Arkansas Geocachers Association Board Meeting Minutes for July 12, 2013

Arkansas Geocachers Association Board Meeting
Minutes for July 12, 2013

Immediate Past President: Chris Denton
President: Kent Uhrich
Vice President: Jim Sick
Secretary/Treasurer: Judy Vaughn
Website Manager: Kevin Cackler

Round Table Discussion: Open Discussion, additional minutes for calling card purchased using Judy Vaughn's credit card.

Call to Order with Roll Call of Members Present:
Board Members Present: Kent Uhrich, Ron White, Sandy Fryar, Judy Vaughn, Morgan O'Neal (phone), and Mark Willis (phone)
Members Present: Wayne Lunsford and Pat Vaughn
Officer Reports

President's Report: Prepared by Kent Uhrich
Goal 1 - Membership -- Increase registered voters by 20% by 5/31/13.
As of 7/13/12 there were 253 registered voters.
Status – 7/12/13 – We have 282 registered voters, an increase of 29 registered voters. While this goal wasn’t met for fiscal 2013 we did see an increase of 29 registered voters.

On June 8^th, ArkGeo held our annual meeting at Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center. We had a great turnout with an attendance a little better than at Daisy State Park. Thank you goes out to all those who showed up on June 13^th for the CITO over at Burns Park. Over all the weekend with the State Event, Hot Dog roast and CITO was outstanding.

There are several challenges before us as a board and organization this coming year. I look forwards to working with each and every one as we make this coming year the best Geocaching year it can be!

Future reports will take on a new look. Here is a sample:

Goal 1 – Membership – Increase registered voters by 20% by 5/31/14 – Owner Kent Uhrich
Status – We had an increase of x registered voters this past quarter.
Goal 2 - Fund Raising – Implement 2 fund raising initiatives to raise x amount by 5/31/14 – Owner Judy Vaughn
Status - …..
Goal 3 – Events – Hold 1 general membership meeting by 6/15/14. – Owner Jim Sick
Status – Event is planned for this date this location
Goal 4 – Events – Hold 2 CITO events by 6/15/14. – Owner Kent Uhrich
Status – Events are planned for this date this location
Goal 5 – Events – Hold 2 ‘Eat & Greets’ by 6/15/14 in the following regions of the state:
NE – Planned on this date this location – Owners Morgan and Chris
NW – Planned on this date this location – Owners Linda and Chris
Central – Planned on this date this location – Owners Mark and Judy
SE – Planned on this date and this location – Owners Kent and Jim
SW – Planned on this date and this location – Sandy and Ron
Goal 6 - …..
Goal 7 - ….
Goal 8 - ….

This format should keep our goals and progress out in the open and help keep us accountable.

Treasurer's Report: Prepared by Judy Vaughn, Secretary/Treasurer
Arkansas Geocachers Association
Statement of Income and Expenses for June 8, 2013 - July 11, 2013

Beginning Balance	$1,493.34
INCOME:
Fundraising (Geocoins & Merchandise)	$ 381.00
TOTAL INCOME	$ 381.00
EXPENSES:
Sam's Club (Food for Annual Meeting Weekend)	$ 117.40
TOTAL EXPENSES	$ 117.40
Closing Balance	$1,756.94

NOTE:

PayPal Balance	$ 278.24
Checking Balance	$1,756.94
TOTAL in Checking and PayPal	$2,035.18

Website Manager's Report: prepared by Kevin Cackler
Website continues to run well. Updates were performed to bring the site's software up to date (Security patches). I began work on placing the ArkGeo merchandise in an album on the site so that members can view our merchandise online. There is still work to be done there in resizing the images and making the link more prominent. (http://arkgeocaching.org/album.php?albumid=8)

I spoke with Reid (SJClimber) about possibly converting the ArkGeo Phone-a-friend spreadsheet into an interactive online app so that members can more easily update their info, view the list on the road, search for users, etc... Work on that has begun and it is nearly ready to launch. After launch, I intend to add a feature where members can upload their "My Finds" query to the system so that other users can log in and search by GC code to find people who have found the particular cache they're hunting for.

I have enabled the photo album feature so that members can upload photos to their own albums here on the Arkgeo website. I am currently writing a script to turn those albums into a gallery interface so that all public member albums will be available via a single grid layout.

