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Hi, gang. I don’t know if there’s ever been a CITO event in Wausau – I haven’t been caching that long but since I started in April of 07, There hasn’t been one in the area that I know of. So this year, I thought I’d try to get something together.
Obviously I don’t have anything official to announce at this point but have been in contact with the parks department and they are all for it. The director isn’t sure what parks we should target yet. When I have a date and location, I will post the official event. Likely we will base the event in a single park but be CITOing in 2-3 other parks in addition to the base park.
But I wanted to get the word out anyway to put a bug in your ear and offer the opportunity to join in on the organization if anyone is willing. I’ll certainly be pinging people in the Wausau area to see if they’d be able to help by placing permanent or temporary caches for the event. Normally I would not even consider temporary caches but to get in the areas where there’s going to be garbage will probably require us to place temporary unofficial caches. These, of course, will not be loggable but just for fun.
I’m also making sure that our event includes a get together afterwards and some prizes as well.
Side Question for anyone: Can we have an official listed social event in addition to the CITO event or is that double dipping?
So there you have it. hopefully by the time the Non-Event Event rolls around I’ll have some more info to share there. That’s going to be a good time! Happy Caching!
Get me a list of good caches in your area that I haven’t done and I will try to make it 😀 . Seriously the biggest thing is when and at what time (I try not to do mornings on the weekends)
Side Question for anyone: Can we have an official listed social event in addition to the CITO event or is that double dipping?
Having run a CITO event last year in the Fox Valley area, I would actually encourage this! You should only do mostly cleanup at the CITO. Trying to add other activities draws attention away and most who showup are “in the mood to cleanup a park” and not really wanting “other things”. At least the crew that showed up at my event were this way. Provide some bottled water and a snack or some fresh hot coffee if it’s early and most folks are happy. Toss in a couple door prizes and you’ve got yourself a pretty successful CITO event.
I would stage a CITO early in the day and then another event later in the day at some other place. I don’t beleive this is “against the rules” so to speak and you would probably get people attending both events and some only attending one or the other. Some people don’t like to cleanup parks. Some dont like social caching events but would come and cleanup a park in their neighborhood.
Sounds like something I might consider for the Fox Valley spring CITO…
@-cheeto- wrote:
Sounds like something I might consider for the Fox Valley spring CITO…
So does this mean you are doing the Fox Valley CITO this year? Let me know if you want any help.
I figured I couldn’t get out of it 😆
One thing I would definitely do differently this year is I would spend less of my own hard earned money on the event and look for more volunteer help. That is a tip I can definitely lend to this thread as well. You want to get others to help organize pieces of the event and try to get donations to cover some things. In our case, the parks dept in Appleton is great. They have provided trash bags and picked up the trash both years so far. It’s a big win-win as they continue to support geocaching in the parks and we help out with cleaning each spring. They also required filling out waiver forms for each participant and adult signatures for those under 18. I would imagine you will find similar processes in place in your city as well.
People tat want to come and work are usually willing to bring something to the party. Ie have it a potluck with doughnuts ,coffee if it is in the morning. Or if it is lunch have them bring a dish to pass and their own main course. That worked out well for my CITO event.
4 wheelers and long sticks with nails or metal claws on the ends would be awesome. Now there’s an idea, lets do a cito along a 4 wheeler trail! There’s lots of those up here.
Hemi – I see a new hiker line in the making!
Cool, thanks for everybody’s input so far!
Hey GMO,
Would you be interested in discussing making the CITO event that you are working on a regional WGA event?
z
I have only attended one CITO event. We met at a local walmart in the morning (they donated bags, gloves and grabbers). The organizers provided maps to the parks (coords would have helped) and assigned people accordingly. We picked up trash for 3 hours and then met at a designated park to finish CITO of that park and have lunch. Lunch was donated by the park department. After the lunch they had a drawing for door prizes. They also had some temps in the park. They were really simple and met more for kids or newbies. Make the final park the smallest park if you can. That way people stay close to the lunch area.
It doesn’t take a lot of people to pick up a lot of trash. Events like this in my opinion look good for the WGA and geocaching.
@zuma wrote:
Hey GMO,
Would you be interested in discussing making the CITO event that you are working on a regional WGA event?
z
You bet… I guess I’m still too new to understand the significance of your question but I would absolutely be willing to discuss it. What would be the best way to do that?
@getmeoutdoors wrote:
@zuma wrote:
Hey GMO,
Would you be interested in discussing making the CITO event that you are working on a regional WGA event?
z
You bet… I guess I’m still too new to understand the significance of your question but I would absolutely be willing to discuss it. What would be the best way to do that?
The first place to start is to review what the requirements are for a regional WGA event, so I have cut and pasted them here for your review.
We had our first small regional event in Chippewa County last year. I would like us to have several small events throughout the state this year, of all types. There is no reason that we cannot start off with off with a CITO event in Wausau.
