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GEOCACHING EVENT GAMES


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Howdy all,

we are planning an event for july, and are looking for some good ideas for some games and such for our event.

So if you please, let us know some of your faves and the ones that stand out in your minds.

 

what did you like about it, what you didn't.

i haven't been to one ( event ) yet...always working :lol: ( offshore job ) Ma has. :D

so let us know.

HAPPY CACHING!!! :lol::D:P

MA&PA KETTLE

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For the big events we hold here in Oklahoma, my favorite event is the 'Hide and Seek' event. For this, folks who want to hide a cache, create one of their most creative caches and hide it in the park where the event is being held. This is usually over a large state park area and not your small neighborhood park. Historically, these caches have been much more creative than your normal urban micro. At the end of the event, we take a vote and award prizes to the top three choices. All participants in the event get to participate in the 'hide' portion by seeking the hidden caches. At our state events, your finds, and your hides earn you raffle tickets for random drawing for any donated prizes. Other games we've tried are puzzle cache series, murder mysteries, road rallys, and test your skills, where a trail has many different types of caches hidden along it. :lol:

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I don't play the games at geo events. I go to meet with other cachers. See old friends and make some new ones. I have seen a game. The day of the event each participant gets a marker. The one who plants their marker closest to a predetermined point wins. You could defray part of the cost of the event by selling extra markers. I think they called it geo-golf but I honestly didn't pay much attention to the details. Someone should be able to post up more how to info.

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I don't play the games at geo events. I go to meet with other cachers. See old friends and make some new ones. <snip>

At our state events, most folks show up on Friday and spend the evening around a campfire doing just what gof1 suggest. It's actually my favorite part of the event. Saturday morning, everyone is crawling out of their tents and campers and hiding their caches for the Hide and Seek event. Lunch, everyone gets together for the big start and then again at supper. Getting together at these times allow folks to pair up with others for some caching. Saturday night, many gather around the fire after a short stint of night caching, again for a chance to visit and make new friends. Sunday morning, gathering for breakfast, folks have one last chance to team up for the final few caches. Finally at noon, everyone gathers, visits, eats lunch and participates in the awards ceremonies before departing for home. I still enjoy the games and attempt to do as many as I can. Since our events for most folks run from Friday through Sunday, there is lots of time to visit and make friends.

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rot-13 flashcards (first to call out answer wins points or prizes)

geocacher bingo (spaces on card are characteristics of cachers)

 

and my personal favorite: avoid cachers who drunk-call you about which cacher they're cheating on their spouse with.

 

how did these people get my number?

 

i don't go to events anymore.

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I don't play the games at geo events. I go to meet with other cachers. See old friends and make some new ones. <snip>

At our state events, most folks show up on Friday and spend the evening around a campfire doing just what gof1 suggest. It's actually my favorite part of the event. Saturday morning, everyone is crawling out of their tents and campers and hiding their caches for the Hide and Seek event. Lunch, everyone gets together for the big start and then again at supper. Getting together at these times allow folks to pair up with others for some caching. Saturday night, many gather around the fire after a short stint of night caching, again for a chance to visit and make new friends. Sunday morning, gathering for breakfast, folks have one last chance to team up for the final few caches. Finally at noon, everyone gathers, visits, eats lunch and participates in the awards ceremonies before departing for home. I still enjoy the games and attempt to do as many as I can. Since our events for most folks run from Friday through Sunday, there is lots of time to visit and make friends.

 

Sounds like fun. Could you perhaps describe one or two of the games for the OP? Thanks.

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I go to events to meet people. Games that facilitate breaking the ice and meeting others are the only kind I like to see at an event. I'm not a fan of games that require everyone to go off and do whatever (e.g. hunting caches).

 

One game I saw that I liked was a geo bingo of sorts where the participants had a sheet, filled with 100 boxes and they had to find a geocacher that fulfilled the criterion in each box and get his initials. For example find a geocacher who has over 1,000 finds, find a geocacher who found a cache in 10 states, find a Groundspeak volunteer, find a Garmin user, find someone who has attended 50 events, find someone who..... you get the idea. It encouraged mingling and allowed the participants go get to know each other.

 

The person who filled the most boxes with signatures won a prize.

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I don't play the games at geo events. I go to meet with other cachers. See old friends and make some new ones. <snip>

At our state events, most folks show up on Friday and spend the evening around a campfire doing just what gof1 suggest. It's actually my favorite part of the event. Saturday morning, everyone is crawling out of their tents and campers and hiding their caches for the Hide and Seek event. Lunch, everyone gets together for the big start and then again at supper. Getting together at these times allow folks to pair up with others for some caching. Saturday night, many gather around the fire after a short stint of night caching, again for a chance to visit and make new friends. Sunday morning, gathering for breakfast, folks have one last chance to team up for the final few caches. Finally at noon, everyone gathers, visits, eats lunch and participates in the awards ceremonies before departing for home. I still enjoy the games and attempt to do as many as I can. Since our events for most folks run from Friday through Sunday, there is lots of time to visit and make friends.

