Eorthdraca

Sooo... Finally heard back from the PCC. They're very happy for us to place a cache in the churchyard. Although they have pointed out that our proposed site has some potential tripping hazards. We said in the letter to the PCC that it would be made very clear in the listing that we will be removing the cache if there is lots of noise, etc. Especially at night (it being a small village, there is very little noise in the area so any noise from cachers will cause problems). Thanks!

Mum took the vicar to find a cache in a local churchyard (although didn't manage to find it... ) However, the vicar is for the idea, we just have to sell it to the PCC, which should be ok. We have to write a letter but can include photos and pictures, so my plan is to write a letter and include a couple of photos of caches (up close so as not to give away their locations). We will give the PCC a rough idea of where in the churchyard we will put the cache, (thinking of doing a multi-cache, leading people from the church porch to the war memorial and then to the physical cache). We'll include a picture of the intended container, which will hopefully be large enough to contain swappables (yay)!

Mum has just informed me that the Parochial Church Council (PCC) is different to the Parish Council (also abbreviated to PCC). So... can't get generic permission for any common land in the village. However, the people on the Parochial Church Council are nice people are very likely to be persuaded to allow a cache within the churchyard, especially if it encourages people to visit the church. But they only meet 4-6 times a year. We need to win the vicar round first, and then hopefully he will help us take it to the PCC. So complicated.

If the PCC say no to them going on the common land and in the churchyard, then we won't be able to put them in the village, other than in people's hedges. Gosh this is a tricky issue. I doubt anyone would even notice there being a few extra people coming through the village and visiting the church.

We have had a reply from the vicar to say that he doesn't understand the concept and we would need permission from the PCC to place the cache within the church grounds. I'm thinking that as it will be problematic to get permission for each and every cache in the village, that we get general permission for the church yard and the common land within the village. Then any that are on footpaths on land owned by someone, we will get permission separately from the landowner if and when we decide to place them.

So... we've just send the vicar an email asking about placing a cache, 'Dear Michael, We would very much like to place a Geocache within the churchyard in xxx. Attached is a leaflet which I hope explains geocaching clearly. The geocache would go within the grounds of the churchyard and would be carefully sited so as not to cause damage or a disturbance. We would be happy to show you the location of the cache, or show you other geocaches in the area so you can see what they are like. We look forward to hearing from you. Victoria and Mary' I've included this link. Hopefully he agrees to it, if he doesn't then we'll have to consider putting it in our front hedge but that might encourage people to pick nuts out of our hedge and we already lose a lot to the pesky squirrels

That's a good idea thanks. I might do that if I have more problems.

Awesome thanks Mellers! We were thinking of emailing to ask the vicar so that should cover all that. There aren't any caches for miles around, so our plan is to place the church one then go on to (hopefully) get permission from the PCC so we can place some on the common land in the village. There are footpaths through fields here, do we need permission from the PCC or landowners for placing them there? Thanks

So... we've found a few (35) caches now, thinking that's enough to start placing our own? We want to start by putting one in the church opposite our house (church micro) as it will be easy to maintain and keep an eye on, and it's a lovely church and we need more visitors. We are thinking we need to get permission from the vicar (we don't have a church warden here at the moment). I know I need to send the info to a member to get a micro number if we do it that way. How far from a church could we do it if we were unable to get permission from the vicar? Thanks

Yeah I've tried logging out and into the main site, then coming back here to log in but it just won't let me

So... my username was myersonmary, but when we started geocaching properly, it wasn't just me, but mum and brother too so we decided to change the username to something we could all agree on. We chose Eorðdraca. It means 'earth dragon' in Old English. It keeps us all happy (a difficult thing to achieve). Thing is, I can log into the normal site with the username, but the forums don't allow me to. So I changed my username to Eorthdraca to log in and then logged in here, then went back to the main site to change it back but I suspect it will end up kicking me out of the forum again and I'll have to switch the name back again to something without the ð in it. Just wondering if anyone had found this, or found a way around it? Thanks Eorðdraca

I bought the app. Figured that like 95% of the caches are included in free membership, but the free app doesn't let me see them (don't know whether it would if I bought the premium membership). So paid the £8. There are not many caches around me that are paid, and I don't mind missing a few here and there, if it's going to save me money. Maybe if/when I get more into it, I'll pay the £25 but for now, £8 seems like a better option.

I went to Blickling Hall yesterday with a friend. I was fully prepared to pay the entrance price for the grounds of the hall in order to do the caches (and admire the gardens of course). But we took the dog and when I went in to pay, found out that the dog wouldn't have been allowed in any of the pay to enter parts anyway, and then discovered that all the caches are in the park, not in the actual grounds of the house. It's free to walk around the park, so we did that, and found a few. I paid the £3 for parking. If I go there again just for caches, I think I'll park in the free car park and use the £3 that I would have spent on parking, to get a drink at the NT cafe. I would pay if the caches are well maintained and lots of people have posted them as found, otherwise, it can be a bit frustrating going round and not finding the caches, or finding that they're damaged.

I was wondering about this too. We went on holiday last week with some friends who have been geocaching for years. I have had the free app on my phone for a while but hadn't yet found any caches. I noticed that a lot of the caches on their app were greyed on mine and I couldn't do anything to find them. I've logged in on my laptop and found that a lot of the caches that aren't accessible on my phone app are actually available but the phone app doesn't like them. Is it possible to find these caches using the phone but without paying for the app (which I've read isn't as good as the free version anyway)? It seems that most of the caches around where I live are actually standard caches and it's just the app being a nuisance. Thanks