Busy Lissy Bunch
-
Posts
14 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Busy Lissy Bunch
-
-
There's a cache around here where part of the challenge is to find (and sign) the real log book. The CO makes it very clear that to log a Find, you need to find and sign the yellow log. That helps make it clear that there is more going on, and helps to limit the appearance of "replacement" log sheets. And even if someone were to leave a "replacement" log sheet, the odds are that it would use white paper rather than yellow paper, so future finders could figure out that something was wrong while still on site.
But in the situation described by the OP, I would have posted a Find log similar to the "FTF and sign the actual logbook" log, but wouldn't have written anything on the "replacement" log. I would have sent the CO email privately, and let the CO deal with it.
Thanks for the response. Like that idea of different colored paper - may use that on one of our caches with clues hidden in the cache and a real log book.
To be clear, we did not write anything on the replacement log book, we simply placed it with the original logbook. We left a small chit of paper on the upper layer of the tin just to say that they need to look a little deeper (I think was the word we used) for the logbook. The CO was more than happy with this note (and is probably going to replace it with a permanent version when she checks the cache).
-
We have just posted a log where we said with tongue in cheek, "FTF and sign the actual logbook" on a cache that had 12 previous finds. How so?
The CO has a fantastic series and each cache contains one of her own homemade logbooks and all are brilliant hand crafted fun caches. The last cache of the series was a pencil tin with a false bottom set into concrete and covered with smiley faces. It just seemed rather odd that the logbook was a strip of paper where the first to sign had written "FTF??" so they obviously had doubts and in their log they wrote that they could not find the logbook. The tin seemed shallow so a tried the rim and found the bottom lifted revealing the expected homemade log book in a bag - a totally blank logbook. The first person had not spotted that this was a trick cache so left their own log strip which every subsequent finder signed. So we signed the logbook and then put it back in the base with the log strip tucked inside it, replaced the false bottom and then popped a note in the top to say "This is not the log, you need to look harder for the actual logbook".
We e-mailed the CO to let her know the situation on this drive-by cache near her home so she could sort it out if we had done wrong. She has answered, is happy and was happy for us to have joint FTF as the first to sign the real logbook, as she admits that she should have checked on the cache straight away but had thought that she had perhaps forgotten to leave a logbook in it.
We are happy too so what's the problem?
It turns out one or two of the finders in between were not happy with our log with one in particular who claims he also found the real log but chose not to sign it. As far as we are concerned we used our initiative and could see from the choice of tin and where the CO left the logbook, how she wanted the cache to be played. We have been accused of being cheats which we found very sad as we thought FTF was meant to be first to sign the logbook as left in the cache by the CO, especially on a cache where finding the actual container is only half the challenge, finding the log was the real challenge. We are not even bothered about including this one in our list of FTF, we just found it rather amusing to see so many folk fooled because the first to find the container was fooled.
Just posting to give everyone food for thought as never expected this reaction when the CO is happy.
-
We can only echo Dave's words.
When we started caching (thanks to John's granddaughter who was one of Mrs BLB's Cub Scouts), John was our Guardian Angel, spotting our double logs, advising on technicalities and guiding us through our early placements. He took us under his wing in his gentle and generous way.
We often quote his advice as a mantra for Cache placements - "Quality over Quantity".
John will be much missed and our heartfelt thoughts and condolences go to his family.
God bless.
Lis and Mike
-
Many thanks Eartha - been caching for over three years and never noticed the "Find Another Link"! I am always saying that I learn something new every week in this game.
I have sent an e-mail to The_Clarkes and will see what happens.
The cache (which is a multi cache GC1JJJQ) had no other visitors at all in January and all other logged names before and after tally between on-line and hard copy. I am not aware of any organisations that run team building courses in Beverley at all (we were looking for some last year when our department started restructuring last year) but it was a good thought. I was not aware you could hire a GPS - would never have occurred to me to do so.
I will feedback if anything comes of the mail sent to The_Clarkes. I have explained why I am contacting them and explained where the cache is, what a geocoin is, who owns it, how to look it up and log it, and how to move it on (either logging it or anonymously). I have also offered to help them get started if they want to know more - can't be fairer than that.
Thanks for all your help and feedback guys
-
Thanks for the reply however, their visit was five months (22 Jan 11) ago so I think that have had time to get back of holiday.
Perhaps I did not make myself clear, the cachers that I am trying to contact have NOT got a single find to their name on-line but sign themselves as The Clarkes (i.e. with a space between The and Clarkes). I know of the guys that you have kindly sent the link for abut they were not in the area of my caches (Beverley in East Yorkshire) in January and when they sign they leave no gap in their signature.
