Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
For an even more useless number, the total number of caches in Wisconsin, including archived, disabled, and never released caches is 12469. This also includes old events, caches muggled before they were ever found, cache ideas abandoned by their owners before release, caches waiting to be approved, etc. I personally find this number to be amazing, as it means that more than half of the caches placed in Wisconsin, including the events, are still active. As of yesterday, there are 196 disabled caches out there, so that means there are around 7534 active caches available to be found (less a handful of past events still in the active status).
01/28/2008 at 9:20 pm in reply to: Temporary change to Milwaukee County Parks placement rules #1883947I don’t think we know, but it will be required soon enough. I wouldn’t worry about it for existing caches, but I would definitely submit a form for new caches.
I think that the alternative geocaching sites (Navicache, Terracaching, etc.) are pretty much dead. Anyone with caches listed on those site would probably agree with me (right, Roger?). For this reason, I don’t think these currently merit any attention from the WGA.
On the other hand, I think there is some merit to providing some “coverage” of waymarking and letterboxing. Note that this would be an expansion beyond what we have defined as our charter, but this might also expand the number of people interested in being part of our organization. To be honest, I have never heard of anyone doing waymarking who is not a geocacher, but there are a lot of letterboxers out there who don’t geocache, and those people might enjoy being part of our group.
What Becky said!!! Seriously, it doesn’t make any difference. About the only overlap has to do with dealing with agencies, and we should be able to communicate as needed on this particular topic.
Woohoo! Have fun with your new family member!
@Trekkin’ and Birdin’ wrote:
Should this cache be added to the current list? It hasn’t been found since the beginning of August, although there are a number of logs following that date in which Hotdogs Off the Trail were replacing and refinding the remains of the original that had been vandalized.
Just wondering. Not hunting now!
GCZYYE
Not quite sure how I missed this one. I will add it.
Originally I was not going to post to this thread, but Jeremy’s post struck a chord. Speaking as a reviewer, not a candidate, my plan was to wait until next July (after the current SNA process had been in place for a year) and then broach the topic with the state naturalist, with the objective of getting a trial cache placed. I think they would be amenable to this, and in the long run, would be willing to open certain SNAs to geocaching. They do understand that not all SNAs are created equal, and that some can handle the increased traffic, while others cannot. Unlike certain agencies, the DNR seems to have embraced the concept of geocaching as a tool to bring people to their properties, but they are also concerned with the damage that a lot of increased traffic will bring.
If you want to do something to encourage the DNR to continue to support geocaching (including in SNAs), there are 2 things you can do:
1. When placing any geocaches on DNR lands, be mindful of the amount of damage that traffic and extensive searches can cause. If you must place a difficult-to-find cache, try to place it in a dry evergreen forest or a rock pile. Better yet, pick a spot for that masterpiece somewhere in a ball field or parking lot.
2. Be sure to submit your notification forms to the appropriate office before placing your cache. The DNR recently detected that a particular person had been placing caches without submitting the forms at all. Needless to say, this will set us back a bit. Brian (and others) did a lot of work to get the streamlined process we use today. I would hate to see one or two scofflaws ruin this for the rest of us.mmmmmm….fluff
Micros should be felt but not seen. The color is irrelevant.
I have a hard time visualizing the WGA being very political and certainly not “corrupt”. We are talking about a free membership organization, with little money or power. What motivation does anyone have to be political?
Seems like a good idea to me. This might be a good opportunity for regional WGA events, given the questionable road conditions in winter. Maybe 4 concurrent events in 4 quarters of the state?
Well, for me, I’m pretty much a navigator, so I’d let you drive. An ideal caching day for me would be to go to a state park (or other natural area) and spend the day hiking to all the caches in the park. Maybe we’d stop for one on the road along the way there and back, but the idea is to spend time in the natural setting without needing to drive. I’ll bring sandwiches for the backpack lunch, you can buy the steak dinner on the way home. Oh, and instead of music, we’ll have to listen to a replay of the Packers beating the Giants in the NFC Championship (this is known as pandering to the electorate!)
I step away from the forum for one day and all hell breaks loose! 😀
Seriously, this is a bit of a problem. Becky and I are discussing the best approach to deal with the existing caches in rest areas, but I suspect they will be disappearing soon. In the meantime, if there are some which you feel were placed without permission, please email one of us, as it is not exactly easy for us to find these (especially the waysides).
From the discussion above, it sounds like there is some confusion as to what we normally do when reviewing the cache. While there are many things we need to check, our direction from Groundspeak is to assume the person has obtained permission unless we have reason to suspect they don’t. This probably begs the question: what is suspicious? First, if you post a note in the description indicating that “so and so has given permission for this cache”, we are going to believe you. If you don’t post any indication, here are the red flags.
– Residential areas
– Commercial property, such as strip malls, restaurants and gas stations
– Churches and schools
– Fire Departments, Police Stations, Government Administration Buildings, Jails and Prisons (had one of these today!)
– Agricultural areas, especially plowed fields
– Utility installations
– and now, DOT rest areasAdditionally we check for DNR notification, City of Madison and Dane County permits, and immediately archive listings in the Apostle Islands NL. Many of you are aware of the rules we are using with the St Croix NSR, so we check for that as well.
Unfortunately, if someone places a cache in what looks like a county park, but turns out to be a private land, we might not catch that. If you run into this situation, just let Becky or I know and we will take care of it.
Wow, Becky made me go and read the bylaws again! Of all the organizations I have been a part of, this is the first one I have seen where the meeting minutes of the BOD meetings are not made available to the general membership (along with the minutes of any general membership meetings). I went and looked at the bylaws of a couple other organizations I belong to, and the wording was similar to ours. Yet in both those cases, failure to publish the minutes (one uses a newsletter, one a website) would result in a full scale insurrection (and believe me, some of those church ladies are pretty tough!)
I am guessing that this passage was probably copied from some other organization’s bylaws, without a lot of thought. Can someone who was involved in the original drafting of the bylaws shed some light on this? Was the intent to not require the minutes be published, or was this just not a consideration at the time?
Maybe I’m just dense, but I guess I didn’t see anything too political. You do see people disagreeing on the merits of certain issues, but that is a good thing. Vote for the people you agree with. Don’t vote for the ones you disagree with. (Just like a real election!)
The reality is that things are more complicated today than they were when geocaching was a “secret” activity undertaken by relatively small number. You can see this from the forum thread on DOT rest areas and welcome centers. Things are just a little more serious than they used to be. The WGA is the only organization positioned to deal with the issues of land access with various government agencies, including the DOT. We have to be a little bit serious to get anywhere.
-
AuthorPosts
