Cache Bash 2009 – suggestions?

[Lostby7]

@ecorangers wrote:

Did anyone get fined by the police/sheriff?

….not fined no…. 😳

[Mister Greenthumb]

Some geocaching experiences are worth more than the find. This is one of them. We got to spend time with a family from Canada. Here’s their log.

WOW…….. What an experience. For someone who is from out of town, more like out-of-country, myself and my kids were welcomed with smiles and warm hello’s everywhere we went throught out our 5 day vaction to your lovely town.
Because of a terrible illness, my husband, who had a heart attack and stroke on July 5th, couldn’t come with us to this mulit-event weekend, I asked the West Bend Chambers committee to talk with there local geo-cacher members if someone would buddy up with me and my kids if we needed the company or support. With the help of Craig and PharmGirl, they found two caching teams that were willing to help us out.

I would like to thank Mr. Greenthumb and Sunshine along with his daughter and grandchildren for taking us on. It was a great help to know there was someone there if we needed company. I would like to thanks craig and Pharmgirl for taking the time to find someone for us and to make sure we were doing OK throughout the whole weekend. Also, I would like to thank the WBC committe, the Mayor, the local towns people and local geo-cachers and all visiting cachers for the warm hello’s to complete strangers and for organizing such a great event.

Team ABoudreau, Angela (Mom), Stephanie (daughter), and Jonathen (son) enjoyed out 5 day adventure to West Bend, WI from Sutton, Ontario. Thnaks for everything…………..

[LDove]

With an upcoming postbash meeting, I am going to suggest the following and would appreciate your thoughts and comments.

Since there were several e-mails to me personally about the ticket drawing, some complaints from cachers about being pushed out of the way, caches literally thrown on the ground because someone was in too much of a hurry to put it back, etc.. I came up with an idea.

Still shoot for 50 caches but – no more cache tickets. No more stamp cards.

Instead, each ADULT CACHER will receive 1 or 2 tickets at the start of the day when they register at Cache Central or possibly be eligible when they register on time. All prizes, will be eligible for the drawing. Treasure box will be kids prizes only, adult gifts rather than going into the treasure box will go into the main drawing.

This will accomplish several things. No more lines at 4:30 to check cards, no worries about people cheating or racing around causing problems, no concerns about stamps, stickers, code words. If people who are disabled feel they can’t get a more difficult cache, it is not unfair to them to not get a ticket. Everyone has a chance. Get as many caches as you want or don’t want to and set your own personal goals for the day and reward yourself with your own achievement.

[Lostby7]

@LDove wrote:

Instead, each CACHER will receive 1 or 2 tickets at the start of the day when they register at Cache Central or possibly be eligible when they register on time.

I’d rather get tickets for each cache but I’m more about the competition (with myself).

…but yes I would still come if I only got one or two tickets…but I’d just hunt whatever was around all day (which as an end result would boost my days find numbers as I wouldn’t be trekking all over the place and skipping caches along the way).

In reality this might be the best answer to getting folks to stop for lunch and spend some green as well.

[thepharmgirl]

I like it. One ticket per adult. Have more raffle prizes. More people win prizes. Treasure box for kids only (will reduce that line and increase odds of winning for kids too).

1) Actually improves odds of winning something for every team.
2) Eliminates the actual or perceived “cheating” aspect with stamps and codewords, etc.
3) Teams can find caches at a more leisurely rate, enjoying more of West Bend if they desire without worrying about the deadline. Those who still want to find all 50 caches can still do it for their own self-satisfaction.
4) If teams turn in their one raffle ticket at the beginning of the day… the prizes can all be drawn in the afternoon while people are out caching. Then they could be posted ahead of time, and the annoucements READY TO GO by the time the drawing takes place, making the drawing much more efficient!

Also… because teams felt like they had no chance of winning, they never bothered to register in the morning. That sort of hurt our overall stats of how many people/teams actually attended. It’s nice for the Chamber to go to the city when they’re asking for money in their budget for this event (during a tough economic time when city budgets are being cut) to be able to say, “We had over 1000 people! Look at the tourism it brought!” Instead, only half that number actually registered at the park. That’s just from an event organizer perspective.
[/b]

[zuma]

@Mister Greenthumb wrote:

Some geocaching experiences are worth more than the find. This is one of them. We got to spend time with a family from Canada. Here’s their log.

WOW…….. What an experience. For someone who is from out of town, more like out-of-country, myself and my kids were welcomed with smiles and warm hello’s everywhere we went throught out our 5 day vaction to your lovely town.
Because of a terrible illness, my husband, who had a heart attack and stroke on July 5th, couldn’t come with us to this mulit-event weekend, I asked the West Bend Chambers committee to talk with there local geo-cacher members if someone would buddy up with me and my kids if we needed the company or support. With the help of Craig and PharmGirl, they found two caching teams that were willing to help us out.

I would like to thank Mr. Greenthumb and Sunshine along with his daughter and grandchildren for taking us on. It was a great help to know there was someone there if we needed company. I would like to thanks craig and Pharmgirl for taking the time to find someone for us and to make sure we were doing OK throughout the whole weekend. Also, I would like to thank the WBC committe, the Mayor, the local towns people and local geo-cachers and all visiting cachers for the warm hello’s to complete strangers and for organizing such a great event.

Team ABoudreau, Angela (Mom), Stephanie (daughter), and Jonathen (son) enjoyed out 5 day adventure to West Bend, WI from Sutton, Ontario. Thnaks for everything…………..