Thanks for trying
-
We've noticed the blank log trend lately and usually send a note to the cacher to ask them to add more quoting the guidance on the geocaching website - this usually results in an enhanced log appearring but we always send it with an offer to help any new cachers if they get stuck on anything.
We have a few fun or tricky hids and a couple of series and do not expect big logs on the simpler caches or those in mid-series. However the other day we got "Easy Find TFTC" on all caches found in a series and some more interesting feature caches from a certain cacher. We noted that not all caches in the series had a log from him so guessed he was one that did not post DNFs - and then this cacher had the cheek to send a mail to ask if we "knew that cache #1 was missing as it prevented (him) from finding the bonus" and implied that it spoilt his day.
So we responded by advising that we did not know it was missing as we always suspend a cache if we know its missing and rely on DNFs to advise of missing caches but as they have found, some people are too proud to post DNFs and so the fun is spoiled for others who follow them a they have found out. We went on to say that when they become CO's they will appreciate that interesting logs is what makes the hassle of placing and maintaining caches worthwhile. Needless to say we had no reply but we hope they recognised themselves in the points made.
Another grumble off track but seem to have had a few logs lately from newbies who cannot find our more trickier caches that it is obviously not there and the CO should check it out immediately. Perhaps I should stick a broom up my **** while checking it out to clean up the path for them too!
(In every single case to date - the cache was still there when I got round to checking it out!)But at the end of the day, blank and TFTC logs just reflect badly on the cacher who left them and as others have said, its their loss as they mis out on the memories and having some fun with the logging.
-
Does anyone know how to get a geocacher's proile to be able to send them a message if they have not actually logged any finds on-line? I am trying to assist a coin owner whose coin went missing from one of my caches. Per the physical logbook in the cache, it was taken by The Clarkes but they have no logs on-line to their name. I would like to send them a message to just ask what they have done with the coin and send a gentle reminder if they have not moved it on.
-
BandMandAandA posted a list of what counties are in which region on the GSAK forum:
Yorkshire and Humberside: Humberside, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire
Could someone tell me why we have a region called Yorkshire and Humberside that comprises whlly of Yorkshire (North, South, West and East Riding)? Humberside was abolished in 1996 in the days BC!
In fact the region called Yorkshire and Humberside only covers half of the old Humberside County as the area that was south of the Humber estuary is in the East Midlands region. The debate on borders is a huge can of worms but can we please get rid of the reference to a name that no-one ever liked or wanted, no longer exists as a proper authority name (other than the police and an airport) and is used to refer to an area that will always be proud to be known as YORKSHIRE and nothing else.
The use of the term Humberside is confusing as COs south of the Humber believe that they should be using this region for their cache as it is in the old county of Humberside - remove the reference to Humberside and you will remove a lot of confusion. (Just seen a reviewer pull up a CO for using the wrong region in exactly these circumstances).
Now onto GSAK who use the old county of Humberside on their map .....
-
Thanks for all the replies gys.
Funnily enough we had just been looking at deals on the HTC Wildfire as Mr BL has a HTC which unfortunately does not have GPS functionality. Never heard of the c.geo app - will google it.
The cmments on the i-phone's accuracy were interesting and may explain some of the logs I have seen on my caches from iphone users. In fact some logs from phone cachers were making us wonder whether any phones were acurate on the GPS so its great to hear there is good news on a phone that we have seen some great contract deals on - £11.67 a month using a cash back deal (so you have to be organised) including 600 mins calls and unlimited internet.
Cheers
BLB
-
We have a Garmin Oregon with full Ordnance Survey maps and love it for caching. However, Mrs BL's phone needs replacing so we were thinking of getting one that we can use to identify local caches wherever we happen to be. Can anyone help please?
Ability to log finds on the spot and superior GPS accuracy are therefore not as important as ease of use for us technophobes!
We do not understand all the techy speak we have seen on the forums so please answer in plain English if possible with just names of things we should look for or avoid.
-
Hi
Home at last from the wet West Coast of the UK. Grabbed coin #23 and moved it on the next day but didn't have a way of getting the picture from camera to internet.
Found the coin near the grave of Robert Burns' (famous Scottish poet) parents grave hence the photo, on probably the driest day of our holidays. Would have done something more creative had we been able to read up on the competition first - never hear of a cointest before. Had a great holiday though - 80 caches in 15 days including our first ever FTF and a couple of 5 star terrains.
I've never uploaded a picture in this way before so let's see if this works! No it didn't so now haven't got a clue how to upload the picture - looks like we'll have to give the cointest a miss.
