bigkid

http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=181490 Just $20 per person or $49 for a team of 3-6, every participant gets a shirt and a medal for participating, additional Groundspeak, travel bug and other prizes will also be given away! Sunday, July 19th, 2009 Magnusson Park 7400 Sand Point Way Seattle, WA 98115 12pm Registration 1pm Event Start 3:30pm Awards 4:00pm Event Ends I hope to see you there! -bigkid John Chen, CEO for Geoteaming

http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=181490 Just $20 per person or $49 for a team of 3-6, every participant gets a shirt and a medal for participating, additional Groundspeak, travel bug and other prizes will also be given away! Sunday, July 19th, 2009 Magnusson Park 7400 Sand Point Way Seattle, WA 98115 12pm Registration 1pm Event Start 3:30pm Awards 4:00pm Event Ends I hope to see you there! -bigkid John Chen, CEO for Geoteaming

The Technology Access Foundation helps prepare underserved children of color for higher education and professional success. This Geocaching event is a fundraiser to help support TAF programs. You and your teammate get your GPS and clues, you strategize with your teammate, then you're off! Your GPS guides you to your next site, then who knows what awaits you there, a hidden container, a challenge or a complete surprise! You're off to race the clock and find as many places as you can before time runs out. Then head to dinner and drinks knowing that you've done good by helping 12,000 kids get life-changing technology skills! TAF Annual Geocache Cup Saturday, September 27, 2008 1:00 - 6:00pm Starting at: Lakewood Park 11050 10th Ave SW Seattle, WA More information or register today at: http://www.techaccess.org/events/geocache/AGC08.html Open Teams - $50/team + awards for additional fund raising. Corporate Teams - $500/team, corporate matching counts and only these teams will be eligible for the Official TAF Geocaching Cup! ---------------------------- Note: This post has been reviewed and approved by Groundspeak. ----------------------------

Hey, it's the bigkid of PLAYTIME Inc. and geoteaming. I wanted to let people know that we're working on a 50 cache course (newbie to expert caches) that has amazing prizes (there's a 3 day/2 night stay, dinners, cruises, serious prizes!) and most of all, it's FREE! We were contracted by the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority and they wanted to create one of the largest geocaching contests during their celebration, so they agreed to make it FREE to allow anyone to participate. Especially newbie friendly, we'll even have 150 GPS receivers on hand for FREE rental (have to let us imprint a credit card in case you decide you really like it) during the weekend, with personal instruction on how to use it. There's paddleboat races, 5k runs, art walks, live bands, and even Kool and the Gang, go figure! It should be an awesome weekend of caching. For more info, check out http://www.geoteaming.com/contests.html and/or the event page for "Opening Day at the Lake 2006". Hope to see you there, I'll be hanging out at Harrah's in Mission Control.... -bigkid

Hey, bigkid here, CEO of PLAYTIME Inc. Thanks for the props on the Pt. Defiance event. I'd like to comment on the caches, I agree we haven't maintained our caches, it's due to the fact that we're never in town anymore because we're delivering so many events. We have actually stopped our practice of creating memorial event caches because we cannot maintain them properly. Sorry for any negative impressions, perhaps I will disable all the existing caches due to the negative comments. As for the last comment, I'd like to know more about your negative impression. Is there something specifically we can do to make it better? Unfortunately, our goal for the majority of our clients does not match the goals of an all geocacher events. I mean it would be totally unfair to put a geomuggle on a 5/5 type course. We have over 250+ events of experience with over 5,000 participants, with 90% of them geomuggles (with many of them who convert after being exposed). We also significantly funded geocaching.com so they can expand to the employees that they have now. We want and continue to be good citizens of geocaching.com and would do anything to create more goodwill with the geocaching community of which I hope you feel that I'm a member of. Finally, I met Soup and I agree, for a geocacher, his event caches rock and I'm waiting for the day I can hire him to create a geoteaming event DESIGNED FOR geocachers (and not those poor corporate geomuggles that we love so much!) Thanks, I hope this message is well received (and not flamed). Feel free to reply or email me direct at bigkid@playtimeinc.com. -John

