nobby.nobbs

This potentially good idea has been rushed and thrown out without enough thought or time. I'm sure that there will be many good or even great events but I fear that many will be little more than an excuse for another smilie and a new "maker" souvenir. for instance one listed as a flash mob that as a throwaway comment says if you have any interesting caches bring them along. Hardly making a big thing about excellence and improving the overall quality. Why are good ideas not developed properly? it would have been so easy to make the criteria for holding one a bit more stringent and allowed them to happen all over the summer. not let people publish one purely for the icon make them MAKE a good event. It's a shame.

I think that there might have been a selection process to decide who got the email, my non premium extra account got one but not many others did. It's an interesting idea for an event, will be interesting to see peoples interpretation of what makes an excellent cache. I thought about it but think that the short notice means I'd not have time to do it justice. Would be better during the summer to give the needed time. I thought they were trying to tell people not to just do a cache/event for the sake of it but to plan an excellent one. Hopefully they'll be cschers able to do it justice in the time available

Glad to see a thread about this great idea. An ideal opportunity to spread ideas throughout the community to improve cache quality and promote best practice. Slight issue though. Very few people received an email to let them know about the idea. Then we've only been given a two week period to hold the events. Those two weeks are about 4weeks away! A good event requires planning. An event that needs support of several people who can demonstrate great ideas needs time. Please can there not be a rethink and give us time to make great events otherwise it's going to be a farce. Basically a normal event with a souvenir.

Boba, the problem is that the GAGB, if they had to get involved, should have made attempts at local level. If the attempts had been made that someone on your forum claim, to inform and consult with the caching population then an approach could have been sorted that drew from the experience of many cachers who had permission from local wardens. It could even have been dealt with by those wardens discussing it with the one who had refused. Instead a decision was made to approach the headquarters of the MOD and speak to someone who has many more important things to do. Far easier for them to just say "banned" than to discuss minor points. By the failure to accept that you are a splinter minority group with no mandate to speak for anyone else and being too busy/arrogant to actually ask for people's opinion you escalated the issue. This cannot be allowed to continue. You do not, have not and very unlikely ever will speak for more than a small group of people. Yet there seems a complete disregard for this. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you do have the best negotiating team that could exist from all cachers. You're well meaning and do plenty of good work that goes unreported but you also do not acknowledge your limitations and blunder into problems of your own making.

Boba. Again thanks for that promise. Can I ask you also read the thread on the Facebook geocaching page as there are many different people commenting there.

Thank you boba for undertaking to raise it at the next meeting. Can I offer an analogy to maybe clarify things: If I was a headmaster of a school that had a thousand or so pupils. Would it be right for me to assume I spoke for all schools? To undertake national agreements with the government based on how I ran my school and my rules despite knowing many other heads disagreed with my policies?

I have said on the Facebook discussion that I am very aware of all the good work done by the committee. The problem is that the committee keep taking the blame for problems that have been passed on by the reviewers. Concentrate on the positive things that you do. Giving advice and support, cito and liaising with annoyed landowners. But. Cut out the caustic negative items. Ditch the guidelines which have been abused by the reviewers. Drop the list of agreements, it can easily be hosted separately. And most importantly. Stop doing the national agreements where you claim to represent the UK cachers. You are being a patsy for the reviewers. You took the blame for the acpo discussions. You're talking the blame for the mod discussions. Both of these came from the reviewers and by acting you assumed the mandate to speak for ALL UK cachers. That was spurious and a mistake. Please stop putting yourself in the firing line. It's also not fair to complain that people are complaining. You acted on their behalf without consultation and therefore have to accept their criticism.