The most fun of an event will be from the social aspect. One of the aded activities that I like to do at my events though is to give each attendee a (free) raffle ticket when they arrive, and have a few temporary Caches hidden very nearby with extra raffle tickets. They can each choose to find the extras or notm but they all still have a chance in the raffle. very simple but still fun, especially for the kids.

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There's this game I tried once at a smaller event, it went pretty good: geo tag.

That's a good one, as it focuses mainly on the "meeting other players" part of the event. Other variations of the theme could be:

 

find the person who has the other half of this thing (picture, toy, card, or whatever)

 

learn the name of every person with the same color nametag as yours.

 

All of these really coax players into socializing with new people

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There obviously seems to be two schools of thought on what events should be like, Games vs Socialization. A lot depends upon the length of time you will be holding your event. The games I mentioned are part of a weekend long event. For purely social events, our local groups hold Saturday luncheons where the entire purpose is socialization. These luncheons normally have a point where everyone stands up and introduces theirselves to the group. Often we have a question for everyone (What is your most memorable cache adventure), or a complete the sentence games (You know your a geocacher...).

 

So the big question is how long will your event last?

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we had good success with the budget pinata. we put prizes (not fragile ones) adn candy in a garbage bag (clean), strung it up and beat the living daylights out of it.

 

we've also had cito weigh-in (trash collected by weight), with prizes for the most cleaned up.

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I was at an event once where there was a "log rolling" contest... how fast can you roll up a micro log sheet? And the last event I was at had a game called geocacher bingo. Everyone got a bingo sheet that had squares with things written in them like "only owns one geocoin", "caches paperless", "has never had a FTF"... and you had to roam around and introduce yourself to people and find someone who qualified to sign each square. Each cacher could only sign each card once.

 

DCC

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The first geocaching game I played was a challenge to find four caches, named North, South, East and West. Usually film cans or the like, they were given to four guests at random as they arrived and the guest was asked to hide it in their pocket unless asked for it. The mission of each attendee was to approach each other attendee and ask them if they have one of the caches, usually with a phrase like "Is that a cache in your pocket or are you happy to see me?" If the person being asked indeed had one of the caches he/she would surreptitiosly reveal it and give it to the person who asked them, to sign and stick in their own pocket. Thus everybody had to talk to everybody else to find all four caches. A wonderful ice-breaker and socialization tool!

 

Temporary caches hidden around the event venue are always fun... give out slips of paper during the event with the coords... you will see folks get together in groups to go hunt them and return.

 

Poker Runs are fun. Hide seven temporary caches around the event area and give out the coords at the event. The caches contain playing cards in envelopes. Folks will form groups and go hunt them, taking one playing card from each cache. When they return to the event they each have seven envelopes. At a given time they are allowed to open the envelopes and make the best five-card hand they can. Prizes are awarded for the best through least poker hands.

 

I do silly games at my events and folks always love them.

 

I will divide all willing attendees into groups of five. Four are duct-taped together back-to-back at the biceps, forming an outward-facing circle. They are all blind-folded. The fifth has the GPS and stands in the center of this cluster, his mission is to guide the group to a cache, retrieve it and return to the start with it. The first group or three that returns with the cache wins a prize.

 

Hide several caches within sight of the event pavillion so that everyone can watch the fun. Get folks to group up in fours or fives. Only one person in each group can have a GPS. He has to stay at the start and guide his group to the cache by hollering voice commands to them as they search! We play an alternative to this where everyone has an FRS radio and the 'caller' has to guide them to the cache via commands over the radio.

 

The afore-mentioned GPS Accuracy game is both fun and educational. Mark the location of something small and un-noticeable... say a nail pushed down into the ground in a grassy field so that only you can see it. Give everyone the coords and a flag and tell them to place their flag as close as is possible to that coordinate. Not only is this a great socialization tool but it shows everyone how far off their (and your) GPS can be, thus reducing unrealistic expectations and frustration that their GPS won't take them right to a cache! It's amazing how far off the flags will be - usually from 4' to 120' from the object you hid!

 

I give out stocked ammo cans for game prizes... which serves as a nice prize and gives me more caches to hunt when the winners hide them!

 

Temporary caches such as these are allowed at events. It's up to each event owner to allow them to be logged or not. If the event owner allows them to be logged participating attendees who so choose may log a seperate "Attended" note on the event listing for each cache they found. Lots of controversy has been expended on the subject of multi-logging events; I allow it.