Hi, I'm bigkid, the CEO of PlayTime Inc., the Exclusive GeoTeaming Provider recognized by Geocaching.com. Yeah, that's us on the front page of geocaching.com. Yes, it's true we pay for that privilege, but hey, it's supports the website getting better. Yeah, it's our goal to find more corporate team building events so we can keep paying geocaching.com. I want to change what's on the front page to involve more players, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about what I can do with that space since you have to see it every day. Here are some of the current ideas: * "Paid To Play" - We offer a per diem of cash or possibly geocaching.com gift certificates to local geocachers who help us with a local event. We would also pay if a local geocacher referred us to a company that turned into an event. We also work with local geocachers to help design courses and setup events. * "Become a GeoTech" - We want to start a database of people we can contact when we go to certain cities. * "GeoTeaming Caches" - When we work with certain companies, we usually arrange to create a memorial cache that we can post on the site, should we feature it here? * "Cache of the Month" - We'd take nominations and select a cache of the month for creativity and use of team work. * "Cacher of the Month" - Publish the best story of team work and leadership while attempting to find a Geocache? * ???? - Your idea here! Let me know which of these ideas suck and which you think would add value to you. First comments by Dec will see updates most likely in Jan. Thanks and I hope you find the marriage of getting corporations to pay for GeoTeaming to support geocaching.com a good partnership! -bigkid

Thanks for the Geocachers who came out this day to help! The event was a great success and got featured in the local newspaper! Check out http://www.registerguard.com/news/2003/08/...ching.0828.html

Hi Gorak, Thanks for your interest in GeoTeaming. It's great to see that other Geocachers who we use for GeoTech's replied back. We use local Geocachers to walk with every team to ensure their technology is working, they are finding caches and most importantly, that they stay safe. The MD course was at Bolger Center and had the weather turn on us, yet we were able to get the teams and more important turn it into a great experience. The event was designed to use FIRO-B (a personality test) results and bring them to life during the team building event. We have completed over 150 events with over 2,000 participants with the majority of them being new to Geocaching. We also completed AMD's 64 Hr High-Tech Treasure Hunt in Las Vegas which was a real geocaching contest where the winner (who found all 15 caches) won an AMD computer and GPS. I have other referrals at Microsoft, Booz Allen, Wired Magazine, Prudential and other clients if you'd like to talk with them. In addition, we have emergency procedures and insurance for every event. Feel free to call direct at (877) 652-0875, hope to hear from you soon! -John

Hi Kouros and crew. I'm John Chen (bigkid), CEO of PlayTime Inc. which specializes in Geoteaming programs. Wow, Jeremy has clued me into the commercial cache aspects of this and how much feedback he's getting from the community. I'll try to add my 2 cents and let you know what's up on my side. I asked him about this cache and started to get these viewpoints: 1) It was free, so no money was made on the cache, in fact, VW paid for all the events that occurred on the day. 2) There was geocaching during the event, in fact, participants had GPS units all day and when for a 12 cache hunt in Discovery Park. Many were non-geocachers and converts by the days end. 3) Someone wrote a note that it should be 5 stars because you need a VW to participate. Good feedback, the event's over, but we'll note that in future events. If we put it back on geocaching.com for a future event, VW has looked at open enrollment so anyone can participate. 4) Jeremy and Groundspeak didn't sell out and make heaps of money on this event. This was VW's first Geocaching based event and he wanted to help support it. For the geocachers who did go, they said it was a very cool event and went beyond their expectations. I hope you guys/the community understands as well as I learned a lot about what the community thinks is cool and not. I'll make sure to look more carefully at future events to gauge the commercial aspect. Meanwhile, our company does teach free GPS and geocaching courses at REI, we have lent out our fleet of GPS units to local non-profits to teach orgs like Girl Scouts geocaching, and have helped put on non-profit geocaching events with Geocaching.com and the WSGA. So I hope the flame isn't on too high and you'll forgive us for experimenting with this VW cache. Feel free to reply here or email me at bigkid@playtimeinc.com if you have further comments or views. Thanks, -John bigkid, CEO of PlayTime Inc. The Official Geocaching Corporate Team Building and Event Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com

