The souvenirs come from HQ, and not from the WGA.  I think more CITOs are a great idea, as long as there is a need for it.  I remember attending a CITO but the locations we went to really weren’t that bad.  I could see some people feeling that that may have been a waste of time.

My $0.02, as a “toddler” cacher –

I recently attended my first CITO event, and yes, it was during a souvenir weekend. And I love my souvenirs. However, I would have gone regardless, as it was a geocaching experience I had yet to have, and in a location where there were caches I had yet to find.

CITO events, in my extremely limited experience, appear to take more thought & planning than many other events where it is not expected to have new caches hidden (though, the COs for my first CITO hid two, and I know the Hacks & the Wisjanines do something special for their joint CITO). For the attendee, it’s also understood that there’s more of a time commitment than just showing up at some point during the time frame of the event, signing the log, chatting with a few cachers, and then leaving. Having the two souvenir weekends (and having them be pretty stable in what weekends they are) gives COs & attendees alike a time frame with which to do a CITO. So, I understand why there aren’t many non-souvenir weekend CITOs.

But for us baby cachers, souvenir weekends are a good way to make us aware of the types of caches we’ve yet to become used to. This upcoming Earthcache weekend is another example of that. Sure, we know that Earthcaches exist, but if we still have so many physical caches to find, we may need a souvenir to get us to spend the little extra time to appreciate what an Earthcache experience is. This month’s “Caching Connoisseur” is also good one for us, as it brings focus to the quality caches that you senior cachers are always griping there aren’t more new ones of being placed, since favorite points play a factor in points for the souvenir. Though I have to say, if I weren’t trying to focus on non-traditionals as much as I could for these last ones to 1000, I would have purposely gone after P&Gs for the souvenir, just to be a punk about the way they worded it, favorite points be darned.

Oh, and Trekkin? If you’ve ever used the official app without having a Premium membership, you’d understand why people will shell out $30 a year & find less than 100 caches in that time.

The official app, for non-PMs, is designed to get them to become PMs. Non-PMO caches above a 2.0 D or T rating don’t show up at all, and non-traditionals that are open to everyone do show up on the map, but when tapping on it, a box comes up encouraging the user to upgrade to Premium to learn more about them. They had to unlock the Earthcaches for this weekend because of the souvenir. With $30 a year being relatively cheap compared to other things – that’s only a little over 2 months of Netflix or Hulu – I’m sure a lot of the Premium memberships over the last few years were just to have decent access to the app.

We are very much an app-driven society. MLB is making a hard push for fans to have their app. As a season seat holder for the Brewers, I now have to pay extra if I want paper tickets, when I haven’t for the 10 previous years, by not using the Ballpark app. Dominos keeps trying to encourage me to download their app when I order a pizza online. Where I’m going with this is, even though all non-PMO caches are available for viewing & logging on the website, I would not be surprised at all if a large percentage of the geocaching accounts created in the last few years never went to the website, only experienced it through the app. Especially those who decided to try it out after learning about it because of Pokemon Go.

In essence, I think baby cachers like me are the exception, rather than the norm. Most either get so frustrated with the app & refuse to pay before they know if they like geocaching, or pay & give up anyway because it doesn’t magically improve upon the previous experience. Unless,of course, they’re lucky enough to find an awesome cache shortly after parting with their $30, or have a PM friend who helps them see how fun geocaching is.

I guess I never thought about CITO souvenirs potentially devaluing the idea of CITOs.  It’s an interesting point to ponder.  They are one of our favorite things about geocaching, and we’ve participated in quite a few of them, with or without a souvenir as incentive.

I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here, but the concept of picking up trash while hiking or geocaching seems to be far from most geocacher’s minds.  I see CITOs as opportunities to motivate people to clean up our parks and natural areas, to help curtail invasive plant species, to rebuild and repair trails and outdoor areas – and hopefully that one day at a CITO event will spill over to many similar days without any reward other than knowing they left the place better than they found it.   Perhaps for some it takes a souvenir to spark their initial interest before they “get” it and become more environmentally responsible.

As for us, we typically host or co-host one or two CITO events each year.  For the last five years we’ve followed a nifty format.

1. We select a LARGE park that has great need.  2. Because it’s a LARGE park it’s likely that many people would clump together and certain portions of the park would not have that need addressed, so we mark coordinates where the accumulation of trash or issues are most pressing.  3. We place temporary caches at each of those locations where the trash or issue is great (20 to 40 spots).  People have the option of an assignment (with a temp cache) or no assignment/just cleanup wherever.  The temporary caches at the respective assignments are theirs to keep and deploy elsewhere, and are easy finds (don’t want people to waste time looking for them when they should be CITOing), with a D/T rating and hint, fully stocked with swag and a log book, with an explanation card of what geocaching is, and clearly labeled as a geocache on the outside.  4. By having these optional assignments (which pretty much everyone wants), we ensure that the park is fully covered instead of parts of it being neglected due to the sheer size of the area.  5. Sometimes a few new “real” caches are placed within a mile or so, sometimes not at all, since the emphasis is not on caches to find but on trash cleanup or some other task.

But why give out the temporary caches?  Wouldn’t that also potentially devalue CITOs?  Wouldn’t the assignments alone, sans temps, be good enough?  Probably.  But there is an additional reason for us doing it this way.  In the Milwaukee/Waukesha area, there are SO many caches that are placed without proper labels on the outside, even though it’s required in many areas (they don’t want them to be mistaken for bombs).  SO many caches in the area have plain sheets of paper for logsheets not stating that they are geocaches.  If people receive a ready-to-go cache with a proper label and log book, maybe that too will carry over to their placement habits in the future.  We actually have seen this happening.  Incidentally, the temp caches are almost all double-walled plastic or stainless steel food thermoses from Goodwill and are fully waterproof.  One final reason for the temporary caches – it’s fun!