 

Have fun!

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I have done a variation on the mark the location game where participants had to Guesstimate the location of the coordinates: I provided everyone with a flag, coordinates and a starting area. They were able to take as much time as they wanted walking back and forth in the starting area but when they were ready to plant the flag they had to put the GPS down or in their pocket to head out to where they thought the location was. Then I came out with my GPS and picked the closest person. There were locations in a field, in the woods on the other side of a house and the tie breaker was over a hill and though the woods way out of site. It was amazing how close people came to the spots 100 to 500 feet away. And it was fun for everyone watching everyone and second guessing themselves.

 

I have also done Scrabble caching, hide 7 caches with different colored beads. participants have a set time to find as many caches as they can to then come back and draw as many Scrabble tiles as they had colored beads. They then played a game of scrabble.

 

I have had folks use the tracking feature on the GPS maps to draw things, all they need is a large field to walk around in and a set amount of time to draw.

 

I have done a scavenger hunt where I hid micros with the name of a scavenger hunt item to find. I provided a list of coordinates with the corresponding point value of the item. lower values were put on easy caches with easy things to find i.e. (caches hidden in a hollow of a solitary Oak tree needing to find an acorn)

Highest points were for a micro 12 feet up a bluff hidden in tree roots needing to find a live snake, or needing to find a live squirrel written on the back of a piece of bark.

The winners actually found a skull so the points for that one item was more than what the rest of the folks found.

I did learn that people feel better when the value of the items are really high like 1000 points for a red flower and 100,000 the live snake instead of 10 and 1000, it's the same respective value but they feel more rewarded when they loose with 20,000 points then when they loose with 200 points :blink:

Joe

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Cornhole!

 

that's an event game? maybe i shouldn't go to events in your state, either.

 

edit: west vrginia... hmmm... kinda figgers.

 

 

Flask, What kind of comment was that? :)

 

I am proud to say that I am from the great state of West Virginia, maybe you should visit sometime. In West Virginia, we even learn to spell "Virginia" and "figures" correctly. It is obvious that you didnt....... :)

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Cornhole!

 

that's an event game? maybe i shouldn't go to events in your state, either.

 

edit: west vrginia... hmmm... kinda figgers.

 

 

Flask, What kind of comment was that? :D

 

I am proud to say that I am from the great state of West Virginia, maybe you should visit sometime. In West Virginia, we even learn to spell "Virginia" and "figures" correctly. It is obvious that you didnt....... :D

 

hey, i love west virginia. it was a little badinage, that's all.

 

yeah, west virginia. beautiful. and deeply buried in my own personal mythology.

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There obviously seems to be two schools of thought on what events should be like, Games vs Socialization.

 

The two are not mutually incompatible. At the just completed Spring Fling I was 'on staff' for the GPS Accuracy Game, which gave me a chance to chat with folks as they came to take part. At past events, I've noted that folks playing the game tend to socialize with each other as they place their flags. Ditto at the Frog Fling Game, folks socialize while watching or waiting their turn... As well as cheering (or jeering) the person currently Flinging.

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THIS EVENT IS PROVING TO BE A BIG DEAL AND IT LASTS ALL DAY.

 

PLENTY OF TIME FOR SOCIALIZING.

 

VOLLEYBALL, HORSESHOES, FISHING PIER.

 

JUST LIKE OLD HOME WEEK....WITH CACHERS.

 

I WAS REALLY SUPRISED OF THE AMOUNT OF COMPANIES THAT WERE INTERESTED IN DONATING STUFF FOR A MENTION ON THE CACHE PAGE!!!

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Other ideas:

 

- Toss the Film Can for Distance and/or Accuracy (My personal favorite)

- Most Creative Ammo-can Camo (bring pre-painted cans and let everyone cast secret ballots)

- Set the Coordinates (everyone uses their receiver to give the best-guess for coordinates of a spot. They are judged against the average of all entries, or in one case I heard of, a surveyor precisely located the point beforehand)

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- Toss the Film Can for Distance and/or Accuracy (My personal favorite)

 

Around here we have the kids toss little wooden 'GPSrs' for accuracy.

 

- Set the Coordinates (everyone uses their receiver to give the best-guess for coordinates of a spot. They are judged against the average of all entries, or in one case I heard of, a surveyor precisely located the point beforehand)

 

Yep, the good ol' GPS (in)accuracy challenge. Round these parts we provide folks with a set of coordinates and they plant their flags where they think those coordinates are. We then compare the flags to precisely located pin.

 

This game is usually a source of vast amusement for the watchers.

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