GAOC officers met on Dec 14th to review the 2002 profit and loss statement and set the operational budget for 2003.

Steve Shannonhouse, club treasurer, reported that with no change in the current fee structure, GAOC would have a $1200 operational deficit in 2003, due in part to the recent increases in insurance. Different fee structures were evaluated and the following changes were voted in for 2003.

Effective January 1, 2003, Local Event Fees will increase to:
$6 members
$8 nonmembers

Effective August 1st, 2003, Youth Group Membership Fees will increase to:
$5 per individual membership
($15 annual base per group does not increase)

2004 MLK Weekend - Laurie Searle 12/14/02

With our GAOC/COK USOF Convention scheduled for summer 2004, there has been much discussion as to what we should offer over our traditional GNC weekend in 2004. Should we offer an A-Meet, or would that amount of work drain our convention resources? If we didn't offer anything, would we loose our coveted MLK timeslot?

The Domines and Shannonhouses offered a modified plan that won't tax our convention resources, holds our MLK weekend, and gives our longtime GNC participants something to look forward to.

Host a 3-Day local event over MLK weekend 2004, which includes:
Saturday local meet at Watson's Mill Bridge State Park *
Sunday local meet at Lake Russell State Park *
Monday Extreme-O at Lake Russell State Park *

Bob Domine will be the meet director, the Shannonhouses will set the courses for Lake Russell, Bill Farrell will set the courses for Watson's Mill Bridge, and the Fergusons will work their magic for  Extreme-O on Monday.

Hosting a 3-Day local event sounds like great fun and should give our participants something to look forward to while they wait for our summer convention.

Frank did a great job of laying out the courses and with only one advanced course gave us experienced orienteers a chance to go head to head. I did pretty well except on #10 after running up that steep hill. I don't remember that much climb at Pickett's Mill last time! I almost made the same error picking up controls :-)

A big thanks to Frank, Jeanie, and all who help for putting on a great meet to close out our 2002 year.

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Bill Farrell wrote - The Campbell's gave us another great day in the woods. The weather was perfect and few complained the Frank offered only up to a Green -- it was plenty! Frank used a figure eight course plan which ran us over the bridge/water stop twice... perfect for me. Everyone I spoke with had a great time... I sure did. Thanks to all who helped, Bill.

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Ron Tansill wrote - It was great fun today - I enjoyed the green course with lots of route choices, several of which I didn't notice until I got home and took more time to study the map. I lost a little time on the 6th control simply following the sun (located nearly due south at about 12:30 p.m.) rather than reading the contours just before I reached the top of the hill.

Careful where you step - New Dukes Creek Map by Sam Smith 12/09/02

There is a saying among orienteering mappers: "If you map it, they will use it" meaning that if you put it on the map, eventually someone will hang a control on it.