Ontario Geocaching Association

The Ontario Geocaching Association (OGA) has been developed to provide additional support for the Geocachers of Ontario and other provinces and states. Another facet of the OGA is to provide an entertaining outlet for geocachers to announce Events and other social gatherings.

The OGA will also make itself available to landowners and government agencies as a liaison for setting safe geocaching policies and guidelines, securing approval and maintenance of geocaches placed or to be placed within parks in Ontario. Parks include but are not limited to Provincial Parks, Conservation Areas, Municipal Parks and any other public access area.

Further, the OGA will help educate all groups as required about geocaching. These include new geocachers, landowners and government agencies on the guidelines, recreational benefits, generated tourism, and environmentally friendly objectives of geocaching.

The Administrator of the OGA will be responsible for enlisting the help of volunteers to provide support for key areas of operation of the OGA. These executive positions are as follows.

1. Documents Manager - Creation of Guidelines and Policies of the OGA documents relating to 'How the OGA operates', 'Recommended caching guidelines for hiding and seeking geocaches' and others. This executive will also be required to document meetings with landowners.

2. Regional Manager - Every Geographical Region within Ontario should have a 'Regional Rep' as described below. There will be a single individual assigned to oversee this group. This person also will be responsible for the creation of a database of Ontario's Geocaching history.

3. Financial Manager - A treasurer will handle the monetary duties of the OGA, including memberships, products for sale, and other operating expenses.

Each of these positions may have sub-positions that will accomplish these tasks, and the executive in charge will assign assistants as required.

Geographical Region Support

Each Geographical Region in Ontario will have local representation within the OGA. A volunteer, known as the Regional Rep, to oversee each region is to be appointed by the Regional Manager and will have the following duties to perform.

1. Act as the OGA contact for Geocaching.com. Remove abandoned caches upon request of Geocaching.com or check on sites should the need arise.

2. Potentially provide support and education of new geocachers.

3. Co-ordinate Cache-In-Trash-Out (CITO) Events either themselves or with the help of an appointed CITO officer. CITO events are to occur to match the schedule set by Geocaching.com but additional CITO events may be planned as well as required or desired.

4. Work with local, municipal or provincial groups when there is a concern about a geocache location.

5. Creation of regional web content for display on the OGA web site.

6. Provide information to the Regional Manager about geocaches, past and present, within their assigned area. This information will also need updating on a predetermined schedule.

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