I hope this doesn't come over as an axe grinding episode and does generate some thought from all sides. The GAGB does seem to have some faults that need addressing. The organisation states it represents all cachers in the UK, but really that's only because that's how it acts. Anyone challenging the validity of that claim is told to join, to form a rival group or to just be quiet. Whilst saying the above, scant regard is taken for the majority of cachers who are not members. Important topics and information is only ever put on their own forum or Facebook page, even the pinned topic on this site is rarely posted in. This is imposing and bullying. Cachers are being coerced at the moment to join an organisation that is not needed and comes up with flimsy arguments for it's existence. The old argument that it's there to negotiate the large agreements is also taking a hit. The track record of the last few negotiations is hardly anything to boast about. It's moral remit to negotiate for all UK cachers when it's membership is only a couple of percent of them is also questionable. The guidelines have long been abused as a set of rules being imposed on UK cachers who then cannot influence them without joining, or so they are told, because when were they last altered? It is not right that they set themselves up to be a UK national body with authority when they aren't and no time is taken to find out what the majority of cachers want. You cannot claim to have the remit to do this purely because people could join and in theory post. It is a thankless task being on the committee and I know you do lots of good work. However that does not excuse the above. I left the committee and the GAGB when I came to the conclusion that I was not comfortable with how things were and the direction of travel. Things need to change. Communion needs to be increased, with the views and opinions of the majority of cachers listened to and acted upon. You cannot continue to railroad the opinions and poor negotiation skills of a small minority onto the rest of us. If you represent us all canvas and listen to us all. The only alternative is to be honest and accept you are a small focus group not a national body. That's what you are right now, there is no legal, contractural or moral imperative for anyone to join you other than your own flimsy justification. It's up to you to change this.

Matt, I tried to negotiate the Royal Parks. The other two aren't / weren't mine, and it's up to those people to comment if they wish. Thanks Dave I was wondering, perhaps you can now answer my question from the other thread now. You , as the GAGB, stated that you informed and asked people for their input prior to these negotiations....where, because I was surprised to have no seen them in this or the Facebook geocaching page. Please don't say it was just in the GAGB page/forum.

What might be a more interesting answer, if by some miracle one from the GAGB comment in a uk geocaching forum that is open to all cachers, Who from the GAGB "negotiated" those failed agreements?

Interesting side issue. The GAGB posting linked to from the pinned thread talks about informing and canvassing done by them prior to negotiations commenced....I seem to have missed that. Or maybe the thread was here or on the geocaching facebook page and I just missed them both. Otherwise they informed very few people and canvassed an even smaller number...

Informed and lobbied? Ur definition appears different to mine. It's not been on Facebook general geocaching page or regional ones til the last few days. Informing and lobbying the scant few that visit the official gagb page doesn't really mean the same. Another rod for your own backs so that someone can be walter mitty again.

Can i just ask that others raise the issue with HMRC, at the end of the day the more people communicate a potential tax fraud the more likely it is that someone will look. It should be a simple matter for the authorities to check and the online form is simple to do, then they can look at the tax records to ensure that VAT is being paid. If at the end of all this they are paying tax and they have sneaked in a small increase in prices then the matter is moot, price rises are inevitable and a price for life was never going to be easy to honour. Jeremy et al have proved time and again that their customer service record is rubbish, they have always followed the treat the customers like mushrooms approach and we have let them because there are no real viable alternatives for our hobby. They know that no matter what they do we will continue to pay and continue to use their site, the most annoying thing is that after all this there will still be a long line of people waiting to shake Jeremy's hand and the hand of every lackey that arrives for the Mega event, the adulation of the person treating us in this manner means that he will continue to do so. It's like giving a chocolate treat to the dog that's having a big dump on your carpet. So tell the tax man, it's very easy, tell your friends and everyone else you meet to do the same and then consider how you will act when you see the man or his minions in a few weeks time.....

