BBWolf+3Pigs

What he did, but with fewer keywords. Googled "potters pond geocache" and the first result was the cache.

The Emerald Storm in Rhode Island. Ties into the history of a real pirate.

Send your reviewer the question/concern you have. If they are worth their salt, they will respond. I know my local reviewer is more than willing to work with me when I try something out of the "norm".

Actually that's a very unsatisfactory approach for a theory person. When I hide a physical cache I also check in advance that it will work out. I do not like surprises in this regard. There are so many aspects that depend on judgement, like e.g. whether an ice skating event where entrance fees have to be paid is seen as commercial. That's so far from clear cut rules. Do you insist on completely predicatable outcomes for all aspects of your life, or just in connection with the geocaching events that you will probably never organise? It's not a question of insistence, but yes wherever possible I prefer it that way to the extent possible. There are enough random elements entering the play anyway, so I prefer to have control over those that are deterministic. Guidelines which are as clear as possible shouldn't harm anyone. That must be a real limitation in your life, debilitating even. And not very fun.

And what about my "walking tour" suggestion above?

You have to find a location that has an island complete with rope swing: The RI Armada Brings Some Luvvin' To Pawtuckaway.

Now she'll write it is not acceptable, because she'll have to sit on the coordinates for at least half an hour, and it's not walking event anymore, and it kills spontaneity because it may happen the group will arrive sooner and will want to leave sooner etc. Many people have tried hard proposing many solutions, but nothing has worked. I know we've tried, but I guess I am just a bit too stubborn to give up.

Here's a thought to stay within your abilities... You enjoy hiding "walking tour" type caches, which is pretty cool (I have one in Newport, RI). Have you considered a "Walking Tour" event? Find a convenient midpoint for your tour (a park with picnic benches, etc.). List an official event at that location from 1200-1230 (or whatever a reasonable timer period is) as the "official" event. Make it a "Bring your own lunch" type event. In the listing, state you will start a "walking tour" of the locale at whatever time is appropriate to do the tour to the picnic site. Include the waypoints you will be visiting (including approximate times of when you will be there). Start your tour, pointing out all of the cool and interesting history along the walk path at the listed waypoints. People can join you from the start, or meet up at one of the waypoints, or at the picnic area. After the picnic, continue your tour. People may continue with you or not. You will have people the whole tour, portions of the tour, or just at the picnic. Everyone does what they want/are comfortable with. And there's plenty of time between the waypoints for people to socialize along the walk. And since it is "street level", you should have no issues with timing or ability level. Wins all the way around. (And for the record, I would definitely attend the whole tour, especially if the host is very knowledgeable about the area and would provide new and interesting info about locations I pass by everyday. In fact, I may steal my own idea for just such an event in my area!)

Dude. I have totally bookmarked that cache in my special bookmark list for the off chance I EVER get to Hawaii ETA: OH OH ! And I may host a half hour lunch event at the best point along the hike! Brilliant! There was no "best point" along the hike. There were many!

Then you just need to relax a little. No one will care if you are a minute or two or ten late. Not unless they are jerks.

You keep saying that, and we keep showing you ways to alleviate any issues. "Official Event" at summit from 1200-1300. In the listing you state "we're going to leave parking at 1000. Hike is about 2 hours long." So, most people will meet at 1000 and walk up. Some slower, some faster. Event starts at 1200. If you are not sure how long the hike is for you, do a dry-run. or give yourself extra time. If you are there early, great, enjoy the view. If you (as the host) are there a little late, don't worry about people who may have logged the "Attended" if they arrived and left before you did. If they didn't want to stick around and socialize, that's their problem. And at 1300, or 1330 or whenever you feel like leaving, you leave. If it's a great group of people along for the adventure, you'll have a pretty good sized group to socialize with on the descent. And don't worry if people walk faster or slower than you on the way up or down. You'll eventually be walking alongside everyone at some point. My all-time greatest caching experience was this cache. About 12 of us met up and did the hike. What was great was I got a chance to chat with everyone along the way. We each took our time, and rested when we felt like it. Which meant that at some point I was walking next to someone else in the group over the 6+ hours. This is what will happen with an event as I've described (and it will happen - that's how my kayak events have turned out). Here's a picture of that hike: [edit to add picture then correct formatting]

I hope there is never a requirement to make all events accessible to any- and everyone. They might as well disallow any cache that isn't in a lamp post skirt in a parking lot.

