chuffer

1st find 20th Jan 2002 100th find 6th May 2006 1567 Days and still going weak Fun init!

Geocaching for us has always been about the location. Whether the cache is virtual, puzzle, micro, or whatever, it has never been the reason for visiting or not visiting a cache. Removal of these types of caches will simply means there will be less caches to visit and some locations that will never be listable. Very sad. What a pity there is no alternative UK specific site for geocaching... but, of course, that could change.

Yep. Have been using it for about 6 months. Got to be the best priced PDA on the market at the mo. I am using it with Fugawi cabled up to my vista. Battery life is superb. Slight problem in that I haven't been able to up/download waypoints or routes from vista -> Axim as yet.

Please don't under estimate the amount of time and work needed to organise an event of this type. The 2002 Great Yorkshire Cache Hunt took several months planning and many many man-hours (man-days) to crganise and resulted in me having a touch of "geocaching burnout". At the end of the event there was no doubt everyone enjoyed it, but, there was some concern, on my part anyway, that the amount of effort required to organise it was possibly too great compared to the number of participants. The format, for those who did not attend, was ... There were 28ish caches all varying in difficulty and accessibilty. The caches were awarded a score based on these factors. There was no way all the caches could be completed within the rough time limit given to participants and therefore they had to choose which caches to do prior to setting off. They could choose to do lots of easy ones or a handful of hard ones and both would score the same. It worked fairly well and and made it more of a hunt than a race. There were several problems, (organiser with dodgy gps for instance ) but most were overcome fairly easily. We did find that there was probably a limit to the number of participants that could enter, due to the fact that it was necessary to stagger the start at 10min intervals. This meant we could only set off 6-10 teams per hour. Chris

Whilst not wanting to put a downer on what is an excellent idea..... Running the event as a race will probably invalidate all participants car insurance policies. Chris

According to the Travel Bug Football thread the rules are at.. http://81.2.66.58/thoughtbubble/threaddetails.asp?lngtextid=28 Looks like a foul to me...

Great site... Keep up the good work. I know you probably couldn't care less, but, it isn't rendering well in a non IE browser. Chris

It would seem to me that these type of multipart caches are a considerable variation from the the standard style of normal (or virtual) caches and as such would perhaps benefit from being listed seperately from the 'standards'. Most of these multipart caches require the cacher to spend considerable time and effort completing them and are verging on being a permanent 'event'. Maybe they need their own slightly different form of listing and logging procedure ?

It would be good to know if there was any development on this front.

quote:This is opinion only as well, but I'm not sure the argument is argument is that valid. For example, on the recent and highly succesful Great Yorkshire cache hunt each cache counted as an individual one and all were done on a single day. ----------------- el10t _mobilis in mobili_ To clarify... The individual logging of caches at the GYCH was due, in part, to unclear wording within the original cache page which meant that cachers visiting the event could log their visit even if they did not take part in the actual competition. In retrospect this was perhaps the incorrect procedure and should not be used as a precedent for future events or multiple type caches.

The original message in this thread (which I was able to read before it was censored) contained no advertising and did not need to be censored.

Whilst most cachers may believe there is possibly no great concern at the moment about caches being placed without permission, my worry is that with the current rate of growth of cache placements (5 fold in one year?) by next year there could be several thousand caches in the UK. When it comes to the sudden attention any one of the major land owners that there are several hundred caches on their land without request or permission, it is quite likely that their knee jerk reaction will be to take immediate action to have them removed. Not only would this devastate Geocaching in the UK it would be a seriously bad PR excersise for the sport and may also be an invitation for other landowners to follow in step. Surely it is time to bite the bullet and make the approaches, sticking our heads in the sand will only work for so long. Should it be decided to approach landowners... there is then the problem of who will contact them. There is no official body for the sport in the UK. In fact the sport is a collection of people who (in general) hide behind obscure annoynmous usernames... not exactly an ideal negotiating team! Chris More On a seperate, but not unrelated point.. I prefer the term 'placing a cache' to 'planting a cache', it describes the action in less dramatic terms.

Whilst most cachers may believe there is possibly no great concern at the moment about caches being placed without permission, my worry is that with the current rate of growth of cache placements (5 fold in one year?) by next year there could be several thousand caches in the UK. When it comes to the sudden attention any one of the major land owners that there are several hundred caches on their land without request or permission, it is quite likely that their knee jerk reaction will be to take immediate action to have them removed. Not only would this devastate Geocaching in the UK it would be a seriously bad PR excersise for the sport and may also be an invitation for other landowners to follow in step. Surely it is time to bite the bullet and make the approaches, sticking our heads in the sand will only work for so long. Should it be decided to approach landowners... there is then the problem of who will contact them. There is no official body for the sport in the UK. In fact the sport is a collection of people who (in general) hide behind obscure annoynmous usernames... not exactly an ideal negotiating team! Chris More On a seperate, but not unrelated point.. I prefer the term 'placing a cache' to 'planting a cache', it describes the action in less dramatic terms.

