Algonquin Bound

Perhaps Cache-tech can answer this. Is there a problem with the "New" flag, for new caches? It has never shown up on GCHHZG. I rely heavily on these flags, to quickly flip through and see if there are any recent caches in my area. I missed this particular one, because there was no flag. While I'm asking, how long are these flags scheduled to be on a new cache? Just wondering.

You do know Niagara Falls is not just around the corner, right? According to MapQuest: Total Est. Time: 6 hours, 36 minutes Total Est. Distance: 655.04 km. http://www.mapquest.com/directions/main.ad...-04b9d-400c330e I think that is actually very optimistic. I think you could easily add another 3 hours. You could probably more realistically consider flying to Toronto, Hamilton or Buffalo, then renting a car or taking a bus. You could also take a train, possibly all the way, with a probable transfer in Toronto. You might do well to contact a travel agent, before your trip, but you should know it is more than just a trip around the block. Have a great trip.

Wow! That will make life an awful lot easier. I suggested this some time ago and I'm delighted that they've finally done it. Fantastic. Thanks for pointing it out, Cache-tech.

Just a reminder of what J.A.R.S. had to say in the original "Nominations" thread: I'm just not sure we should be contacting them right now. Perhaps once we have established some guidelines with others, such as Ontario Parks and HCA, with whom we are already in some sort of discussion, then it may be prudent. If the attitude above is still prevalent, we may meet some serious resistance.

This thread is being closed. The ideas and suggestions will now be continued in OGA - The Ontario Geocaching Association. Thank you all for your ideas and suggestions. Please continue the support in the new thread.

I just punched in 1731 and it says it has been exchanged 0 times. Strange. Maybe the owner forgot to log it, before putting it out.

What's wrong with this picture?

Keep up the good work, BQ. When the new topic is opened, I will close this thread, but I believe the information may still be viewed. One simply cannot post, after it has been locked.

Looking forward to it and I'm REALLY glad to hear about the other problems being resolved. Welcome back. Looking forward to the mini-multi and to seeing your other caches back on line.

Add me to the list of supporters for Ontario Geocachers Association, or OGA. This has been my preference all along. We could even have a sub-sect for those who cache with their canine buddies - Ontario Geocachers Association With Dogs, known as Oh GAWD!

I must say I tend to agree with the idea of "letting sleeping dogs lie". Let's get ourselves established and deal with whomever we NEED to deal with, before ever tackling those who have yet to discover that they should "develop a policy".

Please post ideas and suggestions/opinions, so that Blue Quasar may start working on some kind of geocaching group for Ontario.

Once again, I want to thank everyone for all of their input. The Blue Quasar has been given a very strong mandate to go ahead and start our seedling organization for Ontario geocachers. As should be, there are some who are against any organization, some who do not support The Blue Quasar and some who have a lot of fear and questions to pose. Nevertheless, the support for Blue Quasar has been pretty overwhelming and he has accepted the responsibility. This thread will now be closed, and as promised, a new thread will be opened, for posting of ideas, opinions, questions, suggestions, fears, etc., regarding organized geocachers in Ontario. Please feel free to make all further comments in that space. Blue Quasar, I congratulate you and wish you well in your endeavours. I would agree with previous posts, from gm100guy and cache-tech, saying that personal e-mail, or private posts, should be kept as such and respected as such. I appreciate your very real fear of being thought of as making back-room deals or holding privileged discussions. My advice, for what it is worth, if you receive private e-mails and are feeling uncomfortable about them, is to simply advise the sender that you would prefer to discuss it in the public forum. I think in most cases, however, that there is probably not a problem with private correspondence. If there are definite reasons for it to be public, simply ask the sender to post it publicly, as I sometimes had to do with this thread, given that there was voting involved. For the record, as the moderator of the thread, I felt it prudent to remove my vote. The answers to the other questions should be left to the Blue Quasar for follow-up, but in summary, the consensus seems to be very strongly against the Southern Ontario Geocaching Organization (SOGA) name, for the obviously exclusion implied and which TrimblesTrek explained so eloquently. There is strong support for Geocaching Ontario (GO). My concerns here would be confusion with GO Transit and possible assumptions about affiliation with the Government of Ontario. The organizer's title is still rather iffy. Perhaps BQ can choose, or just hold off for future discussion. So... BQ! Off you go. Keep us informed. All the best! Cheers! Ian.

Hi everyone and a happy new year to all of you. I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's season. This is a reminder/update to note that votes, such as they are, will be tallied after midnight, Sunday January 4th. Since I messed up and said Friday the 4th, when I originally posted, I have gone with the latest day and will close on Sunday at midnight, rather than Friday. Clearly there are a lot of diverse opinions about what kind of organization this will be and I believe and hope that is a good thing. My only goal with this thread was to get the thing started and beyond the discussion stage. I think that goal will have been accomplished by Sunday night. I want to thank everyone for all of the discussions and comments. Couparangus had some telling observations recently, as did Purple Fever. The participation in this discussion thread has been lively and certainly seems to indicate the need or want for some sort of organized geocaching in Ontario. I look forward to seeing how such an organization develops. GM100GUY has suggested keeping the thread going for another couple of weeks. I think the idea of keeping the discussion going is a very good one, so I will start a new thread for such ideas and discussions, after this thread has closed. Cheers to all!

