[GrouseTales]

Unfortunately, the event has been canceled at the last minute due to dangerous wind chills.

Thanks to those that were helping with the event.

[GrouseTales]

** Important update **

The candlelight ski and geocaching event has been cancelled due to dangerous windchills predicted this weekend.

Thanks to those who have planned to attend.

[GrouseTales]

Although I am not a candidate, I’m getting lost in the “question of the day(s)”. I would personally find it helpful if any questions, have the actual question in the subject line. Then I can look back at the question, and not try to remember what date a certain question was posted on.

From past experience, not all candidates will be able to answer questions on a daily basis. Many will take some time to think about their positions, and make thoughtful answers. It’s going to be hard to keep pace with a question of the day, if it’s purpose is solely for posting “any” question on a daily basis.

[GrouseTales]

Thanks Deejay, I’ll send you a PM

[GrouseTales]

Help is still needed. Things didn’t work out with the person who thought they could help.

The candlelight ski/hike is Saturday evening, January 24th, 5-8:00 pm.
A person(s) is needed to be in the heated shelter at the geocaching display. There, people would meet you and you could answer questions, hand out the maps, etc.

If anyone is available to help, please let me know.

Thanks

Brian

[GrouseTales]

It’s not very time consuming to vote in this poll, so please do 🙂

[GrouseTales]

Sorry…

Jan 24th, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM.

I think we might have the need filled, but still waiting for confirmation. It would be good to line up some backup if needed 🙂

[GrouseTales]

I’m very curious how the membership feels about the logo.

I’d encourage everyone to vote in this pole. As a Board member, I find value in this information.

Brian

[GrouseTales]

Funny, my park sticker is good through March 31, 2009.

I also paid $160.00 for it. It’s well worth the $25 or the $160 !!

[GrouseTales]

@Jeremy wrote:

All candidates are encouraged to create a single new topic with information about themselves and what they would plan to do/change if elected to the Board. Use your real name and/or geocaching handle as the topic subject (i.e. for me it would be “Jeremy Vechinski – jvechinski”). Questions from the membership to specific candidates should be posted in the topic created by the candidate the question is being directed to.

How about introducing yourselves folks 🙂

[GrouseTales]

Maybe phase 3 should have been to tweak the winning logo concept, into something unique and more desirable to the members.

Our graphic artist that cleaned up the logo probably wasn’t a Geocacher. Look at how fast we got some tweaks to the logo concept from the members. That’s the type of input I wished we could have had from the artist.

BTW, I was paging through a magazine in the doctor’s office a few months ago and saw the “g” logo. I forgot what the advertisement was for, but I almost ripped the page out to save it. It was almost identical to our “g” logo submission. The colors were even the same. I thought is was interesting.

[GrouseTales]

All good points Seldom|Seen.

I can’t remember if the similarity to the Washington State logo was known at the time of the membership’s vote. I feel that if the members knew of the similarity of the logos, this one would not have been selected by the membership. It was a major hangup with the Board, and the reason it took so long for the Board to decide.

If the board was going to keep with the will of the people, the logo had to resemble the winning submission. I think the board struggled with the designer’s retouch, because the options were either color variants, or completely different then the winning logo.

I personally felt the winning logo should be scrapped because of similarities to the Washington State logo. In my opinion, the majority of the board wanted to put this chapter behind them, and make a decision. By scrapping the logo, we would open up a whole new can of worms, and/or start at square one.

This logo design contest was drawn out much longer then I anticipated. The months of anguishing over a decision was mostly because this logo was so similiar to Washington State. In fact, when we contacted Washington State to get their thoughts on the logo, they frowned on our new choice.

This just wasn’t the whiz-bang logo I was hoping we’d end up with. It fails my “wow factor” test.

There are/were other options out there. There are websites such as http://www.99designs.com which allow designers to create logos and compete against each other. You pay the winner around $200. I believe there are similar websites out there. I think this would have been money well spent. We could have been provided dozens of new, fresh logos, but various artists. The problem was, this contest would have had to run in parallel to the WGA contest.

I think we spent around $100.00 having an artist try to rework the logo, and giving use about 20 variants. I may be wrong on the dollar amount, so don’t hold me to it. When working with the artist, it’s important for them to receive feedback and direction on their designs. I’m not very artistic, so I couldn’t offer much help.

I’m really curious how the membership feels about the similarity to the Washington State logo. It would have opened a new can of worms, but perhaps we should have let the membership know about this issue.

Sorry…

[GrouseTales]

Slowing down definately helps.

In the past, I’ve aways done about 8-10 MPH over the limit while on the Freeway. When on a trip, I want to make the best time possible.

This summer for the first time, I started driving the speed limit, or slightly under. Every time I went up to the cabin, or any long trips, I set the cruise control at 64 MPH, instead of my usual 74 MPH. The results were an increase of 2 MPG.

2 MPG increase is huge for me. My truck typically gets 15 MPG. Driving slow has increased it to 17 MPG. My truck has a 42 gallon tank. Do the math and figure out how much it cost me to fill up at this summer’s gas prices. Some rough calculations would indicate I saved about 5.6 gallons per tank, when I drive the speed limit. That’s about $22 woth of gas at $4.00 a gallon.

This summer’s gas prices have really changed my driving habits.

I did notice that this winter my mileage has gone way down. I think that’s mostly because of warming my car up for a while, and driving a lot in four wheel drive.

[GrouseTales]

I see almost a dozen caches in the park, or in very close proximity.

With over 10,000 caches in the State, it’s hard to imagine there is a shortage in the area. It seems to me that if someone has found all the caches in N/E WI, they would make a good host to help organize and hide temps 😀

[GrouseTales]

Call me old school, but I’m totally against placing perm’s in the parks for the purpose of holding an event.

There is only one reason to do so, and that is to increase numbers.

In the past, we’ve promised the parks that ALL our temps would be removed, and we would leave the park as we found it. If we start placing perms instead of temps, we can no longer leave the parks clean. We will have left a trail of caches that will keep accumulating. What do we do when we make subsesequent visits to the parks, keep adding more perms?

Word will then spread that when the WGA holds an event, the parks can expect to see a bunch of new permanant caches in our wake. While Geocaching IS allowed in the parks, I don’t think the managers want to be flooded with a bunch of new caches every time the WGA comes to town. It will become harder to get permission for events if we don’t clean up our mess.

Temp caches give people a quality geocaching experience, and a chance to reach all corners of a property. They can be creative, because they don’t have to stand the test of time, or weather the elements. They are removed at the end of the day/weekend, and give the park a chance to recover.

Hiding 40 temps, gives people an opportunity to spread out, and not be piled up at a cache with 20 people waiting to sign the log. If you hide perm’s in the park, there will need to be a lot less hides, and thus, more people will be at each cache site at the same time.

Temps afford the greatest geocaching, hiking, sight seeing opportunites. They miss one thing… They can’t be logged. Tough !

Get over the numbers folks. Enjoy nature and each other’s company. You don’t need a smiley to have a good time !

[Author]

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