Help Needed - GIS Event at Verizon Arena on Wed. Nov. 18th

The Arkansas Geocachers Association has been invited to participate in the Annual GIS (Geographical Information Systems) Event to be held at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009. The event is scheduled to begin at 9:30 AM and conclude at 3:00 PM.

The ArkGeo Board and the Community Relations Committee is working on a presentation to be made at the event about geocaching and ArkGeo. There will also be a booth set up at the event.

PAgis {Pulaski Area Geographic Information System} hosts this event annually to educate the public about GIS/GPS and how it is used in day-to-day operations throughout cities and local government. They include the E.A.S.T. Labs from local schools who demonstrate projects they are working on for their communities as well.

We are looking for anyone who can help with this event. The Community Relations Committee is working on a skit and presentation to be presented at the event along with staffing a booth.

If you can help please let us know. You can post a reply here, but please send me an e-mail also (paris1time@yahoo.com). I know this is a week day while many will be at work, but anyone that can help please do so. Even if you can only help an hour or two your help is appreciated.

Thank you,
David Spicer
ArkGeo Board Member / Community Relations Committee Chair

Sounds like a great idea to me. I dont have my Nov. work schedule yet but
will make it if i can.

I should be back close to 100% by the, (at least I'll be able to drive by then!). I'll put it on my schedule at work (as soon as I'm able to go back to work!).

Great opportunity for the club & for geocaching!

Bit far for me to make it on a school night, but I'd support you from the Fort. :D

I just received an e-mail from Julie Kent, who is my contact for this event.

If anyone knows FOR SURE that the WILL be at this event to help, I need an e-mail from you by MIDNIGHT tomorrow (Thurs. 10/22/09) night letting me know that along with your t-shirt size. They are going to give shirts to those who help at the event.

paris1time@yahoo.com

Thanks,
David

so I just re-read this and realized that it's a school day event. I need to ask our school's EAST lab teacher if she is taking someone, and if so, if I can sneak along...but I think she's at a conference this week, so I might not be able to know if she's going to it until she gets back.

Cause you know... I can always use another day off from teaching Pre-Cal. :)

OK, so I asked the EAST lab teacher in my school about going to the GIS day in Pulaski academy, but she said she is taking her kids to the River Valley GIS meeting on the same day, and that I could tag along as a second sponsor if I wanted.

She said they are having a geocaching 'treasure hunt' and that it might be a team game or something.

So the question is this. I'll be there more than likely. I can contact the group to see who is organizing the geocaching event (unless you're already on here...then talk to me)

If they aren't attached with ArkGeo, do we want to maybe send a western group out there to offer a mini discussion or such?

If I find out anything more, I'll post it if there is possible interest.

(also, this means I'm not going to be at the LR meeting.)

A big thanks to the following for showing up and helping me at the GIS event in North Little Rock at Verizon Arena today.

woodwalker9 aka Pat Vaughn, President of ArkGeo
mathseeker aka Judy Thedieg, Community Relations Committee Member
sayitagain aka Jim Sick, Community Relations Committee Member
Geojeepers aka Brian Landers, Fundraising Committee Member

I think we made some great contacts at our booth and I think everyone enjoyed the presentation. I heard one person comment the following, "It was great to hear about something fun and not just something about our work".

We handed out several brochures and I believe that the GIS Users Forums will also be adding some links to our site and Geocaching.com to their site.

I really think we promoted Geocaching and the Arkansas Geocachers Association with this event today!

The GIS day over in Fort Smith was sort of an interesting situation, as the user group had just reformed 6 months ago, and sort of flung this together. The geocaching event was sort of a mini version of a cache run. I had got talking to the one lady who ran the geocaching event (that had very little discussion of the hobby at all) and basically got the feeling that 6-8 people TOTAL ran the event. I did ask her if she or anyone actually geocached as a hobby, because I always want to meet the local cachers, and apparently none of them did. I let her know that there were organizations of geocachers in the state that always loves to introduce the game. She seemed interested...no idea if they'll go contacting anyone, but I did drop a bug in her ear.

Sounds like the LR GIS Day was a lot more interesting than the one I went to over in FS.

However, playing in the Crawford County Fast Response RV was pretty cool. The GPS integration with the software was just flippin amazing.

David Spicer aka Paris1time did an outstanding job on the presentation about geocaching at this event.
It was a lot of fun to get to talk geocaching to people when they came by the booth. I expect to see some of these people out on the caching trail. It was a day well spent.

Thanks goes to David for getting Arkansas Geocachers Association included in the line up for GIS Day.