My girlfriend, Michelle, had just finished reading this thread, after I told her about some of the squabbling that had been going on. I had also posted some recent logs, telling of some of our caching days/evenings, which hadn't gone entirely as planned. After hearing of her plight, Purple Fever's wife jokingly suggested they form a support group. Here, for those of you with a sense of humour, is Michelle's response to both the support group and this thread. Please... no grief. If you can laugh at yourself/ourselves, have a read. If not, move on. It is a pretty telling look at how this mess looks, especially to an outsider. Happy new year, everyone!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all.

Nice work, Keith. Looks like it is going to be a great site. Thank you.

Wow! It's great to see all this discussion and to see some great ideas come forward, amongst all the so-called "pissing" and "wars of words". Just to set the record straight on a couple of points. 1. I have never been involved in any "Geocaching Association" discussions at any venue, other than on-line here and in the Bozznet forums. No Tim Hortons' and no pub-nights (haven't been to one yet). 2. I consider myself a newbie, having been caching for a little over three months and I am certainly not insulted by the term, or even the implication that there might be more to know than I currently know. That is absolutely true. It doesn't mean that I cannot think, or have ideas, or lend support to viable causes. That is all I'm doing here. 3. I have never met BQ and also don't really know him from a hole in the ground. He was involved in the Bozznet discussions and from his posts, seemed like a reasonable guy to get things rolling. The only personal contact I have had with him is that he sent me a nice e-mail after I did a couple of his caches, which I thought was nice. I also sent him an e-mail, informing him that I had started this thread. I did not even consult with him ahead of time. He had obviously volunteered and a number of people had supported his nomination. I just wanted to get things going in a public forum. 4. The only people I have met who have commented in this thread are 1Short and TrimblesTrek; the former, I met on the trails and the latter at an event he hosted (the only event I have been to). 5. I agree that Cache-tech's work with government and other organizations on our behalf should not be interfered with. An organized cacher's association would help back those efforts, if and when he/she needed such backing. One of the things I liked about BQ in the Bozznet discussions is that he stated he would not want to deal with government officials. Since that is being dealt with in a proper way by cache-tech, I thought that was the perfect attitude. 6. The thread does not need to be closed. The initial reasons still stand. We (I and others who have posted here) just want to get some kind of organization started. Some things have been assumed by some people reading the thread and there seems to be some fear of cliques. Possibly a reasonable fear, but I don't really know any other geocachers very well and don't want to be involved in any clique. I do like the idea of having an organization associated with my hobby, as I have with many other hobbies. If the organization, whether started by BQ or GM or someone else entirely, sucks, I probably won't have much to do with it, or I might get involved and try to make some changes. 7. I like the idea that some have suggested, insofar as BQ and GM getting together and bringing some ideas to the table, if that is what they choose to do, however, I made a specific nomination, based on very little information, granted, but I still think it was a reasonable nomination and I stand by it. 8. I'm not sure why a live discussion, either virtual or real, would be a whole lot different than what is going on here, but I am not opposed to it either. As I said at the start, there have been a lot of discussions (I observed this as a newbie) yet no one seemed to be doing anything concrete, so I tried to do that by making a specific nomination, for a specific person and setting a specific date. 9. I suspect that most of the people commenting here are reasonable, intelligent people with great intentions. Let's focus on uniting those intentions, instead of separating them and getting into opposite corners. 10. I fully support the idea of a province-wide association and I like the name Ontario Geocaching Association. I'd love to see that SOGA logo reworked. 11. I learned years ago that in reading things on the internet, or in e-mail, that one must bring a very positive attitude to anything one reads. Read it as though the writer, like you, has the best of intentions and no underhanded motives. The reading will be much more pleasant and probably far more accurate. Anything can be read as accusatory or threatening or inflammatory or bossy, if that is how you choose to read it, or if you make assumptions. I don't know BQ or GM or Halden or any of the other nice people who have commented, but I am pretty sure they are all decent people. I LOVE geocaching and would like to see an organized front in Ontario, for all of the reasons others have mentioned. I love Ontario, too and would love to meet other cachers. Don't really want to cache with others, since I like doing the search on my own, or with my girlfriend. For what it is worth, I've noticed a geocaching chat room. I've also noticed that Bear & Ducky have posted a pub night for January 17th. Two places for more discussion, but as I said at the start, I've heard enough discussion. Let's do it.