There are enough indications from related experiences that the same that happened for the ice skating will happen for the hike too when it is not shifted and when it takes place in an urban area with many cachers. No, it isn't for cachers like myself and I explained why. Also I never could host such an event while I could host an event starting at the trailhead and for example ending at the summit. I would also feel very uncomfortable as attendant. care to explain why you could host one but not the other? Both start at point A and end at Point B.

There are enough indications from related experiences that the same that happened for the ice skating will happen for the hike too when it is not shifted and when it takes place in an urban area with many cachers. Are you sure that's the causation? Did you pass along a survey to find out why people were in smaller numbers, or chose not to attend? Yes, it's a causation in that case. There were not fewer people, only fewer that took part in the skating part and more which stood outside. Of course several things come together and for some it also makes a difference how an event is rated. For a high rating they feel more effort is appropriate than for a 1/1 (which is somehow a rating normal physical caches have in our area if they are lame). Could it be that fewer people wanted to pay to ice skate? Or fewer people who knew how to skate? Without asking everyone, you cannot state with certainty why fewer people went inside (or conversely more people stayed outside).

The last thing I want to do is wade into this...meaty thread, but I wanted to clarify the information that the Jester posted, as I am the Lackey to whom he is referring. The hike/bike ride/moving activity can be part of/focus of the event, but there MUST be at least 30 minutes during which the event is scheduled to be at the posted coordinates. This provides people of all abilities to gather to socialize - the primary focus of all events listed on Geocaching.com - and feel welcome. The event host is expected to be present during that time, but the attendees are not required to stay for the entirety, nor are they required to participate in the secondary activity in order to log a find. So, sort of like the paddle events that I host and described waaaaaaay back on pages x, y & z (heck, I ain't wading through all 15 pages to find them).

WHO CARES?!?!?! If what you desire is to take a nice long hike with some old caching friends and to meet some new caching friends and socialize yadda yadda yadda....YOU STILL CAN!!!!! If you feel it's cheating that you show up 5 minutes before the walk, don't log an Attended on the event. You have stated over and over again that you want to socialize on the trail and not at a pizza joint or Brauhaus or wherever else. Then JUST DO IT! Don't you think that it is pretty ironic that Groundspeak stresses that events should be open to all cachers and comes up with many rules to allow everyone to log an attended log and at the same does not care a bit that with their way of defining an (official) event they exclude a substantial part of geocachers from official events. Care to explain how the new guidelines are excluding "a substantial part of geocachers from official events"?

WHO CARES?!?!?! If what you desire is to take a nice long hike with some old caching friends and to meet some new caching friends and socialize yadda yadda yadda....YOU STILL CAN!!!!! If you feel it's cheating that you show up 5 minutes before the walk, don't log an Attended on the event. You have stated over and over again that you want to socialize on the trail and not at a pizza joint or Brauhaus or wherever else. Then JUST DO IT! [edit: typos]

This is nonsense. My events are EXACTLY how I want them to be - I met the new event guidelines even before they were guidelines. I would not change a single thing if the guidelines were removed. NOT. ONE. THING. And I have yet to get any complaints that my events are lame. Maybe you need to pop over to Rhode Island if you want to experience non-lame events. Or maybe your local events hosters need to get a little more creative.