Thanks for sharing this great story. This is what it is all about!!!! Awesome….]

zuma

[LDove]

Mr. G, thanks for sharing that story. That really a fun story and nice of them to share it. 😀

[zuma]

@LDove wrote:

Since there were several e-mails to me personally about the ticket drawing, some complaints from cachers about being pushed out of the way, caches literally thrown on the ground because someone was in too much of a hurry to put it back, etc..

l

This has got to be the exception, and not the rule. I honestly can say that we did not see any bad behavior at all. I saw a spirit of cooperation, friendliness and fun at all the caches that I visited….I am not saying thngs like that did not occur, but where ever ya have a lot of people, just by the law of averages, you are gonna get some antisocial folks. Let’s say, just for discussion, that 1% of geocachers behave badly at events like this. If you have 800 people there, than by my math, you should expect that 8 people that gotta be jerks and do stuff like you describe.

But still, that leaves 792 geocachers behaving the way that I saw, and that was great.

Again, thanks for the great event. Personally, I wouldnt mess with the format, as I think it is fine as is, but you are closer to it and probably have more insight. Either way, I plan to be back next year.

zuma

[thepharmgirl]

@zuma wrote:

But still, that leaves 792 geocachers behaving the way that I saw, and that was great.

Yup. 😀

We’re just throwing the idea out there. Is the “competition” really necessary with the playing cards and stamps? Do people enjoy that aspect? Would you be equally happy just getting a raffle ticket for your attendance? Then people could enjoy the event however they want to… whether it’s hanging around the park and socializing or whether it’s finding as many caches as possible. Since every team enjoys different things, each team can enjoy the event how THEY want to and still have equal chance at the raffle. Your odds of winning would go up. 1/800 instead of 1/ten-thousands. Plus, we’d add more prizes to the raffle.

What does everyone else think?

[Lostby7]

@thepharmgirl wrote:

Your odds of winning would go up. 1/800 instead of 1/ten-thousands. Plus, we’d add more prizes to the raffle.

What does everyone else think?

My odds would go down…very few folks found 50+ caches…for each team which didn’t, my odds were better. I like winning….I guess I’m shallow like that. But like I said, I’d still come whatever the format would be and I’d guess that would hold true for most folks.

But also consider that I might pop in at registration, go home, and come back later in the day to see if I won….no real incentive for me to hang out in town if I didn’t feel like it….

[Mister Greenthumb]

It didn’t seem like there were that many more people around at 4:30 than last year even though more logged that they intended. I think the day may have gotten a little long for some of the families with small kids. Maybe they only found a few caches and didn’t figure they had a chance of winning. I like the idea of less tickets per team or adult. Like I have said previouly that the social aspects of the weekend are more important than the geocaches and we will return no matter how many caches of tickets there are.

[thepharmgirl]

@Lostby7 wrote:

My odds would go down…very few folks found 50+ caches…for each team which didn’t, my odds were better. I like winning….I guess I’m shallow like that. But like I said, I’d still come whatever the format would be and I’d guess that would hold true for most folks.

But also consider that I might pop in at registration, go home, and come back later in the day to see if I won….no real incentive for me to hang out in town if I didn’t feel like it….

I guess that makes sense. 300 teams x 25 tickets average (?)=7500 tickets
7500 tickets/all 50 tickets= 1 in 150 ticket chance.

Still… if we had 45 small prizes along with the 5 big cash prizes…
300 teams x 2 adults = 600 people/50 prizes = 1 in 12 chance of winning something. [/i]

[Mister Greenthumb]

@thepharmgirl wrote:

@Lostby7 wrote:

My odds would go down…very few folks found 50+ caches…for each team which didn’t, my odds were better. I like winning….I guess I’m shallow like that. But like I said, I’d still come whatever the format would be and I’d guess that would hold true for most folks.

But also consider that I might pop in at registration, go home, and come back later in the day to see if I won….no real incentive for me to hang out in town if I didn’t feel like it….

I guess that makes sense. 300 teams x 25 tickets average (?)=7500 tickets
7500 tickets/all 50 tickets= 1 in 150 ticket chance.

Still… if we had 45 small prizes along with the 5 big cash prizes…
300 teams x 2 adults = 600 people/50 prizes = 1 in 12 chance of winning something. [/i]

SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD PUZZLE CACHE. THERE GO MY TICKETS.

[thepharmgirl]

@Mister Greenthumb wrote:

SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD PUZZLE CACHE. THERE GO MY TICKETS.

haha 😆

[Decrepit]

@LDove wrote:

With an upcoming postbash meeting, I am going to suggest the following and would appreciate your thoughts and comments.

Since there were several e-mails to me personally about the ticket drawing, some complaints from cachers about being pushed out of the way, caches literally thrown on the ground because someone was in too much of a hurry to put it back, etc.. I came up with an idea.

Still shoot for 50 caches but – no more cache tickets. No more stamp cards.

Instead, each ADULT CACHER will receive 1 or 2 tickets at the start of the day when they register at Cache Central or possibly be eligible when they register on time. All prizes, will be eligible for the drawing. Treasure box will be kids prizes only, adult gifts rather than going into the treasure box will go into the main drawing.

This will accomplish several things. No more lines at 4:30 to check cards, no worries about people cheating or racing around causing problems, no concerns about stamps, stickers, code words. If people who are disabled feel they can’t get a more difficult cache, it is not unfair to them to not get a ticket. Everyone has a chance. Get as many caches as you want or don’t want to and set your own personal goals for the day and reward yourself with your own achievement.

I’m all for this!

[Author]

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