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I hate archiving caches or events, so here is a little info to consider when planing any events/classes. It seems like a timely reminder since spring is coming soon, I hope :-).
Main points to consider:
[*]Geocache events are open to all geocachers AND organized by geocachers.
[*]Fees charged for events need to be justified and close to actual costs. You can’t charge a fee unless it costs money to host the event.
[*]You can’t charge a fee that would be used as a forced donation. If you want to ask for voluntary donations, feel free to pass the hat. In that case, don’t list a fee on the cache page.quote:
Event Caches
Event caches are gatherings that are open to all geocachers and which are organized by geocachers. After the event has passed, the event cache should be archived by the organizer within four weeks. While a music concert, a garage sale, a ham radio field day or town’s fireworks display might be of interest to a large percentage of geocachers, such events are not suitable for submission as event caches because the organizers and the primary attendees are not geocachers. In addition, an event cache should not be set up for the sole purpose of drawing together cachers for an organized hunt of another cache or caches. Such group hunts are best organized using the forums or an email distribution list.For geocaching events that involve several components, such as a day-long group cache hunt that also involves a seminar and dinner, only a single event cache covering all components should be submitted.
Event caches should be submitted no less than two weeks prior to the date of the event, so that potential attendees will have sufficient notice to make their plans. Events are generally listed no more than three months prior to the date of the event, to avoid having the listing appear for a prolonged period of time on the nearest caches page and in the weekly e-mail notification of new caches. Exceptions are sometimes made for events that are designed to attract a regional, national or international group of geocachers. Contact your reviewer if you wish to set up such an event, which may be listed up to six months in advance.
Commercial Caches / Caches that Solicit
Commercial caches attempt to use the Geocaching.com web site cache reporting tool directly or indirectly (intentionally or non-intentionally) to solicit customers through a Geocaching.com listing. These are NOT permitted. Examples include for-profit locations that require an entrance fee, or locations that sell products or services.Charging a fee for an event may fall under “caches that solicit”, if somone is making profit off of the geocaching.com website. Even if those profiting are not a “commercial” business.
Example A:
Geocacher organizes a pizza social. Fee of $8.00 is charged to cover the actual cost of food. No probem.Example B: Geocachers organizes a pizza social and charges $20.00 a head. $10.00 for actual cost of food, and $10.00 will be donated to the WGA. This event could not be approved. It’s using the GC.com to solicit money. The event could still be held, just not published on the internet.
Example C:
GrouseTales hosts a “Printing on Paper geocaching class”. He gets a room free at the library, but charges each person $10.00 to attend. All money collected will be donated to the friends of the library foundation. No Dice! This event can’t be listed because it uses the GC.com to solicit (money for the library).Example D: (similar to C)
GrouseTales holds the Printing on Paper class at a local restaurant. It costs $50.00 to reserve the meeting room. Printing costs are $20.00. Is it allowed to charge people money to attend? Yes. You would be able to charge enough money to recover the costs of the event. $7.00 a head would cover the cost if 10 people attended. Say 3 people show up, should you charge them $23 each to attend. Probably not. If you cant afford to take the loss, you probably shouldn’t be organizing the class to begin with.Example E:
GrouseTale’s Hummer dealership is going to give a class on geocaching. No fee’s charged. Can this event be listed? No. Events are open to all geocachers, and ARE ORGANIZED BY GEOCACHERS. Fee or no fee, events are are organized by geocachers.There seems to be a lot of grey area with the events. No one is trying to discourage having events, but they are mostly designed to be social events. Some classes and other events fall into a grey area. Other times when fees seem excessive, the event will need the OK from the powers at groundspeak.
I see many reviewers around the country are having some questionable events submitted. Hopefully some of the info here might might help event organizers with future planning.
[This message has been edited by GrouseTales (edited 02-21-2006).]
Thanks for the clarification, Brian.
(And thanks for providing me with my blog post for today.)Example F – A non profit nature center hosts a geo-caching class. A ‘fee’ pf $10 is charged for general expenses, such as use of the room, electronic equipment provided, internet service, photocopying, etc.
Ok …………?
Example F:
“Geocaches events are open to all geocachers and are organized by Geocachers”.If the nature center is hosting the event, then “no”. A recent survey of GC.com admins indicated that such events did not meet criteria of an “event”.
