TeamSpaz

You hit it on the button! I don't want to sound TOO official, lest people think I am trying to impersonate a moderator. I also don't want people to think I am telling them what to do. I am only contacting the CO's and TB owners as a courtesy. I figure what ever they want to do about it is fine with me. Any suggestions on how this note can be worded better would be appreciated. Less official.... Hi, I am Geospaz and I was looking for travel bugs to move along today and noticed that your TB TBXXXX has gone missing. Just to let you know, there is an easy way to mark your trackable as missing. Just go to http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?p...page&id=152 and follow the instructions. I'm trying to let people know how to mark trackables as missing so that cachers won't be disappointed when they go to find trackables and there aren't any. If you got this email before, I'm sorry. I wasn't keeping track of the emails I sent but now I am. Thanks Geospaz Much less official. (I was even going to suggest a misspelled word) Hi, I am JoeSpaz and I was looking for Travel Bugs and Geocoins to move along today. It seemed that the trackable(s) listed below were missing from the cache that they are listed in. TBXXXX (visit link) GCYYYY (visit link) Just to let you know, if you wish there is an easy way to mark the trackable as missing. Just go to http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?p...page&id=152 and follow the instructions. I'm trying to let people know how to mark trackables as missing so that cachers won't be disappointed when they go to find trackables and there aren't any. If you got this email before, I'm sorry. I wasn't keeping track of the emails I sent but now I am. Thanks Joespaz This format would allow me to continue easily pasting in the info that they need. Does this still sound okay? Your link doesn't work. I'll make sure to include working links in any actual emails I send. So I am done sending emails until my event is over next week. So far I have checked the 2,000 caches nearest my house for missing Trackables. I have sent over 150 notices out to the CO's and the TB owners. I have been getting about a 50% response rate. That seems awesome to me. What should I do if people take no action? Is there a way Geocaching can remove missing items? Should I send them a list every two weeks of Trackables that never get removed by the CO or TB owner?

Now it's 2005....any new opinions on this subject???

I just joined as a memeber to. I hope the money helps fix any problems at the site.

Hey everyone, We had a great time at the F.A.M.E. event tonight. Thanks to every one who came. The next F.A.M.E. event will be August 22nd from 5-9pm, at the "Highway 84 TB Hotel" cache. We will continue to meet there on the 4th Sunday of every month, and I hope more of you local cachers will stop in and join us. Thnaks again...and please let us know of any events that you plan so we can try to attend.

Well it looks like someone has beat WOW to the punch. The "Chessy Cache"? has been archived. I would be willing to adopt caches in my area if there are any that need it. (Of course I need to get out there and fix a few of my own first.)

Does anyone else out there have new ideas on what an acceptable CITO event should be? I am looking for things other than the traditional "Let's all meet here and pickup trash on this day."

I always say it as sit oh

The event went of well. We had about 20 people stop by. I have arranged to have a monthly get-together here from now on. I will let word of mouth be my main advertising tecquine from now on. I hope people from the area and out of town visitors will have time to stop by occassionally. Thanks for everyones input.

I have talked to quite a few people and they all agree that each new event date should have its own GC number. I have gotten permission from the area approver to make that happen. So I will look forward to seeing some of the SF Bay Area cachers stopping by, and maybe even some out of town visitors too.

The event is back on. It doesn't seem to be getting much response, but it is a new style event, so it may take time to build. I started a forum thread about it awhile back. WhipArtist is right she didn't name names. Let's not start dragging her around and whipping her in public either. gc.com did warn me, so there must be something to the thought that tese emails were wrong. Therefore I have agreed not to do them any more. So my question now is: What would have been o.k.? Emails to the attendee's of my last event? Emails to people I have met? Emails to my geocaching friends? What about an Email to my brother, through the gc.com website? Emails to people who have contacted me through gc.com? (I have dozens of those) Just curious????

Yesterday I was checking on a couple of my new caches along a flood controol levy. This lady was tossing her dog a ball into the river. The dog would usually retrieve it. Sometimes it wouldn't. So the lady....She pulls another ball out of her pocket and throws it into the river. DOH!!! I did head down stream later but I couldn't find any of the floting trash.

I wish I had seen these response before I sent out my emails. I did get asked by gc.com to stop, and I will. I didn't know that people would mind. In fact most people were glad to get the email. But I guess this is America and we do have to try and protect the minority. I will not be advertising my events by sending out emails again nonetheless. But back to my actual question.... What do you guys think about having an event that reoccours. Every 3 months lets say. I would change the date after the first time. Then reschedule, using the same GC number. People that participated the next time could log a find even if they had already logged a find before. Please let me know what you think. (As the owner of this thread aren't I supposed to get notice of posted responces?)

