Geo_cats

It won't be as high as 100 but definetely over 30 if the last outing was any measure. So you need to figure on at least 40. If you go to the POC website and count the heads in the group picture you will find over 30.

I would say we should reserve one of the $75 spots. Put Rikki and I down for a $25 contribution from Action Fax & Printer Service Action Webpage There will be the two of us.

Rikki and I are free for that date. We will contribute to reserving a space. How much are you looking at?

Thanks Bee for reminding me of this forum. I have been busy lately and just forgot. I have created the first Earthcache in this area, The Morros Earthcache and while I was at it a standard GC nearby, High Lowe Mountain. If you are into a good hike or mountain bike ride, check them out. <p> Today I finally made it to the top of the mountain I live on, Pine Mountain, and found it to be a nice hike, not as strenuous as described if you know the right way to get up there. <p> I'm all for another function. Count us in. Waller Park sounds nice. I've driven by it but never visited it.

I read of this today and it kinda goes along with something I've been thinking about. I'd like to make a SIG coin using wooden nickle blanks (about the size of a 50 cent piece) but haven't figured out a good way to put a color transfer on them. Anyone have an idea how to do this with not too much fuss and bother? I can either use a color inkjet or a color laser printer for the design. I have both types of printers.

Gosh, good job on the website!! Rikki and Alan wish POC and cachers everywhere a HAPPY THANKSGIVING. (With luck we'll be out cachin' a bit today.)

I played around with a few logos to display on the POC website. (I don't know if or how to display them here.) I think it'd be fun to have our logo on a geocache coin. If we keep the logo simple enough we could stamp them on wooden nickles. (I have a box of 'em to start with.) I've never had poison ivy or poison oak in my life and while we are charter members of Poison Oak Cachers, I don't want to change my record. Now we need a motto also. Did I hear someone at the picnic mention something about "itchin' to go caching"? I kinda like that. Or maybe We're itching and scratchin' to do some geocachin' Gosh, that even sounds like a lyric to a song. Maybe we could have a rousing club song!

Notice: We will be voting for a name at GCKNKE - What's Our Name Picnic Event on Nov. 7th. If you are interested in forming this local group, please plan to attend.

This name game is wacko but we're all for getting together again but let me suggest this. We've been thinking we'd like to have a North county venue. We've done SLO and So. county so it's our turn up here. If enough of you think this is a good idea, we'll put it together with the help of some of you and have a saturday or sunday picnic. We would be able to do this on Sept. 25th or 26th. Waddyathink?

As per Warren's email, I vote for Pacific Coast Cachers. Let's adopt this name and get on with planning some group activities.

Looks like the poll function is a feature that is not available yet. Rikki & I both think that is a good one also. Pacific Coast Cachers has a nice feel to it and definitely allows us room to grow.

I googled both 'Pacific Coast Cachers' and 'Pacific Coast Geocachers' and got no hits. Either these would be good and non-exclusive. I like them both. Of course we're going to be accused of hogging the entire coast but what the heck, we grabbed the name first.

In the meantime we could use something like this. Gyro Gearloose or What, me worry?

I agree with Adam. The confusion factor would be a big part of why I would not like to go with the CCCG title. I think we need to throw out a few more suggestions. 101GC - Highway 101 Geocachers 1GC - Highway 1 Geocachers The 9 Sisters The 9 Morros Any other suggestions?

I think the two names so close in meaning would be confusing. I would suggest that we put all the names back in the circle and a few others and kick this around abit. S.L.O.G.O.- San Luis Obispo Geocachers Organization G.O.S.L.O.- Geocachers Organization of San Luis Obispo S.L.U.G.O. – San Luis United Geocaching Organization C.C.C.C. – Central Coast Cachers’ Club C.C.C.C.C. – California Central Coast Cachers’ Club C.C.C.C.C.C. – Consolidated California Central Coast Cachers’ Club CC - Coastal Cacher's I don't think using SLO would be too limiting as anyone much north of SLO county would likely join the CCGC group and the only big area to draw more cachers from that is not in SLO county is Santa Maria. They could either live with the SLO designation or create their own group.