If they want to attract new blood to geocaching with a “Beginner’s Geocache Workshop” the local paper or a spot on the 6:00 news might be more appropriate. Those searching the cache listings and would find their event cache area already beyond the scope of their event.
The survey also suggested such fees were seen as excessive, unless there was more then just a class, say an overnite stay.
They can still hold the event as they see fit, it just wouldn’t be listed on the GC.com website.
[This message has been edited by GrouseTales (edited 02-22-2006).]
If I read this right the Nature Center can’t host it but I could host the event with coordination with the Nature Center and it would be listed since that follows the guidelines in Example D.
Is this correct?
Correct.
pcfrog can host and event which is located at nature center. pcfrog organizes the event and it’s listed under his profile.
Nature center creates an account and hosts the event under their profile…. probably wouldn’t be approved.
quote:
Originally posted by GrouseTales:
Nature center creates an account and hosts the event under their profile…. probably wouldn’t be approved.So what if the “Nature Center” (or Parks Department, to be on point) is listed in the editable text field as the owner, even though the actual owner profile is a legitimate geocacher? Is this still allowed? This would be when the cache description owner field reads “West Dogpatch Parks Department and Barber Shop”, but when someone clicks the “show profile”, they get the profile for Team Deejay (although some would say we are illegitimate geocachers, but that is another discussion…)
So, if certain events can not be posted on GC.COM, does that bar them from the announcements page on WI-GC.COM?
Perhaps, here is where we should be listing them?
quote:
Originally posted by marc_54140:
So, if certain events can not be posted on GC.COM, does that bar them from the announcements page on WI-GC.COM?Perhaps, here is where we should be listing them?
Heck ya We can list all sorts of social events on the Wi-geocaching.com website. They don’t need to meet the GC.com guidelines for events.
GC.com says some types of events are better organized in local forums. The events just needs to be submitted to the WGA board so one of the webmasters can add it to our “events” page.
[This message has been edited by GrouseTales (edited 02-22-2006).]
Cool!
I’m going to start planning an event that breaks all the rules for hiding caches and events. Opps the first part of that has been done already … ala Ken’s 7/4 party a couple years back. LOLWaiting for an answer to DeeJay’s query / question.
quote:
Originally posted by Team Deejay:
So what if the “Nature Center” (or Parks Department, to be on point) is listed in the editable text field as the owner, even though the actual owner profile is a legitimate geocacher? Is this still allowed? This would be when the cache description owner field reads “West Dogpatch Parks Department and Barber Shop”, but when someone clicks the “show profile”, they get the profile for Team Deejay (although some would say we are illegitimate geocachers, but that is another discussion…)I would think that in order to fit into GC.com’s guideline, the event should be listed as being in the Geocacher’s name, since they would need to be the “geocacher” organizing the event.
I know this has been done several different ways in the past. It’s a learning process for everyone, including the admins . I think I’ve let some stuff slide in the past that probably should have been questioned .
[This message has been edited by GrouseTales (edited 02-22-2006).]
quote:
Originally posted by GrouseTales:
I would think that in order to fit into GC.com’s guideline, the event should be listed as being in the Geocacher’s name, since they would need to be the “geocacher” organizing the event.I know this has been done several different ways in the past. It’s a learning process for everyone, including the admins . I think I’ve let some stuff slide in the past that probably should have been questioned .
I think this answer is very reasonable.
Of course, this could get dicey if the manager of the local Gander Mountain creates an account called “Gander Mountain Manager”, goes out and finds a cache or two, and then tries to list his GPS promotion as an event cache. I can just see it now, the cache description starts out like “Stop in at 1 PM for Brats, beer and soda and discuss your caching adventures.”, then after approval, he adds “Garmin Etrex’s on sale for $69.95” or whatever. Fortunately, I don’t think any of our local businesses would do this, but with some of the national outlets, you never know what they will try. Thanks for your efforts in trying to get this to all make sense.
[This message has been edited by Team Deejay (edited 02-23-2006).]
Just thought of one other thing. Should we petition GC.com to amend this to allow for “legitimate local geocaching organizations” to also host event caches as well as individual “legitimate geocachers”? Just thinking ahead…
I don’t think we need to petition GC.com to allow geocaching organizations to host events. These are obviuosly geocachers. Team Deejay’s example regarding a store is a good example of what wouldn’t pass the test.
In the spirit of cooperation,GC.com has made some exceptions to this for some governmental entities, such as some parks departments. Many are taken on a case by case basis.
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