Fixed it for you. What GS considers the event does not necessarily equate to what you (or anyone else) equates to the overall event. So, if someone hosts a GS event at the summit, and they leave at 0900 from the trailhead with the people you want to socialize with, and if you don't want to mingle with the 100+ people at the summit, leave early and don't log the event as Attended (since you "cheated"). [edit: unbolded second statement as it didn't apply]

But as I have shown, you can still host "nice events" of "different kinds" within the confines of the new guidelines.

I have a feeling you're right, but I still don't get it: why should a rule be designed specifically to prevent the CO from insisting you're on time? Why is it so important that anyone that could possibly want to claim that they attended be allowed to do so even if they refuse to show up on time? The attendee has a very simple way to protect themselves: they can just not show up. Let's say the event at the local waterhole is listed as "From 6pm until ???". The host decides that he wants to leave at 8pm and someone shows up at 8:15pm (caught in traffic, had a car accident, etc). Can he claim it? Some hosts would say "No, I left at 8pm so that's when the event was over." New rule prevent that. If the person is not there within the specified time, there's no questioning the host's decision to delete an "Attended" log.

Could the motivation for he "stationary" and "distinct start/end times" be to protect attendees? Old guidelines allowed a person to post an event as "We will start around 12:00, and hike the trail." So, if I showed up after 12, and hiked the trail, could I claim it? A controlling event host may have deleted the "Attended". With the new guidelines, if a person shows up at the posted location, during the posted times, they can claim the "Attended", and the host cannot delete the log. Just a thought. [edit: typos]

I also tend to believe that in your case the change will not make a real difference. That does not mean however that other types of events in other places are not affected in an essential way. For example, hosting an event e.g. at the summit of the highest mountain close to my home town still would not be the same as having an event which is about the hike as the summit is reachable by a cable car. Also many other potential locations that are not just at an arbitarily selected place mid way which is not suitable for a larger group have the property that they are easy to reach by alternative approaches. It's not about controlling what people do, but it changes the group of the participants significantly if alternative approaches exist. Furthermore, in my area if an event takes place at a location that requires a hike which is however not part of the event it becomes more and more common that cachers choose their approach depending on the set of caches they might want to find and take all different routes. That's not any longer going a hiking event to me. Your experiences with your events seem to be quite different and that's probably why the guideline changes did not affect you. You keep throwing up reasons why things can't/won't work, and never consider that with some simple changes on the host's part, things could work. Summit event: Who cares if people can reach the event by cable car? By your own admission, you don't care who logs an event. So enjoy the walk up with the people who share your joy of the hike, and not worry about the people who reach the event some other, easier, way. You'll probably have a better time than they will. "Cache rich" paths to the event: See above. Or maybe find a location that has very few caches on the way in. Looking in the area of some of your hides, the area does not appear to be so cache dense that you can't find a nice walk where you are not going to stumble over a cache every 200m. Zwolferkugel looks like a nice spot for a walk. And it appears that there's a nice little clearing at the top. Surely there are other locations in the beautiful mountains of Austria? Burgstalle Hohe? I am sure I could come up with others (and I bet you and other locals could as well). You, and from the sounds of it, others, don't seem willing to even try to work within the modified guidelines to try to make things work. And until you try it, and see what comes out of it, you'll be miserable. What's the expression..."Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness"...I think that fits here. [edit: grammar]

So host the event on the mountain summit!!!! Nothing is stopping you or anyone else from doing it!!!! And guess what? Along the way up to that summit you can chat with other cachers along the way!

Well, I will continue to host my kayaking/hiking events (in the middle of the woods) as I have for several years now, in the same manner as I have done. People will attend them and enjoy themselves on the way in , either by boat or by hiking. I have a very strong suspicion that if the smiley went away, I would not loose a single attendee to these events. We've discussed that at length over many beers and bourbons. Most of the attendees come not for the smiley, but the fun, and the adventure and the socializing on the way in, during, and on the way out. For me, the guideline changes will not make a difference - I just have to make sure the event is 30 minutes or longer (they usually are much longer), and are stationary for that time frame.