This topic contains 75 replies, has 29 voices, and was last updated by 
sandlanders 12 years, 5 months ago.
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The board has just passed the following motion. Please see the attached text file for full details.
“The WGA will submit a proposal to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to develop a statewide Get Outdoors! Wisconsin promotion centered on the family activity of Geocaching.
The partnership will develop a program designed to encourage children and families to get outdoors and visit Wisconsin’s state parks. The WGA will place a Get Outdoors! Geocache in each of Wisconsin’s state parks. Advertising of the program will be done by press release, by inclusion on the DNR webpage, inclusion on the WGA webpage and by social networking sites.
The goals of this partnership are to promote health and wellness in Wisconsin children and families, promote appreciation of the environment, provide opportunities for outdoor recreation, and encourage families to explore Wisconsin’s state parks and forests.
The proposal details are itemized in the Get Outdoors-draft document now available in the board forum as an attachment. Once approved, the draft will be retitled to remove the draft language.”
The coordinates of geocaches are freely available to the public via the website geocaching.com.
I know that this might be a minor point, but geocaching.com isn’t the only website that lists geocaches.
Most geocaches are placed a significant distance from the nearest parking
This is misleading at best…
Other than those two nit-picky things, this looks very good! I’m interested in why the 22 month lifetime was chosen.
Brian,
The reason for the end date is to make it possible to do a second state park series in 2012, starting in the summer, if we and the DNR choose to do that. Due to financial constraints within WI state government, our first proposal had to be done on the cheap, but more is possible when the state has more money, and they see the success of the first program.
The first MN program lasted 12 months, which was too short for most people to get it done as a challenge. The current MN program is for 3 years. I am not sure that plastic Lock N Locks could take 3 WI winters. If this goes forward, we will see how they hold up to 2 winters, pulling them in the spring. Realistically, most of the visits will likely be in the first 4 months.
On your second point, unfortunately you are correct in large. The goal of the program is to increase walking and outdoor activity, and the placement guidelines call for the caches to be placed at least .1 mile from parking, so none of them should be PNGs.
zuma
@Team Black-Cat wrote:
The coordinates of geocaches are freely available to the public via the website geocaching.com.
I know that this might be a minor point, but geocaching.com isn’t the only website that lists geocaches.
The idea being that the ones in the state program are/will be. It was more to emphasize the “free” part than where they are.
@Team Black-Cat wrote:
Most geocaches are placed a significant distance from the nearest parking
This is misleading at best…
Other than those two nit-picky things, this looks very good! I’m interested in why the 22 month lifetime was chosen.
It’s defensible…in my business we call it creative license… 😉
On the Left Side of the Road...I would suggest that rather than committing to archiving the caches in May 2012, we list this as the earliest date they can be archived. With the possible exception of High Cliff, none of the state parks have major congestion problems which would preclude placing another cache during the possible “round 2” of this program. Most the rangers I have met aren’t looking for a scheduled removal of caches, so I guess I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m missing the point. (I don’t think container life will be an issue, as caches this size located close to trails are going to be muggled a lot!)
I would also change
“The WGA will monitor and maintain each geocache…” to
“Members of the WGA will monitor and maintain each geocache…”I’m assuming maintenance will be handled by individual members, not the organization at large.
Finally, a nitpick. If you are going to provide internet “references” in a document, you need to put the footnote numbers in the text, so that a reference is tied to a particular statement. Modern document design would suggest that these footnote numbers should be links. If you just want to provide a list of resources at the end, call them resources instead of references (and don’t use the footnote numbers.)
Otherwise, I think it is great. Kudos to the board for broaching this with the DNR.
@gotta run wrote:
@Team Black-Cat wrote:
The coordinates of geocaches are freely available to the public via the website geocaching.com.
I know that this might be a minor point, but geocaching.com isn’t the only website that lists geocaches.
The idea being that the ones in the state program are/will be. It was more to emphasize the “free” part than where they are.