We can now only hope for a good result, the GAGB have a very difficult position and have again placed themselves in the firing line (no pun intended)like the negotiations with ACPO. National agreements are fraught with difficulties, what applies in one location rarely applies to another just down the road let alone 500 miles away, the committee have taken up the challenge to try and find some common ground, in doing so they have again risked attracting massive negative publicity for themselves. Damned if they do and damned if they don't. It would probably been far better to have had at least one of the reviewer team and maybe a couple of cachers who had experience with placing caches with permission already on MOD land as part of the negotiations. Saying all that we again are paying the price of people hiding behind the "adequate" permission guideline. I've no idea whether this has been due to caches appearing on MOD land without permission but there's more than a small chance that there have been, to assume that no one in the MOD or various armed forces is a cacher and would become aware of them was naive. Letterboxing is a far more littering hobby and is far more prolific, they have a couple of small advantages over geocaching, no international listing body and no national representative body for the MOD to contact and "negotiate" with to enforce a ban. We're victims of our own popularity, because we're now mainstream it's much easier to enforce a ban.

Probably because the person who wrote it doesn't really understand the real world.

And again I would point out that we're talking about caches that are broken beyond easy repair. Regardless of which, if any, listing site it's on it needs serious attention not washing your hands and leaving the litter for someone else to sort out.

Dave to cut to the chase. If you haven't seen actual evidence that GS are doing everything legitimately and above board then you do not know that it is purely a communication problem. On the assumption that you haven't then you shouldn't post in such an authoritative manner in your personal or reviewer account because there will be some that will take it as official news regardless. Personal opinion is all well and good but the lines are blurred and you should know better than to risk exposing yourself to criticism should what you said turn out to be wrong.

I would assume that you have not been privy to any inner thoughts of Jeremy and all regarding the actual circumstances because if you were and still speculated, as you are doing, about what the financial reasons are for Groundspeak to undertake this action then it would make your post pointless. Why speculate if you know and why speculate to provide excuses for the organisation if you don't know? regardless of how many times you say what you post under this name is personal people will obviously take it as a comment by a reviewer because the reviewers base much of their work on their own personality and with their intimate knowledge of the background work being taken by Groundspeak. It still stands that GS decided to take on the financial risk by changing the way we pay from $ to local currency. No one had complained and asked for it to change so they did a business model and decided that it was what they wanted, this business model would have included the increase in financial exposure due to the money markets. So GS has used it as a way to increase the cost so that they can claim a buffer zone for potential fluctuations. The adding on of VAT, if it is being collected and paid into the coffers of some government agency somewhere in the EU then why haven't they come forward and provided a simple VAT number to prove as such? At the moment it would appear that they have made up an excuse that they thought would make people shut up. Unfortunately people have called their bluff and their silence only adds to the circumstantial evidence that they aren't paying it. To think a major international company deciding on a whim to change their business practice and focus on a model that brings extra money into their bank regardless of how bad it looks and how annoyed it makes their customers. I'm sure I remember someone repeatedly making comments on several forums about a company doing this....

Dave, for someone who has repeatedly raved against the tyranny of Garmin and their attitude to cachers due to their business practices this is somewhat hypocritical. Groundspeak chose to make the transaction in local currency, we used to pay in $ and WE took the financial risk of fluctuating rates. So it is spurious to explain that they are being lovely to us to risk their profits. They have factored in a extra cushion already to cover themselves and it means that for a while if not for a long while they are going to be making extra. They have changed the wording from "continue to renew" to ensure that anyone who just renewed each year cannot keep their fixed price. If they are paying VAT in this country then let them show us their VAT number so that we know there is nothing underhand going on. If not then it certainly appears to be a cynical attempt to justify a jump in prices. It has been pointed out that the American market can effectively utilise the game slightly more due to a few different cache types that are not available outside the USA. Whilst a promise made ten years ago to never increase the prices was naive in the extreme, it was a promise none the less. The way that they have just changed that for everyone, except the USA, is what has caused the problem. We are back to the good old days when Jeremy played HIS game HIS way and to heck with anyone who didn't agree. The fact that our reviewers are supporting it is adding insult to injury, personal opinion or not you are the longest standing reviewer and are outspoken when the likes of Garmin treat the caching community with disdain and disrespect yet seem to support Groundspeak when they do the same. You can't have it both ways. If they need more money to make it a viable company then they should be honest and apply the price hike to the ENTIRE community and tell us that they are doing it. People might grumble a bit but would be happy to pay an increase to continue to enjoy the hobby.

