Nebraskache

[+bigredmed]

Hello!

 

As some of you may know, and newer people may be unaware of, discussions about formally adopting by-laws and electing Nebraskache officers has come up in the past. Until recently, the small group of us who have been the most active with event planning, contacting parks, and acting as liaisons with other groups, felt it was not necessary to formally organize. For a wide variety of reasons we have decided to take the next step and formally organize. As a result, the core group of us who initially started Nebraskache have formed an interim Executive Committee and adopted an interim set of Bylaws to get things started.

 

In my next post, I will provide the formal notice of a general membership meeting to formally adopt Bylaws and elect officers. Before I post that, I want to include some history of Nebraskache as an organization and why a more formal organization scheme has become necessary.

 

History and Background: Nebraskache was initially formed in 2002 by a small group of people meeting at Mahoney State Park between Lincoln and Omaha. If I remember right, attendance at the first meeting consisted of myself (Bigredmed (Jim)) and my wife; Carleenp (Carleen); Bgunner1 (Don); The Shorts (Justin); The Three Amigos; and Spinwebby (Jennifer) from Great Plains Geocaching. From there, Nebraskache grew to create a yahoo listserve for group communications, to holding several picnics and CITO type events, to hosting the Great Plains Geocaching Society's annual regional cache bash in Omaha. The group also held planning meetings at Mahoney State park. Group members have also carried out discussion with State and local park managers. Future plans have included various standard events but also perhaps the development of workshops or larger organized events.

 

When Nebraskache first formed, the group discussed at various times the adoption of Bylaws and election of officers. Because money was not handled and there were no plans for events requiring a large amount of coordination, no one felt it was necessary at those times. Although we returned to the topic on several occasions we also were simply too busy to get around to it. Several things have changed over time.

 

First, various members, have began working with individual park managers about park permissions in Nebraska. The Nebraskache name has also been used when dealing with park managers. The formal organization of Nebraskache lends credibility to any communications members have with park mangers. This also allows the organization to lend formal support to such efforts and undertake formal efforts of its own. For example, Iowa is facing park regulation, and Nebraskache might wish to comment on proposed regulations.

 

Second, an international geocaching organization has been working on formation. There is also an open source caching movement. Both of these organizations, if successful, have at one time or another expressed interest in identifying and working closely with formally organized local organizations to facilitate land access and cache approvals.

 

Third, while we do not handle funds at this time, we have explored at times more complex events and the possibility for handling funds could arise. It is better to have a formal organization in place to handle that possibility in order to provide accountability before the need to handle funds arises. Finally, the existence of a Nebraska web site has possibly caused confusion about whether Nebraskache is an organization or simply a listserve name. Nebraskache has always been an organization, it just has not been particularly formal before. Formal organization will prevent any confusion.

 

In order to begin the organization process, we have elected an interim set of officers and have written and adopted an interim set of Bylaws. A formal election and adoption of the Bylaws will occur On February 7, 2004, at a general meeting as provided in the formal notice.

 

Note that the formal organization is set up to be pretty relaxed in terms of required number of membership meetings (which will probably be at the tail end of an event cache anyway) and Executive Committee meetings. There are also no plans for dues at this time. Of course if the group becomes more ambitious over time, those things may be changed by a vote of the general membership.

 

The interim officers are:

 

President: Jim Harper (bigredmed)

President Elect: Justin Short (The Shorts)

Secretary/Treasurer: Carleen Pruess (Carleenp)

 

The executive committee will consist of a President, President-Elect, Sectretary/Treasurer, and 2 Members at Large. (Ceiligirls and Team StarBrand)

[+carleenp]

The formal organization of Nebraskache has been in the works for some time. We began discussing it almost from the begining, but never quite got around to formalizing things. I think this will help further some of the work the organization has done over the past year.

 

As a little further explanation, the interim board (and future elected boards) present a slate of canidates for election, followed by an open nomination period. The formal meeting notice and bylaws, when posted, will explain the workings of it more. The interim officers and the two people listed for members at large in Jim's post are the slate that will be offered for election by the interim board. Jim and Justin are in Omaha and I am Lincoln. Marcia (Ceiligirls) is in Lincoln and Team StarBrand is in the panhandle/western Nebraska.

 

Watch for details. We are still arranging a meeting location and so the formal notice likely won't be posted until that gets firmly arranged. The meeting will also be posted as an event cache.

 

I would guess that the bylaws, since they are quite long, will only be posted on the Nebraskache yahoo group.

Edited January 8, 2004 by carleenp