Cache Bash 2009 – suggestions?

[zuma]

camping.

z

[Lostby7]

@zuma wrote:

camping.

z

…without teen girls next door yelling and singing until midnight every night….

[furfool]

@LDove wrote:

Well, now that we have the 2009 Cache Bash behind us, I would like to pose the same question? How can we please you? ❓

We pretty much did everything requested (I think!) so what would you like to see next year???

Well Laurel, I mentioned it to you before the raffle, and I mentioned it to Tami at the post event, that it would be nice to have what is downloaded to the gps and what is listed in the booklet to correspond so we don’t have to cross reference the cache names and cache numbers.

That’s all I got for now.

[-cheeto-]

Put some info in my various logs but here’s the good and sorta bad from my family: (keep in mind this was our first trip to the west bend event and our first large caching event)

– We absolutely LOVED the candy cache mystery. Our kids loved looking both indoors and outdoors and exploring the exhibit rooms. Well done and we will certainly be looking forward to this again next year.
– The night caches were great. They added variety and the ability to continue caching after dark.
– The penny/toy hunt in the sand was awesome for our youngest daughter. She loved it!!!
– The map was extremely helpful and really without it my family would have struggled planning our day.

The sorta bad
– Saw at least one cache – the one near the police station where flowers and landscaping were completely trampled. Perhaps for the bash target caches trying to keep in mind what will certainly happen might be in order.
– Baggies in the target caches were pointless. I removed a half dozen shredded baggies from containers as they served no purpose by about noon.

The suggestions
– For the longer hikes and water caches, perhaps give 2 stamps/tickets to reward those who target the harder caches. It seems like the 1+ mile hikes on the IAT caches should be rewarded more than the quick stop at the Chocolate House. Just a suggestion. Could just have a rectangle instead of a square and a note about 2 stamps. Could just use the same stamper.
– Could the new night caches be rewarded with raffle tickets as well? Logistically more difficult but it would be cool to incorporate them into the event.
– An exciting “speaker” at the main event? Nothing against those behind the mic..

It was a really fun weekend and we were glad we went.

[LDove]

@-cheeto- wrote:

Put some info in my various logs but here’s the good and sorta bad from my family: (keep in mind this was our first trip to the west bend event and our first large caching event)

– We absolutely LOVED the candy cache mystery. Our kids loved looking both indoors and outdoors and exploring the exhibit rooms. Well done and we will certainly be looking forward to this again next year.
– The night caches were great. They added variety and the ability to continue caching after dark.
– The penny/toy hunt in the sand was awesome for our youngest daughter. She loved it!!!
– The map was extremely helpful and really without it my family would have struggled planning our day.

The sorta bad
– Saw at least one cache – the one near the police station where flowers and landscaping were completely trampled. Perhaps for the bash target caches trying to keep in mind what will certainly happen might be in order.
– Baggies in the target caches were pointless. I removed a half dozen shredded baggies from containers as they served no purpose by about noon.

The suggestions
– For the longer hikes and water caches, perhaps give 2 stamps/tickets to reward those who target the harder caches. It seems like the 1+ mile hikes on the IAT caches should be rewarded more than the quick stop at the Chocolate House. Just a suggestion. Could just have a rectangle instead of a square and a note about 2 stamps. Could just use the same stamper.
– Could the new night caches be rewarded with raffle tickets as well? Logistically more difficult but it would be cool to incorporate them into the event.
– An exciting “speaker” at the main event? Nothing against those behind the mic..

It was a really fun weekend and we were glad we went.

Glad you had a good time! I will only address your concerns or suggestions since we love to hear the good stuff and I don’t need to comment on that – ha! 😀

Regarding the flowers, we did hear about that and will definitely keep that in mind for next year’s placements. Since these are permanent caches, we will probably have to go out and replace some of the baggies, probably ME because I have not done any yet and will be going out to do them! 😀

Regarding the longer hike caches and more difficult caches: I will mention it to the committee and see what the conscensus is. For the night caches, I’m not sure if we will have them next year or not just yet. The event for the prizes and tickets needs to all be held on the same day and therefore issuing tickets the night before would not really work. For the speaker – know any good comedians? 😆

Thanks for the suggestions Cheeto! Always glad to get additional feedback!

[Decrepit]

@LDove wrote:

For the speaker – know any good comedians? 😆

John McGivern is a local to Milwaukee. He made me laugh so hard when I went to see him after surgery, I actually ripped out some of my stitches.

He might be interested in learning about caching too.

[Lostby7]

For those who found a few of the outlying hides, it’s no secret that a great many of the hides were highly bushwacky. I’d work really hard to make the caches a bit more accessible. If the chamber wants folks to spend more time spending money in town then a few less caches or shorter walks are in order so that we have time to stop and spend some $. My team spent the entire day in the car and on trail….not spending $ in town. Sure we did spend $ before and after but had we had more time we would have also gotten lunch at some point or water……or bug spray….or a first aid kit.