Committee/Other Reports

Election Committee:
Election Results:
46 Members Cast Vote

Candidate's Name	Caching Name	Votes	Percentage of Votes
Mark Willis	thefab5willisclan	41	89%
Sandy Fryar	Likestocanoe2	40	87%
Linda Tredway	Angel06	26	57%
Lisa Sanderock	specialteacher	24	52%

Fund Raising Committee: prepared by Judy Vaughn
Fund Raising Committee sold merchandise at the Ark Geo Annual Meeting and 3 coins through the website.

Inventory on hand:

ArkGeo Merchandise July 12, 2013
Item Description	Number in Stock	Selling Price
Sm Beige T-Shirt	1	$13
Med Beige T-Shirt	2	$13
2XL Beige T-Shirt	9	$15
3XL Beige T-Shirt	2	$15
Large Pink T-Shirt	4	$13
XL Pink T-Shirt	4	$13
Large Blue T-Shirt	5	$13
XL Blue T-Shirt	1	$13
2XL Blue T-Shirt	2	$15
Med White T-Shirt	2	$13
Large Grey T-Shirt	2	$13
Youth Sm Beige T-Shirt	1	$13
Youth Med Beige T-Shirt	4	$13
Youth Large Beige T-Shirt	3	$13
Red Cap	5	$13
Blue Cap	3	$13
Black with Red Cap	1	$13
Black with Silver Cap	1	$13
Pink Cap	2	$13
Carabineers	145	$2
Baby Soda Bottles Regular	2	$2
Baby Soda Bottles Small	32+	(Sold by bag for $4)
Hiking Stick Medallion	1	$6
ArkGeo Geocoin	296	$12

Community Relations Committee: Prepared by Kent Uhrich (Board Liaison)
Paris1time attend the following:
Geocaching segment on KFSM Channel 5 in Fort Smith/Fayetteville and had this to update us with.

ArkGeo brochures were passed out to all in attendance, about 40 people. He also went on to say that he thought the ArkGeo website and logo may have been displayed during the segment. He did say he had on his ArkGeo shirt and there were several pictures taken of the back of it.

The EAST Lab has asked ArkGeo to have a booth again this year. The following have said they will be happy to be there. Pat (Woodwalker), Sharon (Flyfishinggachers), Sandy (Likestocanoe) and Jon (IronHorse4).

I am looking forwards to hearing how this went!

Events Committee: prepared by Jim Sick, Board Liaison
The Annual ArkGeo meeting was held June 8^th at the Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center followed that evening by the 5^th annual hot dog roast and campout at the Burns Park Campground. The North Little Rock Parks Department and campground managers Martha and Charles Green waived all fees for use of the group camping area in exchange for ArkGeo holding a CITO on Sunday June 9^th to help remove downed limbs and trees still remaining from the December ice storm. After the CITO the idea was brought up to the events committee about the possibility of having another Arkansas Challenge since the one held last year was such a success. Everyone seemed to like the idea and preliminary plans are being made as to where, and when to have the event. Plans are also being made for next years annual meeting and it is hoped that the time and place can be decided within the next few months in order to give everyone ample time to plan to attend. One idea being discussed is having it at the JonesCenter in Rogers. GeoWoodstockXII is scheduled to be in St CharlesMissouri next year and a suggestion has been made by Paris1time that possibly ArkGeo host an event in conjunction with that called “ArkGeo meets GeoWoodstockXII”.

Membership Relations Committee: prepared by Morgan O'Neal (Board Liaison)
Current Membership Relations Committee Members:
Ron White – ronwhite
Judy Vaughn – MathSeeker (Chairperson)
Justin Murphree – arkfiremedic
Morgan O’Neal – drmo913 (Board Liaison)
Sharon and Glynn Simmons – Flyfishingcachers
Chris Dickinson - Saint Aubie

Membership Relations Committee Activities:
Selected Arkansas Geocachers to profile on the ArkGeo website:
May Max Slaughter aka nonnipoppy
June Jim Sick aka sayitagain
July Mark Willis aka thefab5willisclan

ArkGeo Newsletter:
April Missing In Action.
May Published
June Published-David Soloman guest columnist

Unfinished Business

1. Possibility of selling coins on eBay - Kent Uhrich did not have any success with selling ArkGeo Coins on eBay. Kent Uhrich will look at Craig's List.

