Good news in West Bend

[rpaske]

I am happy to share with you the correspondence exchange between West Bend Rec. department and I.

From: rpaske
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:03 AM
To: Hoeppner, Craig
Subject: permission

Hello.
My name is Randall Paske from Slinger.
I am looking for permission to place a small water-proof, animal proof,
clear, Tupperware-like container for a very popular sport called
Geocaching. (http://www.geocaching.com) This outdoor sport is where a container
is hidden on the property and GPS coordinates are taken of the location.
This is then listed on the geocaching website, and the finder gets these
coordinates and then uses his GPS to find the container. This container
would not be buried or anything in that matter. It would be hidden in
natural hiding spot on the property like in a downed log in the wooded
area. I would like to place the container in the Riverside Park area.

This sport is very popular and would be a great opportunity for
travelers that geocache. It is also a chance for a cleaner, litter free area as most all geocachers
that stop pick up litter while there so is is a “Win WIN” for both the
geocachers and the property.

Here is another link to a short online web based presentation for your
viewing that was made from the Wisconsin Geocaching Association
powerpoint presentation at http://wi-geocaching.com/info/WPRAGeocaching.ppt

I am also providing the following link for the Greenfield Parks and
Recreation Department. http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=1671a372-45c4-4b60-9384-27e6a7213c61

Included below is a link for the Wisconsin DNR guidelines regarding
Geocaching. http://wi-geocaching.com/forums/Forum9/HTML/000017.html
I am hoping that this request is received favorably.
Sincerely,
Randall Paske

Reply from West Bend….
Subject: RE: permission
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 13:52:10 -0600
From: “Hoeppner, Craig”

Hi Randall

Thanks for letting us know about your geocaching. We are familiar with
the activity and are happy to have you in West Bend. All we ask is that
you don’t damage any property and let us know the location of your
geocache, so we can alert our staff not to discard it, if discovered.
We also do annual prairie burns and maintenance, another reason to know
the location.

Thanks for the information and good luck in your geocaching.

Craig Hoeppner
Director

---

My email thanking Craig and asking for permission to display his reply.
May I share your email reply with others via wi-geocaching.com?

Rpaske

---

His Response……
Yes. Please encourage them to communicate their location to us prior to
placing the cache and it shouldn’t be a problem.
Craig

[This message has been edited by rpaske (edited 04-01-2005).]

[cacherchick]

Yea!

[green gold]

This is good to see. Also good to see that the Greenfield Parks & Recreation Dept., where I helped get geocaching classes started, was used as a reference and serves as a model for other rec. departments in the state. We know Craig Hoeppner through our contacts with other recreational professionals in the state. We had an individual contact our director at the Greenfield Parks & Recreation Dept. recently asking for permission to place a cache in one of our parks and he seemed responsive to it.

[LightningBugs Mum]

Thanks for sharing your example of a positive experience, Randy.

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Team LightningBugs
* * * * * * * * * *

[rpaske]

As you can see, the email is very, very close to the one which smokey & the teacher sent.

[Ray]

Thanks for sharing, Randy!

[Todd Bloomingdale]

Well at least you got better results then I did from the WIDOT for a rest area cache.! lol… well anyways. congratulations!

smokey

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“Be safe and Keep on Searchin”

[kbraband]

Nice going, Randy. Glad to see you got good use out of the WGA powerpoint.

This verifies that it takes a combined effort: individual geocachers working with park managers AND geocaching organizations working with policy makers to have the most positive impact for geocaching.

[Author]

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