[ecorangers]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone and keep them coming 😀
Some of us hiders find the hiding spots for the cache ba$h in April-May-or early June…and there’s not a whole lot of vegetation at that time.
So who would have thought that there would be some pretty flowers right next to a pine tree next to a big ugly green electrical box. OR where the heck did that corn come from? If you did that one as per the instructions staying on the IATrail you would have gone through a corn maze. Trust me when I say there was NO sign of corn growing there when I was first out there and when I went to put the cache out a few days before the event, I was shocked to see the corn so tall that you couldn’t even see the trail markers. Tami
I was surprised at the number of cachers that forgo the 09 series and hit the 08 series and/or other caches.

[jerrys dad]

@ecorangers wrote:

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone and keep them coming 😀
I was surprised at the number of cachers that forgo the 09 series and hit the 08 series and/or other caches.

We were one of those that did not concentrate on the ’09 series. It was not important for us, since we thought our chances of actually winning something, was too small with so many people there. Maybe next year you could get cachers / businesses to donate smaller items for the raffle on top of the money.

[-cheeto-]

My team spent the entire day in the car and on trail….not spending $ in town.

Quite the opposite experience for my family. We spent the first “half” of our caching day “in town” hitting all the caches near businesses that were easy to jump from cache to cache and we stopped 3 times along the way and spent some cache (er’ cash) at some of the businesses. Then later I headed out further and did some of the IAT and harder hike ones.

—

It’s interesting to read ecorangers’ post about hiding some of the caches long ago when there was no corn or pretty flowers. Definitely changes my opinions on some of the one’s I did.. It’s amazing how a “ground zero” changes throughout the seasons and year. FYI – I enjoyed the hike through the corn field quite a bit actually. First time I ever hiked on an official trail through a corn field. Corn was “almost ready” 🙂

—

Thanks for the feedback and for everything you guys do to make this event great.

[Mister Greenthumb]

First off as a second year attendee I’ll say that in many ways the event was twice as good as the previous year. Since we live only 25 minutes away we came more for the social aspects than the geocaching. The Friday and Sunday events were major improvements. We hunted a mix of new and old hides concentrating mainly on an area north of Regner Park and Kewaskum.
Friday night – found the 2 downtown multis
Saturday – 14 new and 16 old caches
Sunday – found 2 existing hides in the park and got to do some bonus caches when our 21 month old grandson fell asleep immediately as we hit the road for home. We found 10 of the new park and grabs in one hour and got his nap in at the same time.

So we were quite happy with 48 smileys which included all 4 events. Throughout the weekend we discussed how much more fun the social part was this year and since we average 80-90 finds per month we have plenty of future WB outings to look forward to before next years event.

Next years event is already marked on our calendar and we look forward to another weekend of great geocahing fun with friends, old and new.

Mister Greenthumb and Sunshine
Bill and Vicki

[Mister Greenthumb]

I didn’t realize that there was a competition (I’m being sarcastic) to be the first to find all of the caches. I’m going to side with Uncle Fun on the fact that the event is about and for geocachers to have fun. I too would like to see the elimination of $$$ prizes and maybe an increase in the amount of prizes such as gift cards from merchants.

I hope any negative comments on changing the way coordinates and downloads were made available are looked upon lightly. For the magnitude of what was involved in pulling this off I thought most things evolved quite smoothly. If someone wants to turn this into a competition, they’re in the wrong game.

[zuma]

@Mister Greenthumb wrote:

I didn’t realize that there was a competition (I’m being sarcastic) to be the first to find all of the caches. I’m going to side with Uncle Fun on the fact that the event is about and for geocachers to have fun. I too would like to see the elimination of $$$ prizes and maybe an increase in the amount of prizes such as gift cards from merchants.

I hope anty negative comments on changing the way coordinates and downloads were made available are looked upon lightly. For the magnitude of what was involved in pulling this off I thought most things evolved quite smoothly. If someone wants to turn this into a competition, they’re in the wrong game.

Well said. Much more fun to visit when ya feel like it, and cache when ya feel like it, rather than try to set up some kind of phony competition.

I think that this was an excellent event and the organizers did a superb job in putting it on, and the changes made were all for the better.

I liked being able to download my own waypoints on gc.com Friday night, and the positives of doing it that way, out number the negatives.

I especially liked how many of the caches were spread out on the IAT, which made for great walks in the woods and running into others on the trail, and it got at least some folks away from lining up for park and grabs. If anything, you might want to decrease the number of PNGs, and spread it out even more.

I will be back next year.

zuma

[Team Deejay]

I thought the event was very well run, and the caches were generally fun. I still think you could spread out even more with the caches, as most of the ones in the city of West Bend ended up being simply a line of people waiting to stamp and sign the logs. I understand that the point was to promote some of the West Bend businesses, but a few of those is more than enough. The IAT caches were great, as were the Kettle Moraine caches. For both of those, more, more, more! For me, the Black Kettle night cache was the highlight of the weekend. Just a great cache made better by great company.

As far as criticisms, Julie suggested that you would sell more t-shirts if you picked a color more suitable to our group. Her idea was a camouflage material with white logo/lettering.

Finally, I would suggest that any Karaoke event be held some significant distance away from any of the actual event venues. I’m thinking Superior would be a nice choice.

[Lostby7]

@Mister Greenthumb wrote:

I didn’t realize that there was a competition (I’m being sarcastic) to be the first to find all of the caches.

The only competition I’m aware of was with myself and my own ability to get em all found. On the side I talked smack with a couple of teams but we were just messing around…

[Author]

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