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How come Pharisee is nabbing Surrey - that's my patch! :huh:

 

I'll put my hand up for West Sussex then.

 

Because I was too slow to get Bedfordshire and anyway, my wife (MGAS) lives in Surrey but she very rarely visits the forum. It'll probably be hidden under her account...... So there :huh::D

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so where do we start? what do we have to do?

 

I have caches and caches ready to go :huh:

 

TOS

 

Id guess it would need bookmark list to link them and maybe a consistent theme for page layout etc like the highest caches have.

 

Would people mind if they were a mix oy types eg puzzle,trad, multi and micro regular large etc.

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Old Gimmer and I are meeting up early next week to discuss the technicalities.

 

My personal feeling is that puzzles are a bad idea, by the very nature of the concept, people may well travel long distances to grab these caches and if you've got a puzzle wrong it hardly seems fair.

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Old Gimmer and I are meeting up early next week to discuss the technicalities.

 

My personal feeling is that puzzles are a bad idea, by the very nature of the concept, people may well travel long distances to grab these caches and if you've got a puzzle wrong it hardly seems fair.

 

Totally agree.... If I get to set one, it'll almost certainly be as straightforward 'Traditional'.

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Hi everyone.

 

My proposal seems to have hit a nerve somewhere. Thanks for all the responses. keep them coming.

 

Thanks for all the offers to place caches, when this gets off the ground.

 

Already problems are appearing, as I expected. Some already noted are:

 

1 -Will it be feasible for the whole of the UK? Obviously the highly populated areas will be easy to cover, but how about the less populated such as in Scotland. As I said in my original posting, perhaps several sets of caches can be arranged on regional basis. By this, individuals could bag England, Scotland Wales and Ireland as triumphs in their own right and eventually bring them together as a UK triumph.

 

2 -What type of cache should we aim for? All the same e.g traditional or should we use all types. I personally favour traditional.

 

3 -How difficult do we make the caches? Do we put a limit on the Difficulty/Terrain levels? I think that the sheer task of visiting all the caches is, in itself, very difficult without making the individual caches very difficult.

 

4 -What is the definitive list of counties? The list already published by Rutson is very good (Thanks Ian) and I suggest that this be used, at least at the moment.

 

5 -What should the series be called, and how should it be presented.? I'm in favour of something like "UK Counties Quest" followed by the county name e.g "UK Counties Quest - West Yorkshire" but this may be too long a title. However having a common title format should automatically ensure that all the cahes appear together in listings. I also think that the page layout should be similar for each county similar to the US style as linked in my original post is good. It allows for all the usual stuff plus an area for info about the county etc. I will try to contact the US organiser to pick their brains and expertise.

 

6 -Final location? Thanks for the comments. Again this depends on a concensus. I'm inclined to go with the UK central point in Lancashire, (and that is very hard to say for a true Yorkshireman), but regional centres may be appropriate also if we go with the regional idea as in "1"

 

7 - Who else wants to get involved with the organisation? To be honest, I am only a begnner in Geocaching, and cannot even claim to have come-up with a truly original idea. My experience of actually organising something like this, and knowledge of what is possible is very low. I have already contacted another very experienced cacher in my locality and will be getting together with him to discuss possibilities very soon. But if you feel you can offer help then shout out. We need to do this project as a group.

 

Further comments appreciated, and carry-on booking the counties.

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so where do we start? what do we have to do?

 

I have caches and caches ready to go :huh:

 

TOS

 

Id guess it would need bookmark list to link them and maybe a consistent theme for page layout etc like the highest caches have.

 

Would people mind if they were a mix oy types eg puzzle,trad, multi and micro regular large etc.

 

I agree! We'd also probably need a consistant naming convention so they are easily identified and searched for!

 

Think it'd be good to avoid puzzles too! Any preferences on difficulty & accessability? I guess they all need to be fairly accessible!

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As for the name, can't use UK if we're including Eire so "British Isles County Challenge"?

 

No way caches can start being placed yet, there needs to be a coding scheme set up, not to mention some way of retrieving the coords.

 

My thoughts are a sort of pyramid organisation. Maybe 5-6 regional sub-final caches in England, two in Wales, two in Scotland, 1-2 in NI and err... some in Eire. Each of these sub-finals would need to be found to gain coords for the final, if and when it ever happened!

 

In fact, given the time that there would be between now and it being found, is it worth even placing the final cache until a team or teams have found a few of the sub-finals?

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I have 2 "spare" caches ready to go - and Lolly, they're PINK!!

 

I know crazyL200 Nick has bagsey'd Wirral, so I'll take Cheshire (sorry Bolas!!), since I live 2 miles from Cheshire, and work in Cheshire!!

 

In fact - most of my caches are in Cheshire, and I already have permission on an ace location!! yay!!

 

Oh - and Rutson... Wirral is NOT in Merseyside, nor is it in Cheshire - It's one of those odd places, My address is just Wirral... no other county!

Edited by HazelS
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I have 2 "spare" caches ready to go - and Lolly, they're PINK!!