@geo jedimeister. Thanks for your balanced well thought out reply. So if a firm puts up a sign saying "no irish" "no polish" etc it's not racism? Good to know that they can cite you as their defence. I was pointing out that they "might" be committing the offence as it would appear to be similar to the case that was on tv.

Heard an interesting thing on watchdog tonight, there is a case where a airline was charging English customers more than customers from other countries. The suggestion was that they are committing the offence of Indirect Racism.

Without specific examples it's very hard to comment. Why are they using a sock puppet? Probably because they want to be able to post needs archive on caches they feel need to be archived without having someone accuse them of being cache police. At the end of the day we all have the option to post a NA or NM log whenever we want and no one should be brow beaten into not doing so. There are some spoof or poorly chosen examples of both logs but they are nearly always easy to clear up by the reviewer and the CO, the vast majority are on caches that have fallen into disrepair and needs work doing on them. I've got a separate thread talking about cachers volunteering to clear up cache containers that have been abandoned by their owners and have subsequently been archived. This isn't cache policing or anything designed to upset people but as a way to help the hobby by removing the litter. In this case, if the people are placing these logs on caches that are in need of maintenance then I can't really see the problem, IF they are posting them out of spite or to cause trouble then I can see your issue. Someone has been planning this for a while as that account has been active since 2009 and vultures clean up dead carcases.

Deci. Couldn't be happier with your reply That scheme, assuming that we couldn't get enough people to volunteer just out of the goodness of their heart, would be great I'm certainly happy to be the volunteer for the new forest. I'm not associated with the GAGB at the moment so would be grateful if you'd suggest it to them. It's such a shame that Groundspeak as a whole wouldn't consider this as a sensible idea to adopt worldwide. With 2million listed caches there must be hundreds of thousands of abandoned boxes out there. I wonder if the powers that be might be amenable to the suggestion? Thanks for being willing to express your personal opinion, never easy when some people jump all over the reviewers at every excuse.

No one expects any action off the Police, other than recording a Crime which has taken place. This was advice actually given by a Police Officer, when a query was made to them. By creating a report, you create a History, for future reference.If we take the average value to be around £3, there is one Group who openly admit on the cache page, that they have trashed and stolen caches. who if you take into account the value of the Trackables they also have acknowledged stealing. To have taken property to at least the value of £500, possibly more. The creation of a Official History of all their thefts, if they are ever caught, means instead of being chargeable with theft to the value of £3, there is a history of their actions to point to. And no one is saying to report every missing cache, just those where there is clear evidence, that it has been stolen. If you have personally not been targeted by the Group referenced above, you are one of the lucky ones. Others have had a number of their caches stolen, and the group admitting this on the cache page. Several have lost property, with a value over £100, due to the number of caches they own, having been stolen. Deci Deci, Thanks for interacting with this thread for a second time but I really really would like an opinion from the reviewers of this idea which is intended to make official a way of helping the reviewers and other cachers and do so with the blessing of the reviewers and maybe Groundspeak without everyone being worried about being reported for a crime that they aren't committing. I know that there have been times that idiots have said that they are stealing caches...we've covered that actions undertaken within this idea isn't theft and is completely different from those instances where they've taken and destroyed perfectly good caches with property enclosed. This is for broken caches that are not fit for purpose anymore. Those that will need replacing or archiving by people that enjoy the hobby and want to make it better not mindless vandals and petty criminals. So I'd be very grateful if you could just have a quick chat when you have the time and give an opinion on this thanks

So we've established that it's not theft. We've established that we're talking about broken boxes near your home that you're willing to take home and either replace or get to the owner. What we haven't got is any thoughts from the reviewers regarding the idea. If it was accepted good practice for cachers to do this locally to them it would reduce the work for reviewers by not having to post needs archive emails or archiving containers discarded by people no longer caching or too busy lording it up to maintain them whilst knowing it's become litter.