WGA Picnic — Not just for caching?

[Cheesehead Dave]

@GrouseTales wrote:

My solution, add another event into the mix. Let’s have a pancake social at a local park. No temps involved. We can put the new WGA Griddle to use and put on a nice breakfast social at a local park. We wouldn’t need to worry about enough seating like at a restauraunt. People can stay as long as they want. We can also make a few bucks for the WGA account.

Sounds like that “Mother of All Breakfasts” event I held a couple of summers ago. It drew about 150 people which was the biggest non-organization related event I’ve ever been to.

It would be fun to have something like that in an area of the state that already has a number of existing caches. Have the breakfast from 8-10 or so, then everyone can go off on their own to find the area caches or hang out and chat.

On the flip side, you could also set up a late afternoon cookout. Come to the area, find however many caches you want, then show up at the park at 6:00 or whenever for dinner and socializing.

Either way, by putting the WGA stamp on it, it will hopefully make it a little more special than just a “local” event.

[Cheesehead Dave]

To answer the question, I prefer to have the temp hides at the picnic. I wasn’t able to make it to the picnic this year, but I would have been with the folks doing a lot of socializing, finding some of the temp caches but not all of them, and not logging the temp as finds on the event page.

I also have seen Wisconsin events and certain Wisconsin cachers getting bashed in the GC.com forums for their logging practices. While I generally don’t make a point of getting all fired up over what others think, I do agree that some of the points people make are justified.

If it were up to me, I’d have oodles of temp caches and no logging of them online. Instead, I’d have you pull out each stamped page in your booklet and drop it into a raffle bucket for an end-of-day door prize giveaway. Instead of extra smilieys, the reward for finding lots of temp caches would be extra chances in the raffle.

[Coastiegirl04]

OK i have been keeping an eye on this all weekend long, (been at work can check out the forum but not post)
I agree with what some of you are saying, that there should be Temp caches, but not as many, maybe have a few that are of different Levels of difficulty and terrain… I know i would like to socialized more and trade geocaching stories and get to know one another better..
The first time i ever went to an event, i thought i had to find the temps, but i spent so much time looking for the temps i didn’t even get to do any of the local caches there, and honestly that kind of sucks cuz it would of been nice to have done those..
It would also be nice if at the next WGA event if some one would come up with a list of the local caches in the area of say a 10mile radius, so the option for people who don’t want to find the temps can still get the downloaded list of the local caches in the area.

but that’s my two cents..
Lindsey

[Lostby7]

Or another option which piggybacks several ideas thrown out already: set stamps out in the 10 to 15 nearest perms, and then have people fill their books and bring them back for contest entries. This would serve to spread people out a bit further to avoid so much bunching up and provides hunters with prey. I too hate the rap many of us get for multiple logging of events; personally as far as I’m concerned to each their own but it burns me up that some people look down at our great events.

Still, running the show as described in this post does not make people be any more social at the event, but to be honest without some caches or a drawing I personally would be unlikely to attend. (I’m a bit on the reclusive side and need a push). I don’t know, perhaps have two drawings (must be present to win) during the day to get people to meet up as a group a few times. But then again, is it fair to force people to meet each other? I’m not sure and I certainly don’t have a win win answer to share.

Just spitballin’

[Coastiegirl04]

Lostby7 i like your idea of the stamps being in the perm. caches in the area, and to have a contest of some sort (or drawing)
But your last commit..

“But then again, is it fair to force people to meet each other?”

isn’t that the point of an event, to meet each other?If you don’t want to meet other geocachers then why go to an event? I thought that’s what events are for?
I’m not trying to start arguments here or anything like that, i just curious of what you meant..

[Lostby7]

…Just meant that there may be some people who have more interest in finding the caches than the meeting of other cachers in a formal setting. With dozens of caches in one place at once it will draw both those wishing to be social and those wishing to find caches. Some will want to do both some won’t.

[Coastiegirl04]

ohhh ok.. i didn’t understand.. but now i do.. thanks for clarifying

[Cheesehead Dave]

@Lostby7 wrote:

…Just meant that there may be some people who have more interest in finding the caches than the meeting of other cachers in a formal setting. With dozens of caches in one place at once it will draw both those wishing to be social and those wishing to find caches. Some will want to do both some won’t.

Although if all you’re going to do is find the local caches, why wait for an event?

[Coastiegirl04]

Well for an example, i probably would of never camped down in Kettle Moraine Southern Unit or got any of the local caches in the area that i did if it wasn’t for the Picnic, I like going to events, not caring how far away they are, and i don’t care if there’s going to be Temps or not, I’ll hit some of the local caches on top of attending the event and maybe hitting a couple of the temps too (though i use to log the temps, i stopped doing it. seem like such a hassle to log them anymore) Also at the picnic though i did do some of the Temps mostly it was to show my sister what they were like(she’s from Ohio)
That’s why i attend an event

[Lostby7]

@Cheesehead Dave wrote:

@Lostby7 wrote:

…Just meant that there may be some people who have more interest in finding the caches than the meeting of other cachers in a formal setting. With dozens of caches in one place at once it will draw both those wishing to be social and those wishing to find caches. Some will want to do both some won’t.

Although if all you’re going to do is find the local caches, why wait for an event?

referring to the dozens of temps…not sure if I’m understanding the question…

[Sean Connery]

😛 Well I for one and the Bond Girl for two, we would love to come to a winter event at a state park or someplace similar. We do think that there should be some temps both for new people just learning and for those wishing to build there find count.

As others have mentioned, I too no longer log my temps finds but I used to and if others wish to do so, that’s fine with me. We had planned ourselves to mainly do the permanent caches but ended falling in with another group hunting temps and had a blast.

I like the idea of a raffle and putting your temps stamps in for extra chances, but please no stamps in the perms. You do get a smiley for those. Or why not do like Cheesehead Dave did last summer for his clue event and make the temps perms so they can be fully logged??? Just don’t publish the cache pages until the next day when the event is over.

Anyway, there’s our 2 cents worthX2. Sean Connery and the Bond Girl.

[Commander Bob]

[Cachew]

Did I read ‘Horse shoes’? What a clever idea! 😮

[kbraband]

I like the idea of night caches only at the campout. The rest of the weekend is for socializing and informal non-geocaching activites (biking, hiking, paddling, horseshoes, board games, pancakes?).

Then for the picnic, temp caches up the wazoo.

[Team Vaughan]

A social event is a good idea but you take away the temps and the kids have no fun. The main reason we went was for the kids. I understand many of you have no kids but there was alot of them at the picnic. Why not just have both? It seemed to work fine in my view.

Chris

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