2. ArkGeo History update - Wayne Lunsford is still working on the organization's written history.

3. Arkansas Challenge - March 2014 update - location and date need to be nailed down - Events Committee is working on

New Business

1. Welcome new board members:
Mark Willis - thefab5willisclan
Sandy Fryar - Likestocanoe2
Linda Tredway - Angel06

2. Assignment of Committee Liaisons
Election Committee - Chris Denton
Fund Raising Committee - Judy Vaughn
Community Relations Committee - Kent Uhrich
Events Committee - Jim Sick
Membership Relations Committee - Morgan O'Neal

3. 2014 and 2015 State Event
Month of State Event - Annual Meeting Event will stay at the beginning of June
Motion made by Ron White and Second by Kent Uhrich to recommend for the Events Committee to look at the Fort Smith area for the 2014 Annual Meeting with the meeting date being June 7, 2014. Motion carried.
Discussed announcing the date for the 2015 Annual Meeting Event at the 2014 meeting.

4. President's blurb in the Newsletter - Kent Uhrich will provide From the President column for the Newsletter.

5. EAST Lab Project - to be held July 18, 2013 at the Embassy Suites in Little Rock. Members Sharon Simmons, Sandy Fryar, Jon Jacoby, and Pat Vaughn will man a booth to answer questions and provide information for the EAST Lab facilitators.

6. Discussion of Chair vs. Liaison Positions - The chairperson is elected from the committee members. The liaison is the go between for the board and committee. We will continue to follow the committee charters. Each committee needs to do a committee roll call to see who is still willing to serve on the committee.

7. Bylaws revision - The suggested changes were discussed. The immediate past president position will remain a voting position. It makes 9 voting positions on the board, alleviating the possibility of a tie. Article III, Section 2 will remain as is. The board needs members with experience to remain on the board as officers. When board members rotate off of the board, they can be elected to be on the board again after being off of the board for one year.

8. Cache of the Month/Year - Possible contest for ArkGeo to use. Kent has the guidelines.

9. ArkGeo Board Goals were updated.

10. Events - ArkGeo will develop guidelines for sponsorship. ArkGeo will host our own events. ArkGeo will not co-host an event.

11. Ron White made motion and second by Sandy Fryar to reimburse Judy Vaughn $31.48 for the purchase of the 500 minute calling card. Motion carried.

Next board meeting October 11, 2013

Adjournment

I like the goals. May I suggest adding a goal of increasing the amount of members who vote? Less than 20% are voting. With that in my opinion, the majority of the organization feel disconnected. We need to find a way to increase votes! That is a very challenging goal and will require a lot of work. If we grow by 20% but they just add to the non voting members, no gain is accomplished. Here is my opinion.... Arkgeo board assigns events to voting members. They are responsible for the event (simple as getting coords and informing establishment with head count). They have two choices run with the assigned task (providing it is cost free) or revoke voting rights. I don't think it's much to ask to hold events (of any kind) in your area. CITO's are easy, cheap, great for community. The member being assigned, delivering, and enjoying the results would make them feel involved and vote on changes they want from the results they got. I suggest peramiters be set so nobody gets outside the lines of arkgeo mission. Volunteering when asked is how you keep your vote. It doesn't have to be a specific date, we all have lives but in a given month you should be able to find a day to complete assignment or get with local cachers in your area to complete assignment.

With 200 members it would possibly be two or three years before you might be asked to host.

Personally, I think we need to purge the membership roll. We have "members" that haven't cached in years nor signed on to the arkgeo website. Some of these are deceased, some have moved out of State, and others just don't cache any longer. We need to come up with a purge system that the members can vote on, so we can really get a good count of truly active members. I think it would surprise some people how many would be dropped - but then at least we would know who we have to work with! Just a thought!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by perm74

Here is my opinion.... Arkgeo board assigns events to voting members. They are responsible for the event (simple as getting coords and informing establishment with head count). They have two choices run with the assigned task (providing it is cost free) or revoke voting rights.... I suggest peramiters be set so nobody gets outside the lines of arkgeo mission.

