The EIGA (Eastern Iowa Geocachers Association) was informally created following a meeting of geocachers from Iowa (and surrounding areas) on January 10, 2004 at Jonesy's in Solon, Iowa. The organization was informally governed by a steering committee which drafted a set of bylaws.
Want to see what (and who) was up way back then? Check out these web archives from Feburary and May of 2004:
- http://web.archive.org/web/20040218225709/http://www.easterniowageocachers.org/
- http://web.archive.org/web/20040510054815/http://www.easterniowageocachers.org/
Lots of additional EIGA details provided by Windchill...
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The initial meeting was held at Jonseys in Solon following a meet-n-greet (cache page) in Iowa City. My log for the event even mentions the Jonseys meeting: WindChill wrote: I enjoyed meeting everyone and putting faces with names, thanks Harmonica Man.
The lunch meeting about starting an eastern Iowa club was productive. There will be some postings on the CR Geocaching Yahoo Group ( (visit link) ) in the next couple of days. If you are interested in an eastern Iowa geocaching club, you can put a note on the yahoo group, or email me via my profile.
From memory, Jonseys meeting included: WindChill, Summitt Dweller, The Weasel, TeamX40 (aka Blue Deuce) and RooBoy. Im thinking Welch was not there because I remember not knowing who he was at a later meeting. Also thinking BigParrotHead might have been with SD. Amazingly the Yahoo Group is still accessible. And, even more amazingly I was able to remember which account I used to register for it, and the account was still active. Looks like welch created the group on 8/1/2002, The Weasel was the second member. |
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The Yahoo group was reasonably active with a few messages per month during 2002 and 2003. In early 2004, before the Coffee event, there were several messages about starting a club and making the arrangements to meet and discuss it. At 11:50am on Jan 11, 2004 the following message appeared which started this whole thing rolling:
WindChill - Eastern Iowa Geocaching Club...And awaaaay we goooo! wrote:
Below is an email that was sent to everyone who attended the Coffee for Cache event (and a few others).
Most of you expressed an interest in an Eastern Iowa Geocaching Club. A group of Cedar Rapids area cachers have been discussing this off and on for a month or so. Part of that group, and a few others, met for lunch after the coffee event and discussed it some more. Here is what we came up with: - There is definately enough interest to get something started. We were encouraged to see folks from outside of the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area. - The initial name agreed on is "Eastern Iowa Geocachers". - We would like to have some kind of event every couple of months, and would like to rotate around the area so that everyone has a chance to make one without traveling too far. We will have to discuss how to best accomplish this. - Right now the "official home" of the group is the CR_Geocachers Yahoo! group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CR_Geocachers). I will also keep a list of "members".
So, here is what you need to do: Below is a list of the people I am sending this message to. Please forward it to anyone I have missed, or anyone who you think would be interested. Jay Sent to: After that, there were lots of discussions about logos, additional meetings, regular events etc. |
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On Friday Jan 16 this message appears identifying the initial "steering committee"
WindChill - Club Status wrote:
Just a quick note to let everyone know what is going on with the club.
An initial steering committee has been chosen. The members are: This group was chosen somewhat arbitrarily, based on who was at the lunch meeting when the club was kicked off. The goal for this initial group is to get the structure of the club up and running. Once this happens, there will be some kind of election for the general membership to choose the leaders. Rooboy has registered a domain name and is getting a web site set up. If you have any suggestions for what should be on the site, please post a message here, or email Rooboy. If you havnt seen them, there are a couple of logo proposals in the Photos area of the Yahoo! group. Check them out and post your thoughts. Also, feel free to post your own designs. That is all for now....happy caching! Windchill |
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| Followed by this one on Thurs Jan 22nd
rooboy - Live!-Eastern Iowa Geocachers Association Web Site wrote:
Houston, we have liftoff! Today the Eastern Iowa Geocachers Association web site went live. The URL is: Please visit this site and email us your feedback. Regards |
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| This message on Feb 10, 2004 effectively marked the end of the Yahoo group. There were a few more messages in March all of the discussions moved to the new EIGA forums.
rooboy - Eastern Iowa Goecaching Association forums wrote:
CR_Geocachers members,
This is an email to inform you that the Eastern Iowa Geocachers Association (EIGA) forums are up and running. From today, all EIGA discussions and announcements will be moved from the CR_geocachers Yahoo group to the EIGA forums. We hope that you find these forums a friendly place to meet and interact with other geocachers. To visit the forums, please visit Forum questions, comments, or suggestions can be emailed to forums@.... Regards |
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