Category Archives: Committee

New Committee Elections 2019

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After a flurry of nominations, the Geocaching Victoria committee were very happy to receive 6 successful nominations. We have two positions available, so we will hold an election among the Victorian Geocaching community to see who you think would be best to fill the remaining spots. Voting will open as of now and close at 8pm on 18th January 2019.

Good luck to all nominees. The GVI Committee would be privileged to have any of you on board, and we look forward to working with the successful candidates very soon.

Below are the nominees and a small bit of (supplied) info about them and their caching.

  • Gemma Siemensma (GemmaSistema)
    Hi all, my name is Gemma Siemensma (aka GemmaSistema) and I am keen to be involved with Geocaching Victoria Inc (GVI). I hail from Ballarat and live with a muggle hubby and two geokids. I live in a cache filled and vibrant local geocaching community which over the years has seen me make new friends, gain new skills, learn about my local community and put my hand up to organise geocaching “stuff”. This has included local events, CITO’s with numerous groups/councils and a big Christmas in July cache-filled extravaganza. Most recently I was on the 2018 Parkville Mega Committee and I am also on the 2019 St Arnaud Mega Committee. I feel there is much I can bring to GVI. I’m organised, enthusiastic, committed, and open to new ideas. My skillset includes being able to work with a variety of people across numerous organisations and in my paid employment I’ve organised major events interstate with international speakers, chaired national strategic committees and given my heart and soul to what I do. I think of myself as being inclusive and will happily listen to others opinions and try to find a solution that will suit everyone. I love geocaching and think Victoria is in an amazing place to position itself as a leader both nationally and internationally and I’d like to help contribute to that!
  • Sarah Cameron (sharkiefan)
    My caching name is sharkiefan. I’ve worked on other Geocaching committees before, so this sort of thing is not new to me. I have a good relationship with the other committee members. I’ve placed a lot of caches, found a lot of caches and am familiar with Victoria as a state for rules and guidelines. I’m saving for a house so I have a bit of time on my hands. I’m also on the working group for the St Arnaud event so this would be useful to help with that too. I would like your votes please.
  • Stephen Handbury (Clever Monkey)
    For well over a decade I’ve been playing this diverse game. Based near Alexandra the community got severely affected by the Black Saturday Bushfires and that just encouraged me to lend a helping hand wherever I can. Although some might see me a bit as a shit-stirrer, I do believe this is just a game and we should enjoy it. In past I’ve been involved in the Melbourne, Surf Coast and Alexandra Mega events, brought the Lake Eildon Geotour to life and hosted numerous events.
    These days my caching consists of more or less well planned adventures. “Make your finds count – don’t count your finds” is the motto I go by and I’m convinced this is where I can add value to the Victorian Geocaching Community: Connecting the various type of players and getting the community closer together.
  • Philipp Hammes ( º )
    I’m a middle-aged man with an technical job, a nerd and dad. That’s pretty much the smack-bang average geocacher, isn’t it? Except I’ve been doing this since 2003 and found all kinds of caches all over the planet. As the game evolved over time, so did my caching style change – away from the numbers and more towards quality adventures.
    Now let’s be honest: To say I’m a controversial player is a bit of an understatement. I don’t hold back on voicing my opinion in a very German way: It normally gets served with cold hard facts and not everyone likes that. That doesn’t mean I don’t care for the community and I often do things in the background like negotiating with GC HQ for us to get the mega-status for the 2015 to 2017 events. I also run the big Geocaching facebook group and I’ve been a committee member before but left to focus on other things – mainly coping with becoming a dad. Now somebody thought it’d be time to come back and nominated me. I believe the there’s still work to be done to unify the geocaching community in Victoria while acknowledging the different styles at the same time.
  • Donna Moore (jaktembo)
    I am Donna from team Jaktembo which includes my partner and kids aged 12 &10. We started caching in 2015 but not seriously until 2016. We love that geocaching takes us to places we would never have visited otherwise. At first the kids moaned a bit but now they are pretty in to it. We spend hours together as a family puzzle solving on the bad weather days and finding caches on the good weather days. All our holiday locations are centred around geocaches in an area. We love meeting all the like minded people and love the megas! Our whole team/family (including the kids) are keen to be actively involved in the wider geocaching community. I am heavily involved as a player, coach and committee member of Upper Ferntree Gully Football Netball club. Last year I was honoured to receive the Best Playing Clubperson award. I served behind the bar and also helped to run the canteen on the home games. I play cricket for Launching Place United cricket club in the summer and until recently have been an active committee member in my club on and off for 25years. Unfortunately the club is a fair distance from where I live, hence why I am no longer on the committee. I am the delegate for the club and participate in Cricket Victoria meetings. In 2019 I will be participating in my 3rd Oxfam event, representing Geocaching Victoria. I take these roles very seriously and am 100% committed to doing what I can do to make these clubs successful. I enjoy the administrative and scheduling aspects of being on a committee. I have a strong sense of social justice and enjoy advocating for my peers. I am a “get in there and get it done” kinda person as people may have seen at the recent Parkville Mega. Although I was not involved with the committee of this event, I was keen to play a role. Myself and Erica were active behind the scenes in helping to make sure everyone had a great feed! We also manned the BBQ. I am super keen to get involved and share some ideas for the St Arnaud Mega. That is after we have done Oxfam and attended Canberra and Woolongong megas on the way!
  • Mark Barnes (Team☢aky)