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"Assign events", seriously? Ummm, yeah, so all I heard was "if you don't accept ArkGeo's 'voluntary' homework, we'll kick you out of the club". Because that would go over well with any of the general membership & inspire them to be more involved. And "nobody goes outside the lines" = follow our rules or hit the road. Again, because that would go over well.

Ron's "purge" at least has some merit, although I would caution it still has the inherent possibility of disenfranchising some people, so proceed with caution. If cachers are no longer active on Geocaching.com, especially for quite a few years, OK, maybe. But what if a cacher just took a year off, or couldn't keep caching financially, but they have every intention of getting back into it someday? They may appear inactive, but how thrilled would they be, if a club that's voluntary to sign up for, just decided, your inactive, so we kicked you out? You just need to air on the side of caution, when setting up the parameters of who gets purged. Out-of-state isn't a good enough reason either. So when I move to CA, I'm out? SJClimber's in CO now, is he out? Should moving out of state revoke your voting rights? I hope not.

Encourage involvement by having more events, recruiting new members, improving community relations, and having more fun. Ya know, the things that all those committees ArkGeo has are designed for. You want improve club participation, improve the atmosphere. :cool:

Also, with Kent as President & the addition of your 3 newest Board members, ArkGeo has the right cocktail of personalities to invoke positive change! May the Cache be with you!

Not kicked out. Just become a non voting member.

Was not referring to folfs like you and SJClimber, who still participate, but to several I know that have moved out of State and have never logged back into the Arkgeo website in several years and two of them haven't even found a cache in over 3 years. Those are whom I'm talking about.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by perm74

Not kicked out. Just become a non voting member.

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Does reverting someone back to a "non-voting" member make a difference? It still sounds like the group would be taking something away for not participating in hosting events. Which I'm sorry, sounds ridiculous at face value. As soon as you said "assign hosting events to voting members" you lost me. "They have two choices" is an ultimatum, not an "encouraging way to elicit participation". The Events Committee is already in place & it's basic function is to come up with new ideas & coordinate new ArkGeo events. The best way to encourage participation from the general membership, is host more events, talk to more people, get more people having fun, encourage them to participate in the Committees, and then wash, rinse, repeat. Before you know it the trend will stop going down & start going back up. :cool:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ronwhite

Was not referring to folfs like you and SJClimber, who still participate, but to several I know that have moved out of State and have never logged back into the Arkgeo website in several years and two of them haven't even found a cache in over 3 years. Those are whom I'm talking about.

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I know, that's why I'd just say air on the side of caution, "moved away & haven't even cached in quitea few years", obviously they probably won't even notice. But, it also probably wouldn't hurt to send out some sort of form letter/email to try & re-engage everyone who appears inactive. I don't know what it should say, but something like "Hey we see you haven't been caching in awhile & ArkGeo has some new & exciting things coming up. We'd be glad to see you back in the game & hope to see you at an upcoming ArkGeo event!" You may only get a handful of responses, but even if only a small percentage of the inactive members come back, at least that way ArkGeo can say we tried. Give it a few months & then drop the ax on the rest of the dead weight in the membership rolls.;)

Loving the new format, very clear and to the point with few questions after.

I may be mistaken, but If you do not enroll to vote every year, then you automatically become a non-voting member. This is the number used to come up with the "active" members. Because this is the number of individuals out of the entire registered users with posting permission: We show 2173 active members here, but only the 282 took time out to do the "register" to vote. This is basically the same as waiving the dues and actually signing up for a club so we can count you as an active member.
Arkansas Geocachers Association Statistics

Threads 3,096 Posts 28,815 Members 2,173 Active Members77

This is all good info and I agree with Mickey about not such harsh language, it should be a volunteer type thing for the area meet n greets and if no volunteer's step up we'll have one of the elected officials do it. We need to keep this fun, and sometimes that falls to the elected officials duties :(

An idea for some of the coins would be to get with other geocaching groups from other states and try and come up with a way to sell "all 50 states" as a package deal to geo-woodstock goers next year. You also may want to talk to the AR tourism people and see if they would be interested in purchasing some for various things.