Anyway, look over the following, and let me know what ya think:
>>>>>Whereas the Wisconsin Geocaching Association is interested serving the interests of geocachers everywhere within the state of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Geocaching Association would like to encourage the development of regional WGA events. Therefore the WGA has developed the following policy to define regional WGA events and outline rules regarding how they are approved and executed.
1. All regional WGA events need to be approved by a majority vote of the WGA Board of Directors. Approved regional events shall be allowed to use the WGA name and logo in advertising and in the cache page listing. Regional events must include “WGA” or “Wisconsin Geocaching Association” in the event name, with the remainder of the name dependent on the event location and nature of the event. The words “campout” and “picnic” cannot be used in the name of the event.
2. WGA regional events can be held any time during the year desired, except during the month of May and the month of September (to avoid conflicts with the existing state-wide WGA events).
3. WGA regional events must include at least one Board of Director member in the planning of the event (a Board member sponsor). The chief planner does not need to be a member of the Board of Directors, but should be an individual trusted by the Board to plan an event in the best interests of the WGA and geocachers in their region.
4. Regional events shall be allowed to use any and all existing WGA equipment for the event, with the event organizers responsible for transport.
5. Regional events will be listed on geocaching.com using the Wisconsin Geocaching Association user account. The Board member sponsor will be responsible for creating the event cache listing and will handle all updates to it. Regional events shall conform to all the guidelines set forth for WGA events by the WGA Board of Directors.
6. Requests for WGA regional events can be made by any WGA member by submitting a written proposal to the Board of Directors. (Submissions can be made electronically via email or private message to any Board member.) Required information in a WGA regional event proposal include:
– Date of event
– Location of event
– Description of event
– Estimated attendance
– Board member sponsor(s)
– Names of other WGA members helping with the event
– Necessary equipment or promotional support (GPS download equipment, online registration system, nametags, mention in email newsletter, etc.)
– A budget of all anticipated expenses for the event (see below)7. Those planning a WGA regional event will submit a proposed budget for the event as part of the written proposal. The budget should describe any anticipated use of WGA funds in detail. WGA funds may be requested for things like shelter reservations and supplies; however it is not necessary that this be done. Smaller regional events that have no expenses or do not wish to use WGA funds may note this in their proposal in lieu of a formal budget. All funds collected at any WGA regional event will be forwarded to the WGA Treasurer for placement in the general WGA fund.
8. Proposals for WGA regional events must be made at least 4 weeks in advance, and ideally 8 weeks in advance, of the proposed event date. Proposals for events scheduled in less than 4 weeks from the submission date will not be considered for approval. The Board reserves the right to not consider proposals submitted less than 8 weeks prior to the date of the event.
9. Organizers and planners of WGA regional events will be asked to submit a short summary after the event. This post event debriefing should include what went well, what could have gone better, how many people attended, what lessons were learned for next time, and how WGA goals were furthered by the event. The post event debriefing should also include a final accounting of expenses and revenue from all sources if WGA funds were used. <<<<<<
yeah, that sounds good. I would be interested in hearing about the specific resources the WGA has available. I don’t think we’d need to pay to reserve a shelter but I see that that’s a possibility if the need arises. The only concern I have is that it might have to be in May… I’m thinking either the last weekend of April or first of May, depending on how much more snow we get this year. I just didn’t want people walking around in slop in some of the parks 🙂
I appreciate you’re interest in the event and your support as a board member…. can I assume you’d be the sponsor? 🙂
The note about having GPS download resources is a big one… Having someone in charge of helping folks download the temp cache waypoints and such would be very nice, even through I’d be sure to have them available ahead of time, I know there would be some folks that would still find use in that.
And thanks for posting all of that… I found it very helpful and I’m sure others will as well. I’ll keep in touch with you about the details.
Depending on how the weekend chosen would fit with our scouting schedule (pretty heavily involved with scouting) the OPS team would be willing to help with this event. We’ve done one CITO event and it was a worthwhile way to spend a day that helps both the local parks and the perception of geocaching both in the community and park department. There is a pretty good chance that our Venture Crew may be interested in participating.
At first I was thinking that most of the area parks are really clean and it would be hard to find one that needs help- but then I remembered our last trip to Riverside Park in Wausau. It could use a lot of help.
Yes, riverside stands out in my mind as probably the most obvious as well. That’s a great idea about the scout troop! What areas would you be interested in helping with? If you would like them to get experience with the GPS, Placing some Temps might be a good thing for that… they can take the readings and report them to me. I’m going to be visiting all the parks as time approaches to find the parts that need attention and choose general spots for temps accordingly but I don’t mind if I’m not the one to place them. That’s only a suggestion, wherever you feel would be the most appropriate for the group to help out would be wonderful.
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