Hi iceman, one of the best collaborative initiatives we have is the lockbox. We hide keys for first-finders in multiple caches, more than any one team can find. Prizes are locked in the box, no collaboration, no prizes. Let me know more about your scenario & goals and let me find out what else we have that may suit your goals. -bigkid CEO, PlayTime Inc. The Official Geoteaming Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com/products_geoteaming.htm bigkid, CEO of PlayTime Inc. The Official Geocaching Corporate Team Building and Event Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com

I'm surprised Seth didn't beat me to the punch here: Established Sept 2002 http://www.xsnrg.com/geocachingwa/ or http:/www.geocachingwa.org bigkid, CEO of PlayTime Inc. The Official Geocaching Corporate Team Building and Event Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com

Hey Professional, if you'd like to do a GPS Gold Rush style event, send me some email and we'll see if we could pool resources (and fly me to Hawaii! ;-)... -bigkid bigkid, CEO of PlayTime Inc. The Official Geocaching Corporate Team Building and Event Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com

Thanks for the responses, looks like we'll have to keep fine-tuning this idea to see if we can make it work. I think regional is a good idea, I think combined with a large event like the GPS Gold Rush may also be a draw. Look for an event coming in the summer of 2003 and please let me know if you have other ideas of what would bring you out... bigkid, CEO of PlayTime Inc. The Official Geocaching Corporate Team Building and Event Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com

You had a kid just so you could have another finder, we know! ;-) bigkid, CEO of PlayTime Inc. The Official Geocaching Corporate Team Building and Event Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com

We're working on the first conference ever and we're stuck on how many people would show and what the price should be. The conference would be pretty grass-roots, 2 days on Sept. 28th and 29th. It's right after the GPS 2002 conference in Portland, OR and we hope to have many vendors stay the weekend and participate in our conference. It would have a keynote by Jeremy, breakout sessions for finders/hiders/travel bugs, family caching and other topics. It would have a product fair and an evening geocaching event hosted by the Portland geocachers. Finally, we'll put out some polls for geocaching awards for the year and give out some awards during the event. Most of all, it's a great excuse to nail a boat load of caches and participate in the conference. (Perhaps we can wire online access for those who can't make it). If this was the style of the conference, would you go and if so, how much would you be willing to pay? We want to keep the price low and allow kids under 18 to come free so families can come. bigkid, CEO of PlayTime Inc. The Official Geocaching Corporate Team Building and Event Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com

A quick note for all those who attended or wished to attend. More details and a trip report to follow. 55 people showed up for the first ever geocaching fund raising event. Bryan Roth and Heidi from Geocaching.com helped hide the 20 caches and watch over the event. Every team won prizes and loved the event. Seth! contributed the 4 stage Schmoe Stash and Moun10Bike contributed the 4 question Rainier Rambler. At least one team found ALL 20! caches in just under 3 1/2 hours (now if they could just log them ;-). Every team won a prize (prize list and stats to be posted) and while we were at SummitHaus, the infamous Lou Whittaker came by to say hi and even autographed his book for KiteLady. Most of all, everybody had an INCREDIBLE time. For those who attended: What was your best story of the day? What was your favorite cache from the day? What would you like to see for next year's event that would make it even better? Thanks again for a great day out in the woods, -bigkid bigkid, CEO of PlayTime Inc. The Official Geocaching Corporate Team Building and Event Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=14410 Hey, wanted to see who's coming to The Search?!?! Only $25, lots of great caches including 2 guest caches, 1 by Seth! and 1 by Moun10Bike. 2 hours from Seattle, just getting to the site will be a cool cache in it's own right. Lunch included, Prizes worth over $1,000 being given away, Bryan Roth from Groundspeak/Geocaching will be there, and most of all, it's a benefit for the Washington National Park Fund (hopeing to help make Geocaching legal!!!!). Hopefully some others will chime in with post-event stories... bigkid, CEO of PlayTime Inc. The Official Geocaching Corporate Team Building and Event Provider http://www.playtimeinc.com