Tonight a good sized group attended the Let's Meet Again!by The WilderNESSes and Snow White & the Sleepy Dwarf geocahing event at Klondike Pizza in Arroyo Grande. While eating some excellent food and drink we decided on starting a local group named CCCG Central Coast Cachers Group. There were many fun discussions on favorite caches, great hikes and just getting to know each other. Alan & Rikki asked about a good location for a TB Hotel that has easy access and is large enough to hold a few TBs. I think it was Jay that suggested one on Highway 1 near the shooting range. Which cache is that? I couldn't identify it on-line. A list was started circulating to see if anyone wanted to go in on buying some of the California Geocoins. We only wanted to get a couple and if others wanted to get some we could place a larger order so to get the cost of coins + shipping down to about $2.50 each. If interested send me an email right away. The deadline is Wednesday this week. We might want to put together another Meet & Greet picnic later this fall in the North county. Anyone want to help Geo_cats put this together? A logo needs to be designed and agreed on. Anyone want to input their ideas? Adam mentioned that he had sources for a group/club coin once a logo is created. So far that is all the things I can think of for discussion. Feel free to make comments, add more discussion topics. Thanks to the WilderNESSes and Snow White & the Sleepy Dwarf for all their efforts to make tonights event a fun one.

Well, I'm not worried about that happening. Have you looked at the competition? Besides, a rating system on caches that only a handful would use, and the other handful would abuse isn't gonna be a deciding factor in the success of this site. Oh, yeah....that's funny! And how can you tell that only a handful would use a rating system? Because you wouldn't and everybody emulates you? Everyone I know who goes to the movies often will look at the critic's ratings even though they often disagree with the individual critics. Any rating is better than none. And none is what you have now unless you read all the logs before seeking a cache. And if whoever Jeremy is, I presume he is behind Groundspeak, he knows that if he waits until the competition is getting good, he may be too late. Ebay has a pretty good site and no close competitors. Do you think that they are sitting back and resting on their laurels? And as far as abuse of the rating system, if implemented well it would be minimal. I use eBay daily and find it's rating system very useful and mostly fair and unabused. I suggest to whoever it is that decides what to add for features to GC that they think of adding ratings to the executive membership. I know that would swing me to part with the extra dough. They could let new members have access to the ratings system for 30 or 60 days and then after that only with the executive membership. If people pay to get the ratings then I don't think anyone would complain about the uselessness of ratings.

I don't think Groundspeak/Geocache wants to just lay back and let the site eventually get surpassed and relagated to a has been site. All sites that are numero uno always have to be looking over their shoulder or someone else will build a better site and eat their lunch. (Remember Alata Vista or Lycos search engines?)

I fully agree with your sentiments. No one would be FORCED to rate a cache if they didn't want to. I compare a rating system for geocaches to one like is used for IMDS, the internet movie database website. I can choose to input my ratings or just browse what others have input. Movies are also a subjective thing to rate but I find the ratings quite useful. Seeing I don't go to horror movies, I don't rate them and don't care if one has a high rating or not because it doesn't matter. I don't go to horror movies. But adventure or comedies with high ratings I would more likely go see than ones that have consistantly low ratings. I recently had a few days in Minnesota and Wisconsin and did a bit of caching there but woud have loved a rating system to check out the best in the area. I didn't have the time, as some here would have me do, to locate a number of caches, see which ones I liked and contact a local cacher for his or her input. And yes, I spend as much time on the computer as I do out looking but I have neither the young feet and legs of a 20-30 year old nor do I have lots of time to spare on my weekends. I DO have time in the evenings to browse arond and maybe find some good caches I can do on my limited weekend time. So what would it hurt, to have a simple system to give a +, -, or neutral rating to one or two catagories, IF I wanted to, to give a simple rating score to the caches I visit. AND to KISS as one guy keeps saying over and over again, he doesn't have to rate it, and he doesn't have to read the rating. Is that simple enough?