Hmmm... Could you be refering to bandwidth, not disk space. Chris

Most of the Caches in the Great Yorkshire Cache Hunt were placed on forestry commission land and I thought it wise to ask if there would be any problems placing caches within the area we were working for the event. The reply I recieved read..... "I need to know certainly within 100 yards the location of any cache on Forestry Commission property in the area so that I can advise if you if disturbance is a problem. This is a particular concern for birds scheduled under section 1 of the wildlife and countryside act where there are heavy penalties for 'reckless' disturbance." The Forestry Commision contact I was working with was extremely helpful and even visited us at the event start area to have a chat on the day of the event. There seemed to be no problems with Forestry Commision land as all the caches were approved. What HAS become clear to me is that there is insufficient guidance available on Geocaching.com (or any other sites) on where you can or can't place caches. It would seem to me that there should be an official UKgeocaching group formed with the intentions of approaching major land owners, legal bodies and the such in order to get clear guidelines on how to get caches approved on public/private land, footpaths, river banks and the like. Such a group could also arrange public liabilty insurance for events under its umbrella. Chris More

quote:Originally posted by dylanhayes: If anybody wishes to upgrade Blacky Topping by adding a logbook Its OK guys, Postie has already sorted Blakey Topping out for me and it is now upgraded to full cache status.

quote:Originally posted by dylanhayes: If anybody wishes to upgrade Blacky Topping by adding a logbook Its OK guys, Postie has already sorted Blakey Topping out for me and it is now upgraded to full cache status.

Other legal thingies I found out whilst working on the GYCH .... The Wildlife and Countryside act... There are heavy penalties for just disturbing certain birds whilst nesting. Details Naturenet site Also, furtively planting caches near riverbanks can cause problems with water balifs following you around all day and reporting you to the police as suspected poachers !

Other legal thingies I found out whilst working on the GYCH .... The Wildlife and Countryside act... There are heavy penalties for just disturbing certain birds whilst nesting. Details Naturenet site Also, furtively planting caches near riverbanks can cause problems with water balifs following you around all day and reporting you to the police as suspected poachers !

Thanks for your comments.... and just how you managed to get to within 0.2 mile of the Barns Cliff Bonus cache in your car leaves me stunned with admiration! The main problem we have with upgrading most of the caches to permanent status is that because the event was anticipated to attract a large quantity of cachers in a short period of time we felt it appropriate to get the caches authourised officialy with Forest Enterprise. During this process we advised Forest Enterprise that the caches would be removed immediately after the event. We are therefore duty bound to honour this agreement. Chris

Thanks for your comments.... and just how you managed to get to within 0.2 mile of the Barns Cliff Bonus cache in your car leaves me stunned with admiration! The main problem we have with upgrading most of the caches to permanent status is that because the event was anticipated to attract a large quantity of cachers in a short period of time we felt it appropriate to get the caches authourised officialy with Forest Enterprise. During this process we advised Forest Enterprise that the caches would be removed immediately after the event. We are therefore duty bound to honour this agreement. Chris

Well done everyone Thanks to all the GYCH entrants for taking a day out to come and see the North Yorks countryside. The day left us with some superb memories... and it would be nice to think that this type of event will happen again in the near future. I certainly enjoyed helping organise the event and it appeared that all the entrants seemed to think it was good fun. I see Dylan has posted some pictures on the cache page, including one of the ellusive (or possibly non-existant) "Mushroom" cache. Also one of the Cows Heads which seemed particularly difficult for the over 12's. Chris

Well done everyone Thanks to all the GYCH entrants for taking a day out to come and see the North Yorks countryside. The day left us with some superb memories... and it would be nice to think that this type of event will happen again in the near future. I certainly enjoyed helping organise the event and it appeared that all the entrants seemed to think it was good fun. I see Dylan has posted some pictures on the cache page, including one of the ellusive (or possibly non-existant) "Mushroom" cache. Also one of the Cows Heads which seemed particularly difficult for the over 12's. Chris

The early starters should be returning from around 4:30pm onwards depending on various factors. Everyone should have returned by 6:30pm - 7:00pm Chris

The early starters should be returning from around 4:30pm onwards depending on various factors. Everyone should have returned by 6:30pm - 7:00pm Chris