 

I know crazyL200 Nick has bagsey'd Wirral, so I'll take Cheshire (sorry Bolas!!), since I live 2 miles from Cheshire, and work in Cheshire!!

 

In fact - most of my caches are in Cheshire, and I already have permission on an ace location!! yay!!

 

Oh - and Rutson... Wirral is NOT in Merseyside, nor is it in Cheshire - It's one of those odd places, My address is just Wirral... no other county!

 

Crazy L200 said that Wirral is not a county. I understood it was half in Cheshire and Half in Merseyside. Wirral Technical Services Department certainly seems to think it's in Merseyside.

 

As I said before, counties lists are always controversial, there is not a single list everyone will be happy with.

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For what it's worth, here's my suggestion for the definition of counties...

 

Use the HISTORIC counties of ENGLAND, as that's what people tend to identify with.

 

But use the CURRENT unitary authorities in WALES and SCOTLAND, as these have now become quite established.

 

or maybe I should get out more....?

Edited by Tortoiseshell
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Use the HISTORIC counties of ENGLAND

 

Does this mean Rutland is up for grabs ?

No, that's been taken.

 

Hmm, no-one for Greater London yet...

If I were to place one, it'd have to be fairly central... There'll be somewhere to put it, plus it'll give me an excuse to get out this summer. Before I agree, what sort of timescale are we expecting to have this done by?

 

Edit: Heh, just checked where the centre of Greater London is, and there happens to be a park nearby, and it's cacheless!

Edited by Edgemaster
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Well it IS a metropolitan borough council, so has status in it's own right.

 

As I understand it, The Wirral is Metropolitan borough within the Metropolitan County of Merseyside.

 

I was brought up in Timperley, which is similarly in Cheshire or Greater Manchester depending on how you look at it. (Technically in the MB of Trafford in the MC of Greater Manchester).

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Well it IS a metropolitan borough council, so has status in it's own right.

 

As I understand it, The Wirral is Metropolitan borough within the Metropolitan County of Merseyside.

 

I was brought up in Timperley, which is similarly in Cheshire or Greater Manchester depending on how you look at it. (Technically in the MB of Trafford in the MC of Greater Manchester).

 

If you use some of the postcodes search facilities, Wirral postcodes come up maimly as Merseyside, but those in the south of the Wirral as Cheshire.

But most folk on the Wirral, prefer to use Wirral as thier address.

It is a Borough not a County, just as many of London suburbs are Boroughs of London.

I guess from a practical point of view, it would be good for Wirral to be counted as a county for this cache series (as it it is a very cache rich area in it's own right) and have the Merseyside cache on the Liverpool side of the river ??

Living on the Wirral, if it's to be the Merseyside cache, I'd place it on the Wirral anyway as it would be closer to home to maintain.

Either way, I don't mind.

 

Maybe one way of defining the counties would be to use the OS boundaries ??

 

I'd suggest each cache type should be the placers choice, within reason. If a multi, max two stages, for example, or if a puzzle, something that would easily be solved, without too much research needed. Maybe apply a max rating. Similary for terrain - a max guideline. Otherwise, those that are too difficult will be impossible for some people to get. (I'm thinking of the disabled or less able folk amongst us).

 

As with Motorway Mayhem, I think a webpage would be a good idea, (but who would maintain and run it etc... etc...) It would help standardise the cache page layouts etc.. by having certain text, background picture etc... available for download. Although, on the other hand, once all the counties are allocated, it would be a simple matter of sending everyone the format.

 

Judging by the way this idea and thread has taken off, is it possible to pin this one so that it's always at hand for those of us who need it for the disscussion that's bound to go on as things evolve.

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I thought about this for France a couple of weeks ago, but doing all 96 départements would be a bit ambitious, especially as 6 or 7 still have zero caches. I might just e-mail 4 or 5 people around the country and get them to add a bunch of tickets to one of their existing caches.

 

Still, right now we're doubling our caches every 8-9 months or so. At this rate we'll catch the UK in about 2014...

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Can anyone give a reference to a definitive list of counties. The harder I look the more confused I get.

 

At the moment I favour this listing from Wiki. This only covers Engand, I haven't really considered Scotland, Wales and Ireland yet. The advantage, IMHO, of the Wiki list is that it incorporates the metropolitan and smaller areas into a more traditional format, without including places such as Westmorland which appear on some other traditional lists, but sadly no longer exist.

 

Also, thinking about a collective name for the series I orignally suggested something like "UK Counties Quest". Others since have the word Challenge in their suggested title.

 

Looking here gives "Quest: noun: A long search for something that is difficult to find, or an attempt to achieve something difficult:". This seems most appropriate, and descriptive to me. The definition for Challenge is:- noun: (the situation of being faced with) something needing great mental or physical effort in order to be done successfully and which therefore tests a person's ability: Whilst this is also good it doesn't incorporate the idea of the searching aspect of the task. Both the above definitions have been edited slightly.

Edited by OldGimmer
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