I disagree entirely. We need to get it started, not sort out protocols. We DON'T need a half a dozen people meeting in Tim Horton's and deciding what to do. You have made it clear that you are interested in the political setup. You have not offered a single idea about what you feel the organization should stand for, should do, how it might be structured or anything. That is exactly my point. We could get bogged down in this debate forever and it is pointless. We are trying to proceed with something positive here and leave the negativity out of it. If it turns out that The Blue Quasar is an evil villain, trying to take over the world, via the sleepy geocaching community, we'll oust him. What really are your concerns? If the community decides to forego Roberts Rules, in lieu of good old-fashioned trust, what is the problem? Actually, I can... and I have. We are consulting all in the only available forum for doing so. This IS the plan of action and this IS the open floor, and you seem to be the only detractor, thus far. That's certainly okay with me. I did not expect everyone to agree with me. Nevertheless, I think it is a good way to go and I stand by it. I've seen no reason to feel otherwise. These discussions have been going on, in various formats, for months, and in some cases, according to you, for years. It was time for someone to step up to the plate and do something. Many people suggested The Blue Quasar and he agreed to take it on. Still, nothing was being done. I took it upon myself to open nominations, set a date and get things going. We all have a pretty good idea of what such an organization should stand for. Let's start building and iron out the minutiae later.

Okay, I've read it and here's what seemed pertinent to me: "When it is desired to form a permanent society, those interested in it should consult together and carefully lay their plans before calling a meeting to organize the society." That is what is going on here. That is the purpose of this thread. Not really sure what you mean here. I have never been to a meeting at Tim Horton's, so I don't know what that reference is about. As for not listening, I have carefully reviewed all the posts and have listened to all suggestions. Please be more specific about what you think is not being listened to. Several people suggested an all-Ontario name, rather than Southern Ontario. I listened. I agree. The discussion on forming an organization has been going on for some time and almost everyone who has posted here, so far, has been involved in those discussions. As for the mandate, I think J.A.R.S. covered it fairly well, with: That's a pretty good starting point. I absolutely encourage that. The more, the merrier. Let's just not get tied up in politics. Plenty of time for that, years down the road.

Just another quick note. I agree with those who have suggested that it be an Ontario group, rather than Southern Ontario. I just loved that logo! Perhaps TrimblesTrek will volunteer to rework it to suit a new name, once we decide upon one.

Just to clarify: I didn't suggest reading the Bozznet forums and the reason I didn't is that the forums are down right now. I put the link only to the logo, which I thought everyone would be able to see. If you can't, I apologize. I don't think we need a big meeting, until after some groundwork has been laid. The suggestion has been and continues to be, that The Blue Quasar is interested in doing this and that is what I support. I'm afraid if we get too bogged down in politics and over-organization, it won't get off the ground. I think this suggestion has some merit, further down the road, if people are interested in getting on board.

Since this topic has been discussed for some time, both here and on the Bozznet forums, let's formalize the nomination process a bit. First of all, there has been a proposal that our new organization be called Southern Ontario Geocaching Association. There is even a nifty logo, which you can view at the above link and which some people are already using. Are there any objections to proceeding with this name? Does the majority agree with its continued use? Secondly. there have been notes from Halden, Hard Oiler, Purple Fever and TrimblesTrek, nominating The Blue Quasar as our leader. The Blue Quasar has accepted these nominations and agreed to get the ball rolling. It should also be noted that when we went through the same process on the Bozznet forum discussions, we came to the same conclusion. The Blue Quasar should start the organization. So, what we need to know is: 1. Do you agree with the organization being called S.O.G.A.? 2. Do you agree with The Blue Quasar starting the organization? 3. Is there anyone else you feel should be nominated? 4. Is there a particular position or field of expertise you would like to nominate yourself or someone else for, once the organization starts getting organized. (This information can be tracked by the organizer, until he/she is ready to start asking for assistance.) 5. What shall we call our "Leader/Organizer"? Let's discuss this for two weeks (given that it is such a busy time of the year, I've decided to keep the topic open for 2 weeks, rather than 1 as I originally planned), get a consensus and officially get our arganization started. Nominations are open and will be closed at midnight, on Friday, January 4th, 2004, at which time this topic will be closed and hopefully a new Geocaching Association will have been born, with a new leader. For what it is worth, I certainly agree with The Blue Quasar nomination and with the S.O.G.A. name and logo. I propose that we call our leader President.

Just noticing.

You can count me in for two. Sounds like fun. Not sure if you mentioned how many particpants showed up last year, but I suspect TrimblesTrek is right. You will probably have a lot more this year. In that regard, may I offer a couple of suggestions. You may want to start the actual events a little earlier, given the number of people and trying to stagger starts times, yet finish before it gets dark. I also think it might be prudent to avoid using cars, if possible. I have visions of hundreds of geocachers tying up local traffic, or worse yet, racing to get to caches and having collisions. Sounds like a fun Valentine date to me, though!