One of that last things is to help get people involved in caching and in what Arkgeo was founded for is to go ahead and put together a plan/goal/war on creating better communication, education, and what our organization can do for the National Forest Service for the Ozark and Ouachita areas. Lisa and I joined after the State Park "battles" but if there is every anything to bring cachers together, it's land use and helping spread the education on what caching really is and what it is not. Personally, I think Arkgeo could help both NFS here in AR by being a middle man for them and "police" the caches that get put out for them. The Government's hands are usually tied with what they can and can't do, like automated databases to help them inform cachers when to pull a cache, renew it, and the like, but this is something our organization could step up and do and provide the "review help" that the NFS people need. Heck, we have a few people on our membership list who would be just as qualified to review a cache with backgrounds as a biologist, land conservationists or natural resources management. One of hardest areas in our state, and sometimes most confusing (depending on who you talk to), is placing a cache in the National Forest Service. The next on that list would be Game and Fish lands. We should make a goal to communicate to these groups, who are limiting geocaching in our state, and help them figure out if this is the right thing for their area or not. We could also see how we could work together to remove abandoned caches, CITO, etc.

I strongly think if you give the group something to "fight" about you'll see the numbers come up. I look at other hobbies like off-roading, canoe/kayaking, mountain biking, and the like those groups have to defend their trails and waterways from closure actively or risk them loosing some areas to play on. If you keep the focus here as well, perhaps some new members who would be willing to see what were about would come and support a local talk to AGFC, NFS, etc and provide new perspectives.

I see the date is June 7th and June 8th 2014 for the event, I also see the board at least wants a "push" toward Fort Smith, which is fine, but your going to have to address a camping issue and find an offsite area for people to camp at similar to who we did Little Rock. A few of us were thinking another 45 min north into Rogers would not be that bad, and try for the Jones Center. Since the "Ozark Region" has the most votes out of the few of us that voted, we could go somewhere more central like Harrison or even go "off grid" and host it at the Buffalo? Worst case, since this is a "general membership" meeting, we should keep it somewhat central like years past and pick Hot Springs, Morrilton, LR, areas so it is a easy drive for most ALL of the state.

That is all I have for now, I'll get down to some business in the events area.

One correction, Jason. Currently, once a member, always a member. There is no auto-removal taking place in our membership rolls.

Well there is our "problem"... We need to be able to have a "annual" membership and a renewal time. All other clubs I have participated in like Jeep/offroading or even the Arkansas Canoe Club have Annual Dues. I think it is a HUGE plus that we are FREE, but we still need to have the signup and renewals done annually so we know how many active members we have.This is the only way to figure out who the active members are without relying on site statistics.

Board, Please add this to the next agenda to modify the rules and the website to have a Annual Voting Member Renewal and Voting Member Signup. Lets say a member is active between 1/1/xx to 1/1/xx of the next year. One good thing that can come of this is a "donation" button being added to the signup or renewal area and will get people to sign up to vote waaaayyy before it is time. Lets allow our members to donate via paypal when they renew if they should like too. If rules are being modified, I would also add that a "Lifetime" membership could be purchased to where it will never require renewal or have to renew voting membership and could be implemented in the future. Perhaps we can classify the "members" as Arkgeo Supporter for non-voting people and general forum access and arkgeo Member which is granted all the Supporter areas but also has access to the voting and club specific forum areas and the ability to run for offices and such.

I can't believe this discussion has degraded to this level. A "donation" button to sign up for voting privileges (and the right to run for office / be on a committee)?

Geocaching is a free activity, but you're advocating paying for the "privilege" of being a member of an organization that purportedly is there to advance geocaching in the state of Arkansas.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TnT

I can't believe this discussion has degraded to this level. A "donation" button to sign up for voting privileges (and the right to run for office / be on a committee)? Geocaching is a free activity, but you're advocating paying for the "privilege" of being a member of an organization that purportedly is there to advance geocaching in the state of Arkansas.

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It's amazing how some people can read something & see something completely different than what most people would see. I read jclaudii's last post a couple times to see if I could come to the same conclusion, and I can't. What he's saying is if there was some sort of system in place to where all members had to renew (for free) their voting member status, then it would make it easier to see which members were truly still active. Don't log in to renew your "voting member status" you'd revert back to a regular member.

