scoutboy

The Geocaching to Promote Scouting course at the Philmont Training Center will be offered June 6 - 12, 2010. This is a wonderful course for those that want hands on instruction and experience on how to use Geocaching to promote recruiting and retention, advancement and public relations. If you cannot attend, pass this on to anyone that might enjoy a trip to Philmont and have a great time while there. To get more information go to http://www.Geoscouting.com/introduction.html#PTC

We have returned from Florida Seabase after having a great time putting on the Geocaching to Promote Scouting class in the Florida Keys. We setup a few themed games including "Pirates Booty" which had the participants finding Florida Seabase facts from around the campus. This info allowed them to cypher out the coordinates for the Final Treasure, arrrrgh! The next course is set for Philmont Training Center in Cimarron, NM. The dates are July 19 - 25, 2009. It will be a fun time in the Rockies of Northern New Mexico. If you are interested in knowing how to use Geocaching to spark new interest in your Scouting youth group, you need to attend this conference. You can get more info on the course at geoscouting.com -scoutboy

I did something like this with my wife on our wedding anniversary about three years ago. What I did was find a cache in the local area and printed the cache page to a acrobat pdf file. I then used Acrobat to edit the text description, coords, and hint. I even typed the hint in ROT13 encryption. I then used Photoshop to clean up things like maps. (I suppose you could do the same thing by just printscreen the cache page window to a graphic file on disk, then use your favorite graphic package, like Photoshop, to modify it) I then printed out the mock up of the cache page. Brought it to her as a cache that we should go find. She grabbed her GPSr and began to enter in the coordinates. We made it to the cache location and she decoded the hint and turned to me with a smile. After the find, she opened the ammo box to release her gift. It was awesome and very private. good luck

All Orders as of this morning have been shipped. Thanks for your support.

We have just put up a few LE GOLD versions of our Cache to Eagle coin. Satin Gold Shiny Gold These look pretty good! These shouldn't last too long! Thanks for your interest -scoutboy www.geoscouting.com

I agree that this would be an awesome application. I believe it would have a broad application to any private group that wants to put up a private set of geocaches that are restricted to a groups membership and that have a set of process rules for access to them. This could be Scouting (girl and boy), church property, parks, conference centers, hotels, resorts and the like. Basically anyone that has a bunch of private land that they would like to have populated with private caches. This could be a perfect project for Groundspeak if there could be developed a business model that would support it. Maybe a small maintenance fee could support the effort it might take to create the security front end. Wouldn't it require a moderator or admin to authorize membership and monitor usage. This is very similar to restricted forums or groups I presume. We would need to come up with a security model for it however. What would be the rules and needed features?

A new Leader Training Conference has been scheduled this January at the Fabulous Florida Seabase. We will be teaching the Geocaching to Promote Scouting course at Florida Seabase during the week of January 11 to January 17th, 2009. This will be the same course we started at Philmont Training Center, but set in the warm climes of the Florida Keys. Come and have some FUN IN THE SUN! For more details and to download an application go to geoscouting.com Let's go geoscouting! -scoutboy

I am slowly working on the California County Challenge and use Delorme Street Atlas USA 2008. I load my PQ into Delorme and turn on the County Borders layer and the map shows me exactly which caches are in which counties. Some are right on county lines so may be a bit difficult to tell which county it is in, however we just find a cache that is definitely within the county. BTW to get my PQ into Delorme format I use GSAK to export the PQ to Delorme.txt format. It works slick! I use Delorme SAUSA for all of my cache street maps and TOPO! NatGeo for my Topo trail maps. Occasionally I use Geobuddy for importing park and open space maps that I want to plot waypoints onto.

The first shipments just went out yesterday! A few more are leaving today! Thank you for your interest! happy trails! -scoutboy

Wow! This has taken a long time but we finally have these coins available. We have had a very busy summer with Scouting Leadership Courses and a 110 mile Philmont trek thown in, we have had barely time to get these coins ready for sale. Anyway they turned out quite nicely and think they will go quickly. It also has a custom icon We hope you like them. All proceeds from these coin sales go to support our Geoscouting efforts.

What would be the requirements? Would you need to be able to approve or limit the people that could look for your caches on Scout property? Or would all people approved to look at Scouting caches be able to search your listings? I believe there is a need for an application like this and would like to explore this further.

We are trying to get them done by Geowoodstock. However, it seems there are many coins trying to do the same thing. So the pipeline may be a bit slow. However, we should have these by June at the latest. More details early next week.

We are waiting for samples to see how the color scheme works out in practice. I believe it will be good the way it is. We are considering both Soft and Hard enamals. We may end up with a soft enamel with an epoxy coating and a couple of hard enamal finishes. We are going to try to keep these at a reasonable price so stay tuned. The custom icon will be the front side round image of the Eagle over Flag.

