[Team Deejay]

My opinion is that this topic is beyond the control of the WGA board. Geocaching.com sets the guidelines for what caches can or cannot be published. If people prefer to place these sorts of caches and prefer to find these sorts of caches, so be it.

I do think, however, that poor quality caches diminish the ability of geocaching to provide direction to interesting places for those visiting. It is a little frustrating to be led to one parking lot after another when you are visiting a new area. That said, I do not see this too often in Wisconsin. Apparently we have better taste then some of those “other” places.

[Team Deejay]

The simple answer is YES! I don’t really understand why this has not already happened.

[Team Deejay]

I feel the board should actively oppose these sorts of fees, although I have might doubts that you will ever see any changes in the Dane County structure. They seem to like to charge for everything, so geocaches are just one more revenue stream for them.

In my opinion, the best way to avoid these situations is for the WGA to build active relationships with the many parks departments in the state. This will require the involvement of many people and lots of effort, but, when a parks director starts considering regulations for geocaching, we want them to first think of one of us as their key reference point. There are a lot of us out there working with the various agencies to promote geocaching as an activity in local, state and national lands now, but there is definitely room for improvement. Coordination by the WGA board and committees would serve to keep us from duplicating each other efforts.

[Team Deejay]

I can’t see any reason not to do an annual coin. Perhaps we might want to increase the price by a dollar or two and actually use the coin sales as a fundraiser.

[Team Deejay]

This actually seems like 2 questions, which I think have very different answers.

Question 7a – How do we get more participation in WGA events? I do think part of the problem here is a lack of publicity. With these events, we post a cache page and list it on the website, but that is basically it. If there is a desire to get greater attendance (I’m not sure that we really want that), a little advertising will go a long way. Making contact with local and regional media, posting flyers around the facility where the event is held, and posting flyers at area outdoor and sporting goods retailers would bring in some additional attendance. Maybe the simple answer is to designate one person on the picnic team as publicity chairman and have him coordinate this.

Question 7b – How do we get more people into the WGA (or more accurately how do we get more active members in the WGA?) – This is a tougher one. I would say that nearly every active Wisconsin geocacher is already a member, along with many inactive ones. (If you have friends who aren’t members, well, get ’em signed up!) Of the 843 members listed, I’d estimate that maybe 200 are responsible for 80% of the forum posts, votes, and other activities of the website. This same group includes 100% of the people who volunteer for committees, hold events, and make other contributions to the game. This 200 is the group we want to grow. I’m not certain that there is anything the board can actually do to accomplish this. In reality, this responsibility falls on each of us to promote the WGA with people we meet at events and on the trails. This face to face communication is the most effective means of recruiting. I also agree that posting the links on cache pages is very helpful in recruiting the new geocachers, but with paperless becoming more popular, I’d guess that most of us don’t look at most of the cache pages, other than on a handheld.

[Team Deejay]

I’m strongly in favor of regional representation. For a BOD to be effective as a democratic institution, the population must believe that those elected are representing their interests. If people feel they are not represented, you will start to see “regional” groups springing up. Both Indiana and Illinois ended up with many small organizations, which are much less effective in dealing with the government entities which affect our sport.

The difficulty will be in the details, of course. The questions will be :

• How do we divide up the state?
• How many “at large” members and regional members on the board?
• What if there are no nominees from a particular region?

This will all have to be sorted out by the incoming board and then presented to the membership as possible changes to the by laws.

[Team Deejay]

I guess I am kind of ambivalent about this. I do think it would be fun, but it would take a huge volunteer effort to pull it off. Between organizing, operating and cleaning up after the event, you are probably talking about several thousand volunteer hours. Are there enough people interested to pull this off? I would suggest that we need to confirm this before anyone would commit to hosting a megaevent.

Additionally, I do share Gary’s concerns, depending on where the event would be held. Most non-urban hides and many urban hides are not suitable places to have 200-300 people visit on the same day. Think about some of the “cache meccas” in SE Wisconsin, such as Whitnall Park, Bong, Petrifying Springs/Parkside, etc. I think any of these would suffer significant trampling damage if we had that sort of volume in visits over a day or two. Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it, but only that the location would need to be considered very carefully. The last thing we want to do is alienate our DNR/Parks Department partners.

[Team Deejay]

There is a Sherper’s in Oconomowoc. West enough for you?

[Team Deejay]

@Jimmy The Butcher wrote:

@Team Deejay wrote:

Optional seed caches are allowed; caches REQUIRING that you place a seed are not allowed. When considering a seed cache, please think about whether the area where you will place it will benefit from an explosion of new micro caches (or place a seed cache with bigger containers, such as GC100AX).

So, if I got this right, I can’t have a “required” seed cache even if I make the cache an ALR, mystery, puzzle, whatever your favorite term, is.

That is correct. Groundspeak changed the policy around 3 months ago.

[Team Deejay]

@Team Margaritaville wrote:

@Frizz wrote:

I think the newsletter is a great addition to the WGA, and can only promote more participation among members. Good job!

Is there a way to send the newsletter to Wisconsin cachers who are non-members of WGA?

Sure Print them Off and place them in caches as you cache along.. DUH

Good idea! Is there a nano version?

[Team Deejay]

@EnergySaver wrote:

@Team Deejay wrote:

I was mistaken for a dead body while crawling around in a juniper bush in Racine.

You got to move around a little more 😯

You obviously have not spent enough time inside juniper bushes!

[Team Deejay]

I was mistaken for a dead body while crawling around in a juniper bush in Racine. Worse, the cache was actually at a different location (I made a mistake on a mystery cache), so I couldn’t even show them what I was looking for. Twenty minutes later, they decided I didn’t need to be committed and let me go.

[Team Deejay]

Yuck! That is pretty bad news. The Delorme Challenge is set up based on the “old” version (it specifically calls that out in the cache description), so technically it is not a problem, but….

[Team Deejay]

I believe that video is stored on DVD in GC11FR3.

[Team Deejay]

While it is certainly a nice unit, don’t forget that you can pick up a Palm on Ebay for $20 or less and Cachemate for $8, which is certainly a smaller expenditure than $599, assuming your current GPS is adequate. This will take care of your paperless needs.

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