How can a cache be adopted by a whole committee/group?

[+Sparrowhawk]

Hey all...

 

I am the owner of the sort-of-famous and definitely popular The PDX Airport Travel Bug Embassy cache. And I have an interesting question.

 

The group Original Stash Plaque has group of around 20 people who take care of it.

 

I have noticed that there are a few cachers who also have consistently and repeatedly taken upon themselves to take care of the Embassy cache whenever I post a note that I can't be there for emergency maintenance. I love those folks.

 

I will be moving away from Portland around November. No more Sparrowhawk ownership of the PDX Embassy cache after that. But I don't want just an ordinary cache adoption after I'm gone.

 

What I want to do is this: over this coming year, organize the current individual "unofficial volunteer Embassy maintainers" into some sort of semi-official PDX Cache Maintenance Committee. (...or association, club, whatever. I actually don't like the word committee, but I'll use the word here as a placeholder.)

 

The PDX Embassy Cache Maintenance Committee would take ownership of my cache when I leave Portland around November this year. Im other words, not just one person, but a whole small group gets to be in charge of maintaining this cache. That way, if one cacher can't do maintenance, another one in the group can keep the cache alive. With a group in charge, this very popular cache would last a pretty darn long time!

 

One may ask: well, why don't you ask the same people who are in charge of the Original Plaque? Well, because I want to honor the current, consistent unofficial maintainers of the Embassy cache who have stepped in more than once to help out. These are not all the same names as the folks in charge of the Plaque. For the Embassy cache, I'd rather invite the current unofficial maintainers of this cache into their own cool, separate, semi-official, semi-organized association to start ownership this coming autumn.

 

Maybe the PDX Maintenance Committee could have a Sunday Breakfast every 3 months, one for each season, just to hang out and discuss any minor maintenance issues that may come up and just have fun keeping in touch with each other. Heh... THERE ya go... kinda like the Sunday morning "Geomunch" brunch gatherings I used to have. That would be up to them to decide.

 

But I digress...

 

If the Plaque can have it's own committee, is it possible that the PDX Embassy cache can have it's own whole group of cachers in charge as well? Also... who gets the official emails for Plaque concerns anyway... one person or the whole group at once? I want to know how this whole group cache ownership thing works.

 

Thanks everyone for any advice.

 

(edit: should say there's a 90% chance of me leaving Portland... I may still be stuck here by a 10 percent chance by then. Wish me luck...)

Edited April 1, 2007 by Sparrowhawk

[+Cardinal Red]

I'm going to guess at your best option. Create a new Profile. Adopt your Cache over to the new Profile. Give the password to the "committee". Have the "chairman" list an email address. Have all "committee" members put it on their watchlist.

[yaquina]

Well I'll be sorry to see you go, Sparrowhawk, but wish you all the best in your new locale.

 

I would of course like to be in "the group". I cleaned the garage a bit this weekend and confirmed that I have all the materials for the cache upgrade. And yes it is still moving up in the priority list.

 

I don't get over to the cache location as often as I used to, so I wouldn't be a good choice for day-to-day maintenance. But I would like to continue in the role of "occasional major maintenance". Also as the one who convinced Jim to give it a try, I want to make sure he can go to me if he ever has concerns or a change of heart about the cache.

 

Take care!

[+Sparrowhawk]

Well I'll be sorry to see you go, Sparrowhawk, but wish you all the best in your new locale.

 

I would of course like to be in "the group".

 

Yaquina, you would be an honored member, as you designed the site and got permission for the site in the first place. Sheesh... I should put a big credit to you right on the cache page... errr... AND I shoulda thunk THAT idea up a long awhile back!

 

It's gonna be a bunch of months before I go... might as well start brainstorming early for best results.

 

I should find out how the group for the Original Plaque works... does one get email and alerts the others? Or is it a group email thing? Hmmm...

Edited April 3, 2007 by Sparrowhawk

[+kiwimonster]

I can make a few comments, being the one who set up the pdxgeocaching geocaching.com identity. It is, as people surmise, a "sock puppet" account whose only purpose is to own the Original Stash Plaque cache. It is set up as a group because that is the way Team360, the previous owner of the cache, wanted it. I'd done this before with another "sock puppet" account whose small group's purpose is to create challenging caches, so it was pretty easy to do.

 

The first comment I would have is that a committee shouldn't own a cache. One person should be the one to make the final desicions, and should be recognized as such by the others. That person should feel a sense of ownership of that cache, and feel responsible for it. It's not just cache maintenance, it's replying to email, dealing with travel bugs, etc. They don't have to do all of the work, but if something needs to be done, and no one else can do it, then they need to.

 

You can share the password as much as you trust people. My experience is that the "owner" is the only one who remembers what the password is.

 

You definately want a mailing list for the geocaching email. All cache notes and email through geocaching.com go to everyone. I also usually use geocaching.com email to do replies, as it will also send a copy of the reply to the list. I try not to publish the email address of the mailing list too much, but make people go through geocaching.com to send email. I mentioned the email address for pdxgeocaching on an open forum and got much spam to it until I set up a filter to remove all email that didn't come from geocaching.com. The other account I communicate through geocaching.com mainly to add a sense of mystery. My mailing lists are done through my own computer at home and they modify the subject lines to indicate what identity they are for. I can't say it is reliable enough to offer to you as a service. My dog has a habit of sitting on the power strip and turning things off...

[+Sparrowhawk]

Interesting. Theoretically I could set up the group, then either have a "sock" account adopt it... and I own the sock account.

 

Then I can just kinda communicate with the Portland crowd from 2 states away about what should happen with the cache... I can still be the final authority of the cache itself, yet trusting the group to do what is right for the cache.

 

Hmmm... that could work. I don't have to give up stewardship of that cache completely when I move. Best of both worlds.

 

I like Kiwi's approach... and can adapt it for this particular unique situation.

 

I'm glad I have a bunch of months to figure this one out with other's help.

Edited April 5, 2007 by Sparrowhawk