web host. Byzhosting support
is not that good, their hosting plans are limited and out-dated.
We pay under $100/year for both web hosting and domain
name registration, and yet we get little disk space and no
explanation as to why our site got hacked (recently), nor
any notice when they decide to restore from backup and
wipe out any changes we manually make to the site.
Mike Griffin has suggested PowerWeb as an alternative
web host. He has experience with them. They provide
as much as Byzhosting, and a lot more disk space and
bandwidth.
http://www.geostl.com is a great way for us to explain
why SLAGA exists and what it is currently up to. This
is another area where we have always come up short
with enough volunteers with web skills or the time
necessary to provide unique and up-to-date content.
There are only a handful of people keeping it up and
running at this time.
MOGA
Finally, a word about MOGA (Missouri Open Geocaching
Adventure). I think a lot of what Mike Griffin
(The Brawny Bear) did to make SLAGA a non-profit
organization was to help us manage MOGA. This year,
like last year, the plan is to hold it at a Missouri State Park.
An event of this size requires we carry insurance on the
participants for those few days. That is the biggest event
cost. We try to off-set the cost by what we charge for
admission to event participation. However, I think last
year's MOGA event was possible partly because we were
able to raise money up-front at the 2004 SLAGA Fall picnic.
Even though I think MOGA is a great event and great for
SLAGA's publicity, I don't want it to be the main focus
of the SLAGA organization. It should be treated as just
one offering of many that members can benefit from by
being a SLAGA member.
Yikes. I'd rather just geocaching and capture video,
but I've had this bottled up inside for quite awhile, so
at least I've had my therapy for the week.
Tim or Jeff would make better a president, but consider
this me throwing my hat in the ring. Proceed to step
on it, poke holes in it, kick it out, if you like.
Paul Konopacki
(konopapw)
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