We are aware of the licensing requirements of the BSA. That is why we have not used any BSA trademarks. We are free of any licensing charges with this coin. We work very closely with BSA national and they love our program and have asked us to add it to their supplemental trainings, National Training Center cirriculum and other program Jamborees and seminars...

We are in the final stages of producing a geoscouting coin. I am posting the artwork as we have yet to receive our samples. It will be trackable with a custom icon. Let me know what you think? -scoutboy

I have posted this article to our geoscouting.com website. We are pleased with the outcome. It was a blast showing them around some of the Marin County's caches.

There is great momentum with Geocaching within the BSA. Brawny Bear mentioned the Philmont course. All Scouters interested in how to use geocaching to promote scouting should try to attend this course. You can get more info at www.geoscouting.com. Also take a peek at the forum where Scouters share ideas about their geocaching experiences. It has taken a few years but the decision makers at National are beginning to understand how geocaching can be an exciting new program item that enhances recruiting, retention and public relations.. I also believe there is going to be a Philmont adult leadership course piloted in September which has a half a day of geocaching built into it. Look at www.philmontleadershipchallenge.org for more info. Happy trails

You can find the Cache to Eagle series description at www.geoscouting.com. Once you put a series you can post your series links to the Cache to Eagle database in the Geoscouting forum Let's go geoscouting! -scoutboy

This may be related to the other date issues that seem to be popping up on cache page listings. However, if this is an intended feature, I don't like it. It make logging caches take an extra step that I was used to not having to take. Whaaaa! Bring back the way it was!

FYI - Since this thread is moving a bit off topic, both the Salt Marsh and the Elvis caches referred to in the OP have been purged of the vigilante attack logs to clean them up for future happyness. So they no longer contain the history trail that explains this thread origination. I am disappointed to hear the Gen Santa Ana 2 has struck in the Sacramento area as well! Can't we just get along! Let's go geocaching!

The violated guideline in question would be: Caches that deface public or private property, whether a natural or man-made object, in order to provide a hiding place, a clue or a logging method. In the case of the Elvis cache, extensive permission was obtained from the Mayor and the public maintenance dept. The screws that were used to attach the container to the public pavilion were even provided by the town's maintenance department. The screws were used to attach the container to a bench that is part of this pavilion. I agree that if these steps were mentioned in the cache description it might have prevented this mis-understanding. What kind of ramifications does this have on all the caches that are placed with less than this kind of effort to obtain permission to place caches in a public setting?

A reviewer has no need to conceal his actions. It is part of his job to archive non conforming caches. Read the guidelines and hide caches that don't violate them. I agree with you about we should always try to understand the guidelines and adhere to them. But if someone believes you have not received permission to place a hide when in fact you have permission and then take it upon themselve to steal the cache container to take it out of action, this seems to violate the spirit of the sport!

Back in March 2007 I placed a new hide that involved a container fitted into a pipe set just off a popular bike path in a urban park area. Around June a new user, Gen Santa Ana 2, appeared and began a campaign to archive my cache, “Salt Marsh” GC11P2C, http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...=y&decrypt= down because it violated the hiding guidelines that Geocaching.com put forward. After some time of following a similar situation with the “Sage One” thread in this Forum, I formulated my opinion that in fact I had mis-interpreted the guidelines and finally reformed my cache container to strictly adhere to the guidelines. This elicited several comments and discussion in the cache page logs regarding the cache and some harsh feeling towards Gen Santa Ana 2 tactics. In my case, Gen Santa Ana 2 was correct in the end, however I did not approve of the tactic used to bring this to my attention. I do not think the public logs are an appropriate forum to wage this battle. Just recently Gen Santa Ana 2 struck again. This user chose to attack another local cache, Elvis Meets the Music Man GC1237Q, http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...d4-e4acb67978a4 accusing the cache of defacing public or private property which is not allowed. Since then it seems the cache has gone missing! I am curious of other experience with like tactics of Vigilante Guideline Enforcement? Is this something that is sanctioned by Goecaching.com? Is Gen Santa Ana 2 a reviewer using a pseudonym to conceal their actions? What do you think would be the appropriate action to such attacks? If this continues I will get very discouraged about our sport!

There is some event planning information that might be useful at http://www.geoscouting.com/resources.html

The Geocaching to Promote Scouting week long course was held last week and it was a great experience for 25 Scouters from around the country. If you are interested in seeing the slideshow from the course got to http://www.geoscouting.com/introduction.html You can also share your ideas and the discussions of the participants at the forum. http://www.geoscouting.com/resources.html#forum