The donation button would be completely optional. If you WANT to donate because you just want to support ArkGeo, the perk of donating would automatically renew your voting status. The "lifetime membership" would be a way to show your ultimate support, and make your voting member status permanent. It's not actually a bad idea, but obviously the Board & the Webmaster would have to discuss all of this, one, to see if it's possible or easy to do, and two, to see if they'd even want to. It's not a "donation button to sign up for voting privileges" and no one said anything about paying for the right to be on a committee or run for a Board position.

There's a difference between playing devil's advocate & just trying to stir up the hornets nest.

Ahh the pitfalls of being organized, we know not who is with us or without us. The answer to this question my friends is blowing in the wind. However maybe we can do something simple to help narrow the scope of the task. We have a membership list, some of them voted most did not, some of them came to the annual meeting most did not. So lets take the membership list and move all those who voted to the active list, move all the ones who came to the annual meeting to the active list. Now take the rest of the list and move anyone whom you know has moved out of state to the moved out of state list. See who has logged in the website and how often. The members who voted, came to the annual meeting, still live in Arkansas and visit the website are you active members. No need to purge anyone. Mister McGillicutty said to me "so if I moved out of state I can't be part of the group", sure you can but you have to do something to let us know you still care and love us. SO WHAT ACTION CONSTITUTES being active, Logging in the web site and posting something, attended an event, voting, emailing and talking to other Arkansas Cachers. These actions show your intention to belong. But you know what happens if you don't use some credit cards for awhile, you get you account marked as inactive and you have to call customer service to get it turned back on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paladinds1961

Ahh the pitfalls of being organized, we know not who is with us or without us. The answer to this question my friends is blowing in the wind. However maybe we can do something simple to help narrow the scope of the task. We have a membership list, some of them voted most did not, some of them came to the annual meeting most did not. So lets take the membership list and move all those who voted to the active list, move all the ones who came to the annual meeting to the active list. Now take the rest of the list and move anyone whom you know has moved out of state to the moved out of state list. See who has logged in the website and how often. The members who voted, came to the annual meeting, still live in Arkansas and visit the website are you active members. No need to purge anyone. Mister McGillicutty said to me "so if I moved out of state I can't be part of the group", sure you can but you have to do something to let us know you still care and love us. SO WHAT ACTION CONSTITUTES being active, Logging in the web site and posting something, attended an event, voting, emailing and talking to other Arkansas Cachers. These actions show your intention to belong. But you know what happens if you don't use some credit cards for awhile, you get you account marked as inactive and you have to call customer service to get it turned back on.

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SO... Who wants to be customer service. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thefab5willisclan

SO... Who wants to be customer service. :D

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:)

Customer Service needs to be cute and nice. That disqualifies Fab5 and me.

Thanks McGillicutty for clearing that up, and I did want to reply to TnT that McGillicutty stated what I may have been unclear about. I think many of our members would give more if there were more options available to them hence why I even mentioned a "donation button". One example would be "Donate 5 bucks and get a free arkgeo window decal. I am 99% positive the renewing/reoccurring membership option is already built in and is very easy to set up. Within about a year, we'll know who our active body is on ArkGeo. I honestly think we have TONS more support out and about and at our events than we do with participation in our group forums. This statement leads me to my next approach. A mail in/manual option for membership. Just like some of the other clubs I have been in over the years, not everyone uses or wants to be on the club's forums or facebook/etc. So for those, they can mail or give their credentials in and still be a full fledged voting member. Every-time arkgeo hosts a meet-n-greet, there should be a few of us there to sign up new members and or get their credentials to communicate how they can become new members when we get internet back.

I think if we just send out a few notices that we are changing the way we keep track of active members and for users to please sign up for a free membership and send the link, they will do it. And those who don't, will just not have voting privileges but will have access to the site. Those individuals may sign up when it gets closer to voting time or if they feel it's time for more involvement.

I'm not sure how many of you have checked out the Arkansas Canoe Club(http://www.arkansascanoeclub.com/) or even the off road 4x4 club that plays at SuperLift Park in Hot Springs, http://arkansascrawlers.com/ but both of those clubs have good structures in place for their members. They know who is a member and who is not and offer some perks to members. Both have a "members only" section that would be where the ArkGeo, from the board, and a couple other sections would be kept. That would be one perk to singing up for a FREE membership would be to have full access to the entire site.