@Team Black-Cat wrote:
Most geocaches are placed a significant distance from the nearest parking
This is misleading at best…
Other than those two nit-picky things, this looks very good! I’m interested in why the 22 month lifetime was chosen.
It’s defensible…in my business we call it creative license… 😉
I should note with deep thanks that Gotta Run and the Professor assisted the board a great deal with the writing of the proposal, so GR’s comments here are spot on.
z
I’m curious to see how this goes. Here’s a couple of thoughts that run through my head.
1) Use some of my hunting / fishing license fees to help pay for this. I’d gladly pay $1 extra if the money could be earmarked to a great program like this.
2) If successful, then there are other DNR properties (public hunting land, habit restoration areas, etc.) that future projects could target. These may not be typical trails but would highlight the great stuff that’s off the beaten path.
3) Rustic Roads – I know BakRdz is doing a great job in central WI highlighting some of these with his caches. This is probably DOT and not DNR, but what a great thing to spotlight.All said – I commend the WGA board and it’s members for taking an active role in working with governmental agencies. I feel it’s a real win / win scenario and I’m hoping for a great successful outcome.
@Team Deejay wrote:
I would suggest that rather than committing to archiving the caches in May 2012, we list this as the earliest date they can be archived. With the possible exception of High Cliff, none of the state parks have major congestion problems which would preclude placing another cache during the possible “round 2” of this program. Most the rangers I have met aren’t looking for a scheduled removal of caches, so I guess I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m missing the point. (I don’t think container life will be an issue, as caches this size located close to trails are going to be muggled a lot!)
I would also change
“The WGA will monitor and maintain each geocache…” to
“Members of the WGA will monitor and maintain each geocache…”I’m assuming maintenance will be handled by individual members, not the organization at large.
Finally, a nitpick. If you are going to provide internet “references” in a document, you need to put the footnote numbers in the text, so that a reference is tied to a particular statement. Modern document design would suggest that these footnote numbers should be links. If you just want to provide a list of resources at the end, call them resources instead of references (and don’t use the footnote numbers.)
Otherwise, I think it is great. Kudos to the board for broaching this with the DNR.
We needed an end date for the reasons already mentioned to Brian. Also, with heavy promotion these caches will have more obvious social trails than other caches in the state parks, as anyone who has done the MN state park series can tell you. Many of the MN caches were hit over 300 times and had signigicant social trails, a concern to any of us with an interest in preserving the ecosystem, and a special concern to the DNR.
Wording for the WGA to maintain caches is due to the fact that individual cachers come and go, so the DNR needs assurance that they will be maintained by an entity that will be around in 2012.
Thanks for pointing out the difference between a reference and a resource.
zuma
double post on the same topic. the other is in the candidates corner
Oops…never mind. I need to read stuff b4 posting.
Could you please post this as a PDF file? We don’t have Microsoft Office on our computer, and we have never been able to open documents like these. Thank you.
@sandlanders wrote:
Could you please post this as a PDF file? We don’t have Microsoft Office on our computer, and we have never been able to open documents like these. Thank you.
I sent you a PM with the text of the file.
Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.
Got it, Pete. Thanks.
Interesting to see that the final Challenge cache is proposed to be at Hartman Creek State Park.
Not many cache placements there, but not for lack of trying.@sandlanders wrote:
Got it, Pete. Thanks.
Interesting to see that the final Challenge cache is proposed to be at Hartman Creek State Park.
Not many cache placements there, but not for lack of trying.Hartman has the advantages of being quite scenic, quite large so plenty of muggle free areas to place 2 caches, and fairly centrally located.
zuma
Bravo! Bravo! You’ve done a fabulous job with this and I’d be happy to volunteer. This is a great thing for WGA to do.
The one thing I don’t like has already been pointed out. – The statement that most geocaches are placed a significant distance from parking is simply untrue. It’s a point that would be important to many of the folks attracted to this program. We would look bad early in anyone’s investigation of the sport if they’re expecting this. Truthful statements can be made about this series of caches being a given minimum distance from parking and I’d suggest sticking with that.
Thanks to all for the work put into this!
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