Loved the coin
Busy Lissy
-
As others have suggested, why not use a combination lock. For an idea on how to collect the number for the combination within a multi look at GCMW8J Eboracum Monasterium. You need to answer questions to get the co-ords for a series of steps and these answers all ad together to give the combination - clever stuff!
Good luck
-
Hi
This is my first look at forums so not sure if there have been other answers to similar previous posts but I was unable to find any suggested wording on any UK geocaching website either.
I will try t attach the letter that I wrote and which has been accepted by two landowners and a town council to date with no refusals. Being in the UK, I sent the letter with a copy of the article on caching that appeared in The Telegraph newspaper as that is one of the UK's leading broadsheets and is very well repected. This gives outside/third party perspective on the sport and I also sent a copy of the GAGB's guidelines for laying a cache.
In each case, I highlighted the benefits of caching to the landowner i.e. bringing cachers into local area where they would spend money/ link to website and advertising for local stately home / local airfield and flying club.
Once the caches were placed, as a courtesy I either e-mailed the link to the cache on the geocaching website or printed off the pages for the location and sent them out to the landowner and one of them has asked me to provide annual numbers of visitors to the caches to provide evidence of wider public use of the land to the stately home trustees.
(Canot see how to attach letter so wording is below)
Good luck
Busy Lissy
Dear Mr
I am writing to request your permission to place a small box within the base of a multi-trunked tree in Hall Garth Park as an end goal for a sport known as Geocaching, which is a modern day form of treasure hunt that uses Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to locate the “treasure”. The cache box would be about the size of a snack box and will contain a notebook where participants can log their find, plus various small trading items like small toys, useful items (torch, compass, pens etc) and “trackable items” whose progress can be tracked on the www.Geocaching.com website. The box would be secured under stones or wood to avoid accidental discovery by other users of the park.
Geocaching participants try to place caches in beautiful, interesting or unusual places and others learn of the cache’s existence via the Geocaching website. It is caching policy to leave any site as we find it and the key guidelines for caching are set out in the enclosed document from The Geocaching Association of Great Britain.
This is a global sport but East Yorkshire is rather a caching hinterland compared to the rest of Yorkshire as we have relatively few caches. Hopefully this cache would encourage people to visit Hornsea and explore more of this lovely town. I would like to make this into a multi-staged cache where participants have to answer several questions from visiting other places of interest in the town in order to obtain the final co-ordinates to the cache. In East Yorkshire, a cache can generally expect to receive about 20 – 50 visitors (plus their families) per year.
As a family we really enjoy geocaching as it combines the use of modern technology and the internet with beautiful walks and fresh air. It encourages our children to walk further and takes us to many new places, including discovering places off the eaten track in Spain.
I enclose an article from the Telegraph on caching and would welcome the opportunity to discuss this request further with individuals or at a town council meeting should you have any queries. Obviously I would work with yourselves in advising you of the location & will be responsible for maintaining the cache box.
I look forward to hearing from you on this matter.
Yours Sincerely
(In every single case to date - the cache was still there when I got round to checking it out!)
FTF but could not find logbook
in General geocaching topics
Posted
Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply to this query. It is always interesting to hear the views of some very experienced cachers with a range caching experiences in a range of local environments that create the background to the views expressed. Having cached in 23 countries now, we know the game can be played very differently with local norms in different parts of the world - and there are more experiences yet to be sought through caching!
The cache in question was the last one in 14 cache 3 mile walking trail placed at the base of a tree surrounded by short grass only by the roadside and was very visible, so first to find the "cache container" was simply the first person to get in the car and drive there - more a case of you could not miss it, so that's why the seeking of the log made it more of a challenging gamepiece. There are rather a lot of fun caches in this area as we have fabulous walks and views but not much scope for different places to hide caches, so the variety is provided by the novelty containers and the caches with decoy logs or containers, and secret slots or multiple choices to open before finding the real log. I am not sure how widespread this phenomenom is, but sounds like there are some other fun caches around.
We live and learn in caching and life, and lessons were learnt about cache expectations and clarity a slightly embarrassed CO who we think has acted with dignity and fairness here after a shaky start. I perhaps should have made it clear that the CO has awarded a double FTF - to the original finder who left the replacement log and to ourselves for finding the real log book in the "secret" compartment. It was not the fault of the other 11 that on finding the replacement log that others had signed, that they did not feel the need to seek further, so all finds have been allowed (and rightly so).
We were just a bit shocked by the (playground) name calling and as a couple who hold fair play in high regard, hated to be called a cheat. So as someone pointed out, our lesson here is not to jest on FTF's (with or without the emoticons) and to carry on caching while respecting the efforts of our CO's. Thank you all