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Congrats Frizz!! It was good to see you and be there for your milestone find. A good choice indeed.

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Some words of wisdom from “Todd and the Talking Pinata” by Professor RH Fuller: (got this from my daughter’s Taco Bell kids meal “toy”)

“Be Kind to Everyone. It’s always good to be nice. So if someone’s lemonade is warm Give them a little ice. That would be so kind of you.”

I do not know the circumstances that led to you becoming disgruntled and not renewing your membership. However, if everyone in our group is kind and shows other members respect, this should not happen and if it does it’s not because of the actions of one member or one board member.

Like others have said, lack of communication probably does play a key role in some member’s viewpoint of the group and it’s board. I have mentioned in other responses that I want to see the communication between the board and our members improve. There should be a method for members to give direct input to the board both at our events AND on the forums. The board should also encourage feedback from the group.

I also have to agree with Anne, that forcing members to receive our Newsletter via email is not appropriate. However, why couldn’t we come up with a way to put the newsletter “in your face” when you as a member visit our website for the 1st time after the next newsletter comes out? Even if your going right to the forums via a bookmark. I wonder if this would be possible… We should also publish our newsletter on our Facebook group as well. At a minimum, a new group posting alerting to the newsletter and to remind people to visit the WGA website.

If you as a member are disgruntled, the board needs to know if “your lemonade is warm”. What are your issues and how do you feel they could be fixed? Being in this group is a like a relationship. Communication does go both ways.

Thanks for the great question Dean.

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@RSplash40 wrote:

Ya know, what way do did those last finders go? The foot prints I saw went north, away from the cache!

We wondered if they approached from the same spot but followed their arrow and it was bouncing and they circled around the island or something. But yeah that was weird.

Something related to this was when zoesbro and I hunted a nearby cemetery cache later and there were no footprints in the snow to or from the cemetery but there were people footprints going down a hill between some of the stones and our “ground zero”. Very interesting…

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I really don’t want to reply to these threads anymore but am going to one more time.

The temp caches are an event activity. They are not a permanent geocache you log on geocaching.com. Pretty simple.

The WGA is not “playing things both ways”.

The idea both labrat and I contributed was having a token prize for finishing a certain number of temp caches which rewards all who do the temp caches rather than having a “separate drawing” for those who do the temp caching activity. Say everyone who finishes the temp caching activity gets a new LED flashlight for instance. Even better would be a LED flashlight with the WGA logo on it. 🙂

Why can’t completing an event activity result in getting something?

For the life of me, I still cannot understand why.

Obviously there are some who feel that because the activity is hunting a temporary cache, that it makes it a big controversial issue. Like has been said in these threads already, if the activity is something like sack racing and everyone who participated received something, no one would be arguing.

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The picnic and campout committees should make sure to appoint a volunteer at future events to be in charge of activities for younger cachers.

This is a great idea.

Anne’s idea to have the kids hide a cache could be a definite winner as well. Perhaps even through in a bit of arts and crafts with some camo tape 😉 It would be fun to have the kids hide a cache and their parents have to find it with them. My youngest would love that. However, this would be difficult logistically if younger kids want to participate so I think having the parents with to hide and other kids hunting them would be best.

Thanks to Mister Greenthumb for a great question.

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Thanks Jim (and Linda) for the hot cocoa and most importantly for posting the outing on the forums. I had a great time and enjoyed meeting all that participated. I was very glad it was “the easiest” trek out (per Jim). I could not imagine doing that cache in other seasons! A great day!

Bakrdz – keep “Lincoln” safe for me. I’ve grown fond of “him” already.

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This is a very important topic for me. I am a father of 3 wonderful kids (I sound like a game show contestant) ages 7, 9, and 11. They all have varying interests in geocaching.

As far as activities for kids and families at our WGA events, I agree this could be expanded upon. Especially at the camp-out. What makes the camp-out unique is families come together to camp and attend the event. It’s also not a single day event but spans the weekend.