I've seen several ideas that could work for ratings. I agree that ratings are subjective but it's like movie ratings, if 7 out of 10 people liked a particular movie, then I am much more likely to go see it than if only 2 out of 10. Plus if it is a horror movie and I like action movies, I don't care if 9 out of 10 liked it, I will probably skip it. Many of the naysayers above seem to think it's the trade items that count or they are only into it for the number of caches they can find. I think if the cache search led me to a great park, view, trail or area of natural beauty and the cache challenged me a bit and showed some thought in design and placement, I would like to let others know in a quick rating that, yes, this cache is worth going after. Or no, this was a waste of my time. And for out of towners with limited time, a way to find the best caches in an area would be godsend! I like the +1 or -1 rating as it would gradually push the excellent caches to the top and the mundane ones to the bottom. At a local (San Luis Obispo, CA) meet and greet we discussed this topic and one cacher told of some guy in Northern Calif. that put out 35 caches in one day! No regard to quality, just quantity. If I spent my time searching for junk like this I would be quite t'ed off. My wife and I have only placed one cache so far but judging from the comments in the logs and in person, we did good. If people do a good job in finding a good spot to hide a well designed cache, it should be noted and in an easier way than having to read the logs. I am all for a rating system, one that allows people to input their rating or not, as they choose. No one would be forced to rate a cache. No one forces you to sign a logbook or log your finds. That is a personal choice. The same could be said for ratings.

I haven't the experience that you have and have found most of the caches near us to be mostly close on their assessments of the terrain and dificulty so I can't comment much on the first part of your message. But I totally agree on the second part. In fact I had just sent an email to the Groundspeak people and they suggested I post my thoughts in the on-line forums. The following is the message I sent regarding rating caches on beauty/enjoyment/uniqueness. I would love to see something like the way I can rate products on Amazon or movies at imdb - Internet Movie Database. Hi, we just attended the San Luis Obispo County Cachers Meet-n-Greet Picnic and had some good discussions. One thing discussed and which had high agreement was this. Many of us are into quality geocaching, not quantity, and would love to see added to Geocaching.com a way to rate caches found. We picture a way to rate the particular cache experience for quality. Such as: view, uniqueness of cache and it's hiding place, the hike in, or the drive to the site. We would picture it being a 1-5 star rating upon logging the site. This would be very helpful to out of town geocachers to help them find the quality spots and ignore the mundane or lesser quality caches. I know the ratings can be somewhat subjective but if 10 people have visited a cache and it only rates a 1.5 * and another site rates 4.5 * then you can pretty well bet that the 4.5 is going to be worth finding and the 1.5 can be left until another day. What do you think, is this something you might foresee putting on this site someday?

So far, even while being a lover of most things techie, I have resisted buying a PDA. Mostly because I haven't thought of what one would be good for. I mean, I carry little notes and lists with me in my wallet that I guess I could enter in a PDA but then I wouldn't be able to put the PDA in my wallet. So paper notes have sufficed. But now I find myself printing out page after page of caches and maps etc. To keep them organized I keep them in a looseleaf binder. Now, maybe a PDA makes sense? Do others of you use PDAs in your geocaching and to what uses to you put them to? Can the webpages be easily downloaded to the PDA? How about the maps? Has anyone written a hint decoder for their PDA?

Hi, I too am looking for GCs in the Central Coast area. I am located in Atascadero and am checking for a local group but have not found one yet. Email me, we'll create a list of GCers in this area. I did find a Central Caost group in Monterey area. That's the first I heard that Central Coast goes that far north. I guess we're located in Central Central Coast.

As a newby to this fascinating hobby I see that in some areas there are GC picnics, meets, trashouts, etc. How does one find if there are any groups, formal or informal, in your area? My area, BTW, is Central Coast California. (San Luis Obispo County)

Quotes from Cherokeecacher here and here These should get you started Team Nazgul There's a central coast thread over in the West forum and they even have their own Yahoo! group. robert the resulting page will have them listed below the license plate. Thanks for the replies but the only one listed in California is Southern California and it's link does not work. (So. Cal. is some 250 miles south of here.) The Central Coast group is in Northern Califronia, Monterey Penninsula. This is the first I've heard that area refered to as Central Coast as they are some 150 miles north of us near Monterey. I guess I will have to see if people local here want to start up a group. Seeing we are in San Luis Obispo County (SLO) I guess a good name would be SLO Cache or some such.