[LDove]

OK GOTTCHA, and not a bad idea! See these forums offer great tips!!! Our friend Pharmgirl always likes to cook up a good mystery…

[LDove]

😀 😀 Cool idea. I guess I am being a dunderhead here – go ahead and say it. 😛 But… I’m not getting it.

If you want to win prizes, you still get that – even better – you get better odds. If you want to have the challenge of getting 50 caches – you still get that – we will have them. Is it the stamp page you want? I don’t see how having that stamp page enriches the game at all???? You still get to post your finds – they are permanent and you get your 50 smilies for the day, soooo I am not sure how the stamp page itself enriches the game/day/challenge????

[LDove]

@Cachelovskys wrote:

@Lostby7 wrote:

@thepharmgirl wrote:

Your odds of winning would go up. 1/800 instead of 1/ten-thousands. Plus, we’d add more prizes to the raffle.

What does everyone else think?

My odds would go down…very few folks found 50+ caches…for each team which didn’t, my odds were better. I like winning….I guess I’m shallow like that. But like I said, I’d still come whatever the format would be and I’d guess that would hold true for most folks.

But also consider that I might pop in at registration, go home, and come back later in the day to see if I won….no real incentive for me to hang out in town if I didn’t feel like it….

I have to side with Lostby7 on this one. I enjoy the competition. Why mess with a format that works, that made this event a MEGA?!? Reward those who go out and get all 50 or 51 or 52!! Just my two cents.

If your odds of winning are better…wouldn’t that be a better reward? We would not be taking away how many caches you can find so the challenge is still there to see if you can get them all. 😀 Due to some circumstances surrounding the handing out of tickets which I will not go into here, this may have to be discontinued to be sure that this is fair for all. Some people want to cheat, and will find ways to cheat. Luckily, this year, a few people did not destroy this event for a large number of people based on their greed – but we don’t want it to happen either. We want this to be fun and fair for ALL who come.

[LDove]

Mr. G, thanks for sharing that story. That really a fun story and nice of them to share it. 😀

[LDove]

With an upcoming postbash meeting, I am going to suggest the following and would appreciate your thoughts and comments.

Since there were several e-mails to me personally about the ticket drawing, some complaints from cachers about being pushed out of the way, caches literally thrown on the ground because someone was in too much of a hurry to put it back, etc.. I came up with an idea.

Still shoot for 50 caches but – no more cache tickets. No more stamp cards.

Instead, each ADULT CACHER will receive 1 or 2 tickets at the start of the day when they register at Cache Central or possibly be eligible when they register on time. All prizes, will be eligible for the drawing. Treasure box will be kids prizes only, adult gifts rather than going into the treasure box will go into the main drawing.

This will accomplish several things. No more lines at 4:30 to check cards, no worries about people cheating or racing around causing problems, no concerns about stamps, stickers, code words. If people who are disabled feel they can’t get a more difficult cache, it is not unfair to them to not get a ticket. Everyone has a chance. Get as many caches as you want or don’t want to and set your own personal goals for the day and reward yourself with your own achievement.

[LDove]

@JimandLinda wrote:

My “What if…” was to get cachers thinking in the other vein.

If you went out and cached from 7:00 AM until noon, and decided you had enough mud and water, would you then go to Regner Park and sit in your car for 4 1/2- 6 hours, waiting for the cash drawing? Or would you visit the West Bend area while waiting for the raffle? Would you sit in the rain for 60 minutes while the raffle prizes were announced? Or head home early, because it isn’t worth sitting in the rain for 60 minutes while the raffle prizes are being announced?

The comments might possibly be, “Less raffle prizes! Sat in the rain for an hour and didn’t win anything”. “We could have had more coupons to use in the area businesses while we waited for the raffle”.

I cache in the rain, too. But that’s beside the point.

The WBCB crew has an excellent, proactive agenda, rain or shine. They have a good balance of cache and social related things for each cachers taste.

The comments coming in are based on a “good weather” caching Event.

If we get a “wet” Cash Ba$h, it will be interesting to see if the same comments crop up.

Oh okay I see now 😳 Well, we just won’t have rain then!! LOL! 😉 It has been a huge worry for me and I can’t tell you how relieved I was when the 10 day outlook came out and no rain was predicted – whew!

[LDove]

@JimandLinda wrote:

Just out of curiousity…

If we would have had steady to heavy rain for the Cash Ba$h last Saturday, are there any other thoughts on that possibility?

I pm’d a committee member with the possibility of adding the amount of time it would take (approximately) in the program for each cache. If it would have been raining, we would have focused on the shorter walks, and done the remainder on a nice day in the future. We still would have gone to Regner to start and finish the day, but would probably have used our coupons that were in the gift bag to visit the businesses that supported the Mega-Event. So far, 2 years of good, hot weather.

What if?

Because geocaching is an outdoor sport, basically that would be up to each team to decide if they want to battle the rain or not. It is held rain or shine. I have seen cachers go out in some pretty awful weather so I know it would have affected some, but not all.