After learning a bit about the candidates, you can cast your votes here:

A NEW name, a NEW website and a NEW MEGA!

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So the Alexandra MEGA is over and what a fantastic time we have all had.  That now completes the third successful MEGA event held by Geocaching Melbourne in as many years.  So what to do next?  That’s right, let’s jump back in a do it all over again!  But this time, we’re taking the road-show to the city!

First thing’s first though.

We felt it was about time for a change of name as we have kind of outgrown the term “Geocaching Melbourne”, so we asked the community for their input and after a reasonably lengthy discussion and survey polling the people who geocache in Victoria, we have arrived at our new name and that will be “Geocaching Victoria”.

So what does that mean?  Well it means a brand new and completely redesigned website which has just been launched.  You can find that at this address → http://geocachingvictoria.com.au

It also means a name change for our Facebook page and our GC account, but don’t worry, it still the same team behind the scenes working tirelessly to enhance the geocaching experience of people in Victoria and those visiting Victoria.  The committee behind the new Geocaching Victoria Inc is…

  • Day Gowland (day1976) – President
  • Louise Sullivan (LouiseAnn) – Vice President
  • Bernie Hollaway (BernieH) – Treasurer
  • Adriaan Homburg (ahomburg) – Secretary
  • Karen Ashford (carkisser) – Committee Member
  • Lorraine Sleep-Ogilvie (The Tritonz) – Committee Member
  • Peter Taurins (caught at work) – Committee Member

The committee looks forward to working on many different geocaching projects over the next year and in the years to come.

But wait, did I mention before something about the next MEGA moving to the city?

That’s right!  We would like to introduce you to the next MEGA event in the state of Victoria, The Parkville Event 2018.  You can follow this link and log your Will Attend now → https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC75D90

Located smack bang in the middle of the city of Melbourne, the Parkville event will be a two day event held over the weekend of the 17th and 18th of November 2018.  There is limited accommodation available which you can purchase right now.  The event t-shirts are being done through geostuff again and should be available for pre-purchase very soon.  The geocoins and pathtags are designed and are also available for pre purchase now.  There is even a rough event schedule and site map and a FAQ section completed on our brand new website.  There are plenty of exciting things planned for this event so to keep on top of it all, you need to stay tuned.  All further notifications regarding The Parkville Event, 2018 will be made through our new website, so make sure you subscribe to our blog and everything else at the new website → http://geocachingvictoria.com.au

The Parkville Event, like all our events will be absolutely FREE to attend with no registration fees required to be paid.

The Parkville Event committee consists of the following individuals who will be responsible for overseeing this MEGA event…

  • Louise Sullivan (LouiseAnn)
  • Karen Ashford (carkisser)
  • Day Gowland (day 1976)
  • David Fowler (Earthbound Chief)
  • Adriaan Homburg (ahomburg)

The Parkville Committee look forward to working on this exciting new project and delivering a MEGA that will take the next step in BIG geocaching events in Australia.