I still don't think it was "spam." The list of things that aren't suppose to be sent is longer than just "spam." I do agree that it may have been wrong to send the emails. That is why I told gc.com that I won't do it again. My question is what is allowed. If I had only sent it to cachers that I have met, and then addressed them by name would it be o.k.? What if I only sent it out to people who attened my last event? what if I invited people that had been to my caches? Was it the length of the email that was the problem? Should I have jsut said "I am planning an event soon, let me know if you want details."? So many questions, and all I wanted to do was clean up some parks and have some fun. Well it is all a mute point now. I have canceled the event. No one said they were coming, and I made some people mad. Oh well....maybe next time I'll do better. (But it will be quite awhile before I try again.)

I think it is a little too late. You know part of the reason that I sent out emails is because of some of the problems this event has been through. It was originally planned for CITO weekend, but didn't get approved early enough for me to get everything in place, so I ended up postponing. Then I posted a note with a possible date, but posted a Sept. date as a temp until I could get the May date approved. Next thing I know the event was no longer listed. It took me a few weeks to get it listed again, then I am sure tons of people were confused. Even if I hadn't taken the time to look up 300 peoples profiles so I could email them I would have still sent this notice to WhipArtist and Marky. These are two of the nicest people I have met in a long time. The fact that they were annoyed makes me worry about how upset some of the people who were strangers to me must feel. I am thinking I should just cancel the event once and for all. It appears that no one is going to be able to make it anyhow. I will just release the new "CITO caches" a bit at a time. Oh well I tried.

Lastly off, some of my thoughts: I really was just trying to be nice. I have gotten lucky and met some fellow cachers, so I was told of the last local event hosted by BADGES, otherwise I could have easily missed it. I thought by sending this email to a bunch of people it would help to make sure people knew about it. I did have to go through a big hassle to eamil each person, there was only one email sent at a time. I did copy and paste the same message and I didn't know everyone that I was sending emails too. I did send a couple of different versions, one to people who had visited local caches, one to people who had been to an event I went to in Reno, and one to each of the owners of caches I had visited. I am really surprised that WhipArtist( who I have met) and Marky (who I consider my geocaching mentor) would take offense. This was definately not my intention. I have put more time in to sending the emails (about 4 hours) then it would take for anyone to read it. I also have put dozens of hours into preping this event. It appears that it has all been wasted time, because even after sending the 300 emails I have not gotten EVEN ONE "I will attend" response yet. I thought that geocaching was going to be different than when I worked with a local dart league. There I would plan big event, call people, send emails, make flyers, etc and the people loved attending. (They of course were a bunch of jerks and teated you like it.) Here I am trying to do something new, different, and fun and some people want to take offense. (But these people are all nice folk, I know because I have met them before.) I don't know what to do....I am at a loss. Maybe this is some kinda message from above. I have been spending too much time playing this game, and trying too hard to do for others. You can bet this will be the last event I host for awhile. ONCE AGAIN, I AM SORRY IF I MADE ANYONE MAD. I WAS JUST TRYING TO DO SOMETHING FUN. THANKS FOR ALL YOUR COMMENTS, AND....(if someone wants me to plan an event in there area let me know, maybe it will be more appreciated.....jk....kinda.)

Third off, my response: Thanks for the warning. I didn't know this would be a problem. I was including a note asking people if they wanted to be added to a mailing list for future events, and also asking if they didn't want to be contacted anymore. I guess this will be the last time I do it this way. Hopefully the word of mouth will do the trick. I never seem to look farther than about 10 miles from my house when I check the site. So I would not know if there was an event going on somewhere else. Once again thanks for the heads up, I hope I didn't bother anyone too much. Cya, JoeSpaz

Second off, an email I got from Groundspeak: Hi TeamSpaz It has come to our attention that you are sending unsolicited emails to geocachers through the website. Please respect our user's privacy and do not send these emails - we consider it abuse of the site. Drumming up interest in your events or organization will take a little time. Eventually you'll have a good following and will not need to resort to this type of advertising. You'll have great success by throwing great events and word of mouth will draw a crowd. If you like you can edit your event description to request users send you their email address to be informed of future events. Thanks very much for your cooperation. Happy Geocaching! Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. Nate Groundspeak - The Language of Location