Some activities my kids have really enjoyed at events (not all WGA) that could be borrowed or continued (as we do some great kid friendly activities already at our WGA events):

– a handful of kid-friendly, stocked caches within a half mile of the event pavilion
– if possible some permanent kid-friendly caches in the area. For the 09 camp-out I placed a kid friendly perm in the state park that seemed to have went over very well. (it was a stocked ammo can covered in thousands of googly eyes if you didn’t get a chance to find it.. still active)
– The “mystery” kid cache at the cache bash last year was a blast and a good one to “borrow” from
– Having a playground nearby the event pavilion goes a long way
– The night caching contest (and night caching in general) is a big hit with our kids.
– We could bring some non-caching related games to the events or invest in some to own. Like that game with the golf balls on strings. Horeshoes perhaps. Bocce ball? Badminton? that kind of stuff.
– “Kid prizes” are a great thing too. Target the 8 – 14 age group. There were a lot of under 6 targeted items at the campout last year and not a lot of under 6 attendees. Also, kids tend to choose something “the older kids like”.
– The “turkey shoot” is a great family-friendly activity that our kids enjoyed at the cache bash. For those who don’t know what this, animals are scattered around the area and you try to mark accurate coords for all and the closest to the pre-determined wins.
– Another idea could be a scavenger hunt. Kids like these. We could use caching containers to find and in each one describe the nature of the next “hide” and a hint to get there. No GPS needed. End with a bag of candy or something.
– the “geocaching 101” class at the cache bash was enjoyed by families and kids as well. I volunteered with the hands-on portion of the class and helped out a couple families with some temp class caches. The kids love to learn about geocaching! We have to remember that not everyone who attends our events are veteran cachers. There were families at the campout last year who would have attended a geocaching class.

Outside of events, I really like Barry’s scholarship idea. A geocaching related scholarship would be awesome!!

I will do what I can as a BOD member to get some of these things incorporated into our events in the years to come. The camp-out is becoming a family tradition for my family and I suspect many other member’s families. We build tradition with great events that please everyone attending. 😀

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So what you do now is place a true multi that takes up the whole park

😈

Just kidding… I’m actually very happy to have learned that stages of a multi that do not have a container do not restrict other caches. I tried to find the other recent post from Deejay on this but I couldn’t either…

I always thought they did too!

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Just my cache logging as well. No blogs or journals for me.

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@Lostby7 wrote:

@PCFrog wrote:

😯

I can’t believe this topic is back…

There are not enough rolling eye emoticons to use to ponder why a thread nearly two years dead needed to come back.

Do you think it came back because of your candidates corner question? What did you expect?

Would have been better to start a new thread though… it’s a new decade now. People dress differently than back when that thread was posted.

Speaking of this, did anyone see Conan’s “looking back” segment last night? Hilarious commentary that fits with this quite well 😀

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There are some vocal members that remind us that they feel the WGA does not represent the entire state of Wisconsin. Personally, I cannot answer this question with facts because I don’t live in all parts of the state.

As a Board Member, I would like to work with some of those members (if they’re willing to help) to better determine what they feel the issues are and how we could, as a group, improve this perception.

I agree, our current BOD’s decision to move around the primary events will help this in the long run, but is there more to this??

I still believe the BOD should have representatives from each of the regions of the state as outlined in our regional forums. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before on a forum thread. However, have members from all regions stepped forward to run for the BOD? If not, how do we expect all regions to be well-represented if it were forced? It may be perceived to be an impossible mission for a member to be elected from the “minority regions” but you can’t win if no one hears you and your concerns in the first place.

Thanks again gotta run for the great questions you’ve posted.

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I would be willing to spearhead a project with willing WGA members to create a database under the “Hiding a Cache” category that would include updated cache hiding regulations, necessary submission forms, and contact information for EVERY Wisconsin County.

Excellent Idea Anne. If were building a database, why stop at County? There are city regulations out there as well. Also, if we know of specific land manager contact information within the State DNR that could also go into this database of information.

The toughest part to an idea like this is keeping it updated. But with 900+ active members in our organization you would think keeping things like this updated would be possible.

This would be an excellent way for the WGA and our website presence to help “work with land owners/managers on geocaching policies”… one of the primary purposes of the WGA and part of our “mission statement”.

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I would submit my info.

I do have a few local (to me) cacher’s plugged into my cell phone.

I get a lot of “Email a Friend”.

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Thanks for sharing this county’s cache placement policy with me.

I agree with Team Black Cat’s response especially about the cache rescue and adding information such as this to the submitted rescue mission, if known. Since the LCG game admin and primary mission submitter is up for BOD election, I’m sure he’ll see this 😀

As for older caches that may be in violation to this policy, isn’t it up to the land manager to address that concern with the cache owner in violation or for them to contact Groundspeak? Typically that’s what happens when a cache owner has not gotten proper permission to place. To expect our WGA BOD to address this or even our reviewers is probably unrealistic.

If you are concerned about a specific Milwaukee county cache and it’s permission or impact on the land, you could contact the owner and send them a link to this policy page as a courtesy.

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Oh and by the way, keep those great cache idea’s flowing Helidood. I do cache in the Rapids area on occasion as we visit Lake Arrowhead many times per year. My wife’s grandma lives there.

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