[LDove]

Holey moley, Pharmgirl and I went today – started out at 9:30 and ended at 1:30 and got…. drum roll please…. 14, yeah… I totally can’t imagine getting all 50, wow. I think I would have probably slept for days after if by some miracle I did do that! 😛

[LDove]

😳 😳 😳 Yep, my cache – I know it suks – it is a very special cache – a very crappy cache and, well, I LIKE IT THAT WAY OK! 😯 😳 🙄 Keep those stories coming – I have to have something to entertain me in my boring life… 😆

[LDove]

We had a gazillion (is that a word?) prizes for the prize box, hopefully you all had a chance at that, so there was a lot of extra stuff you could win. Unfortunately, Craig the Chamber director found more prizes after some had left from the big drawing – stuff from geocaching.com and coins so you may have missed that. The focus if I speak for myself should be this:
1. Socializing at a fun event.
2. Fun things to do and see while getting some caching done.
3. Possibly win something.

We had people from as far away as Florida and California so local merchant prizes we stayed away from this year and went more generic. I think all in fun, some people put in the competition of this just to see if they can get it all done in one day. (I had to tease a few of you and you know who you are, about this because I knew this year it would be tougher and it was in good fun). If they want to roll that way, ok. We will not make any sort of competition of it ever, because of the fact that it causes too many problems. Keep in mind, the folks that won the money – I know 2 of them had very few tickets. It’s all in the luck of the draw baby!

I could suggest to Craig that rather than dividing the prizes up to bigger levels, how about 10 – 100 dollar prizes instead?

[LDove]

@-cheeto- wrote:

Put some info in my various logs but here’s the good and sorta bad from my family: (keep in mind this was our first trip to the west bend event and our first large caching event)

– We absolutely LOVED the candy cache mystery. Our kids loved looking both indoors and outdoors and exploring the exhibit rooms. Well done and we will certainly be looking forward to this again next year.
– The night caches were great. They added variety and the ability to continue caching after dark.
– The penny/toy hunt in the sand was awesome for our youngest daughter. She loved it!!!
– The map was extremely helpful and really without it my family would have struggled planning our day.

The sorta bad
– Saw at least one cache – the one near the police station where flowers and landscaping were completely trampled. Perhaps for the bash target caches trying to keep in mind what will certainly happen might be in order.
– Baggies in the target caches were pointless. I removed a half dozen shredded baggies from containers as they served no purpose by about noon.

The suggestions
– For the longer hikes and water caches, perhaps give 2 stamps/tickets to reward those who target the harder caches. It seems like the 1+ mile hikes on the IAT caches should be rewarded more than the quick stop at the Chocolate House. Just a suggestion. Could just have a rectangle instead of a square and a note about 2 stamps. Could just use the same stamper.
– Could the new night caches be rewarded with raffle tickets as well? Logistically more difficult but it would be cool to incorporate them into the event.
– An exciting “speaker” at the main event? Nothing against those behind the mic..

It was a really fun weekend and we were glad we went.

Glad you had a good time! I will only address your concerns or suggestions since we love to hear the good stuff and I don’t need to comment on that – ha! 😀

Regarding the flowers, we did hear about that and will definitely keep that in mind for next year’s placements. Since these are permanent caches, we will probably have to go out and replace some of the baggies, probably ME because I have not done any yet and will be going out to do them! 😀

Regarding the longer hike caches and more difficult caches: I will mention it to the committee and see what the conscensus is. For the night caches, I’m not sure if we will have them next year or not just yet. The event for the prizes and tickets needs to all be held on the same day and therefore issuing tickets the night before would not really work. For the speaker – know any good comedians? 😆

Thanks for the suggestions Cheeto! Always glad to get additional feedback!

[LDove]

😆 😆 The idea of karoke was brought up but was voted down, it was thought that people wanted to be able to talk etc… and would grate on some people’s nerves *who don’t maybe like karaoke. 😕 It would be a great idea for the Friday Meet and Greet however and we will put that on the list for next year to take in to consideration!

[LDove]

Well, now that we have the 2009 Cache Bash behind us, I would like to pose the same question? How can we please you? ❓

We pretty much did everything requested (I think!) so what would you like to see next year??? 😀 I had several people tell me they liked the water caches, although the one did go missing for some reason so we may try to do that again. Also, it was suggested to do more difficult hides like the Sticky Situation hide (but that was the one that had the hotline ringing like crazy all day with questions to me about it or people plain out wanting me to tell them where it was – ain’t gonna happen it was rated 4.5 and that just would not be fair!)

So… BRING IT – tell us what do you want… within REASON! 😯 😛 😆

P.S. Had to bring up this thread again, just looking at Gilligan/Jeremy is worth rereading the thread isn’t it?

[LDove]

Well folks – here we go!!!! 😯 What a great weekend, three new Earthcaches just released, an additional 5 new caches from myself and Ecorangers, so much to do for all of you, we hope you have a great time. 😀

[LDove]

This is how mine works so I am not sure if yours is the same but here is what I do.

When you are on your compass screen, press the menu button and it should list “calibrate compass.” Then, you will have to spin in a circle to recalibrate. Okay everyone out there laughing, 😆 Jeremy already told me I could spin the GPS IN MY HAND and not my whole body, but I still do it that way even if I look like a goof!!! 😳 That should recalibrate it for you, you just might look a little silly like me – 😯

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