First off, here is the complete email I sent: Hi there, TeamSpaz has decided to try it again. We will be hosting our 2nd event on May 16th, 2004 from 5pm - 10pm. We have arranged with the owner of PIZZA ITALIA to have all you can eat pizza for ONLY $6 each adult and $4 for children 12 and under. This event is called the "F.A.M.E." CacheIn - TrashOut Event.(http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=f2255a6c-2339-4895 -aac1-0f6ec3ff06b2) The idea behind this event is for a bunch of us to CITO on the same weekend, and therefore clean up some of the local parks. We have hidden 8 - 10 NEW "CITO caches" around the East Bay. We hope that these will be convenient, easy to find, caches that will provide a simple way to CITO a park near you. These caches have been filled with CITO kits. Each of these caches has been placed in an area that needs some cleanup or near the entrance to large regional parks. We have also hidden some neighboring caches to insure that you have some new ones to visit while you are doing your CITO. These neighboring caches range from micro to regular and from easy to hard. We hope this gives everyone something that they will like. We are very sorry that the co-ordinates for some of the "Happy Birthday JoeSpaz" series caches were off. Our whole team has double checked each of these new co-ordinates, to avoid it happening again. We are trying to arrange for all these caches to be approved at 5pm on Friday May 14th. Of course they may be approved at a slightly different time. Please check out the web-site (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=f2255a6c-2339-4895-aac1-0f6ec3ff06b2) for more event info and information on the new neighboring caches. If, possible, post a reply to the event page and let me know if you can attend, so I can give the restaurant owner an anticipated number. BTW, we are sending this email out to those of you who visited caches in our area. If you would like to get future notifications of our events please send us your actual email address. Likewise, if you know of someone else who might want to be added to our contact list, email us back with their information. It'll be easier than retrieving it from their profile page. If you'd rather not get these notifications, just let us know. We hope you can all make it to the "F.A.M.E." CacheIn - TrashOut Event on May 16th! TeamSpaz p.s. If you would like to participate but this schedule doesn't work for you, please let us know...we can be flexible.

I am going to begin advertising my new CITO event today. I will be sending out emails to people who have visited nearby caches. What do all of you think about having the same event every 3-4 months? I would leave the GC# the same and just change the date. A "find" could be logged each time someone participated. Just an idea. Hope some of you can attend. Thanks

My event got approved, but I am going to have to change the date. There is more preperation needed than I thought so I am asking to get it pushed back till May 16th. You can visit the site if you wish. (GCHY6P) Wish me luck in my venture. Maybe if it is successful I should hold it every three months. Thanks for all the input.

I think you should have used the geocacing.com web page at the bottom. I think one of the points of CITO is to let the public know that we geocachers are doing good out there too. But whatever you use it looks GREAT. Have fun!

Yipee, my event has gotten approval. Now the only problem is there is only two weeks left and I thought it wasn't going to get approved so I am not as ready as I need to be. Wish me luck!

Yes I think 3 bags of trash is the REAL spirit behind my idea. I don't think it is going to matter as I have yet to get any word about it's approval. Looks like they decided not to approve it. Oh well what can I do.

Hey Marky you are right...I don't need to be stuck on the 3 kit idead. I just wanted to make so it wasn't to easy for people. We can say "3 Kits" or "30 mins" either one would be ok. Would that be better do you think. My main problem here is why not at least let me try it and see how it goes. Until there is another event planned than IT IS BETTER THAN NOTHING. Thanks again for a good idea, JoeSpaz (TeamSpaz)

HERE IS MY LATEST VERSION OF WHAT I PROPOSE: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When: April 18th, 2004 Time: 5PM - ???(they close at 10PM) Why: To help the enviorment(and to have fun) Who: Geocachers (and their friends/family) What CacheIn-TrashOut some local parks *********************************************************** Here is what you need to do: FIRST: Go to at least 3 of the cache sites on the following list: "Location One"(gcxxxx) "Another Place"(gcxxxx) "Ecetera ecetera"(gcxxxx) "Forth Cache"(gcxxxx) "Cinco Location"(gcxxxx) "Sex spot, I mean Six"(gcxxxx) "Seven/Eleven"(gcxxxx) "Octapus Cache"(gcxxxx) "Niner, Niner"(gcxxxx) "Ten Four Good Buddy"(gcxxxx) SECOND: Use one of the prepared CITO kits to Trash-Out the area. THIRD: Bring your empty CITO kits to the coordinates above at 5pm on Sunday. FORTH: Have Fun!!! *********************************************************** NOTE: We are open to suggestions for parks with or without current caches that need to be included in this CITO event.(Oakland to Milpitas only please) P.S. Anyone is welcone to join us for pizza, but you must turn in 3 CITO kits to log a find for this event. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IS THIS EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND?