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CAR RALLY


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I am not sure what you mean by 'car rally', but I will guess that what you are looking for is what I call a 'caravan' or 'wagon train' wherein several carloads of cachers go on a 'cache run'.

 

One common way to do this is that cachers attend an event, socialize for a while and decide to go caching together. Two to five people, no problem, they will usually fit in one car. Get more than that interested and you need multiple cars. This is where the wagon train comes in. One car will usually be appointed the leader and the other cars follow him from cache to cache. At the cache site everyone groups together to hunt for the cache.

 

I attended a dinner event last week, for example, which ~60 cachers attended. During dinner I invited anyone interested to go after a new series nearby that had been published earlier that week... 15 caches of different types over a 25 mile route. A dozen or so wanted to go, and since I had found them all I would lead what ended up being a wagon-train of 5 cars. We traveled from cache to cache as a group, get to a cache site, get out and some would spend time standing around talking, some would pair up and go look for the cache, if it wasn't found quickly everyone ends up looking. This is great fun, and a wonderful way to spend time with cachers you rarely see or may not even know. Bonds of friendship are formed.

 

I've done this repeatedly with anywhere from two carloads informally getting together to a formal planned run at a mega-event (GWIII in Florida) where 23 carloads cached our way as a wagon train from Jacksonville to St. Augustine and back.

 

We use everything from pre-planned routes to ham radio, cell phones, FRS/GMRS hand-held radios and such to stay together. More than 3 cars starts to be a bit of trouble keeping together in traffic, so both plans and communications are pretty much required beyond that, else everyone gets separated, which can be frustrating to some. Mostly when you get separated you call the leader, find out what cache they are headed for next and meet there.

 

Wagon-trains of this nature are usually slow-moving relaxed social events with cars joining and departing at leisure. Sometimes they can be high-speed numbers runs where the leader chooses fast easy caches and the group picks a number, say 50 caches, and they're off.

 

So, I can easily see that basic concept being used as a team-building activity.

 

Let's say I have 20 employees and wanted to have a fun team-building event, here's what I would do, and this is what I think you are asking about...

 

In advance of the event arrange for 4 GPSr to be available. Have them pre-loaded with maps and with the cache data for, say, 10 pre-selected caches of different levels of terrain and difficulty. Determine a logical route from cache to cache, preferably a circle that starts and ends near the event location. Since I am assuming a company event most participants won't have their own GPS and PDA for paperless caching, so print the 10 cache listings, at least 4 sets of copies but you could give every attendee a set. If you select 10 caches and have 20 attendees that's a lot of wasted paper, so I would print four sets and let each of the teams (yet to be formed) share one. This promotes team interaction and saves a lot of copying. Buy or borrow 4 FRS/GMRS walkie-talkie radios and make sure that the batteries are charged and that they are all tuned to the same channel.

 

Contact the owners of the selected caches and ask them to check on their cache shortly before your event if there is any reason at all to think it might need maintenance, or go check them yourself. It's a serious bummer to take 20 inexperienced cachers on a DNF... or to a wet and smelly cache. You do NOT want to do this! Ask the owner if a single team signature will be acceptable; skip the cache if it's not okay, as waiting on 20 signatures just holds things up too long for a group event of this nature.

 

Reserve tables or a pavilion and have a picnic at a park. Don't cater it, anyone can do that. Boring! Instead have attendees each bring a dish or supply item... a 'pot-luck' dinner. This will add an element of personal involvement, investment and creativity (not to mention being a fairly good psychological evaluation tool... the guy who shows up with a bucket of cold chicken from the local drive-through and the guy who brings his favorite home-cooked hot dish or pitches in to cook burgers on-site will likely be quite different types of people, always a good thing to know when you are looking for leaders (Hint: they guy with the cold store-bought chicken likely isn't one)!).

 

Select a back-up indoor location, say a local restaurant, in case of inclement weather.

 

Just like at any geocaching event have arriving attendees sign a sign-in sheet. Ask on the sign-in sheet "How many adults will your car hold?"

 

Before the event make, find or buy four small containers... film cans will do though they're not very creative. Semi-Creative might be giving all attendees an identical new fountain pen to put in their pocket, four of which contain a log instead of an ink cartridge. Put a log in each container labeled North, South, East and West. Give one at random to four attendees as they arrive. Early in the picnic announce that there are four event caches to be found, and that they are in unknown person's possession. Attendees must ask each other attendee if they have one of the caches. If the person being asked does have it he quietly reveals it. The log is signed (ask them to be stealthy when signing the log so as not to give the new cache-holder away) and the cache is passed on to the person who 'found' (asked for) it. Add a reward if you want - those who sign all four logs get an hour off early on Friday or a green-fee discount coupon for the local golf course, whatever. Whether your attendees know each other or not this sets up social interaction, introductions, and a level of ease with each other. I have seen this work very successfully at many events since JoeGPS introduced it at GWII and I use it at almost all of my events.

 

After dinner divide the group into 4 teams of 5 by randomly selecting them from the sign-in sheet. This keeps friends from grouping together and strangers are now team members. Make sure to select in each group one person who on the sign-in sheet stated that they could carry 5 in their car. Give one person on each team an FRS/GMRS walkie-talkie or have one person on each team share his cell phone number with someone on each of the other teams so that all teams can communicate with one another.

 

Explain geocaching in simple terms. Really. KISS. Now is not the time to elaborate on TBs or geocoins. If it takes you more than 30 seconds to explain geocaching you're doing it wrong!

 

Have each team select people for these roles: Driver, Navigator, Scribe, Photographer and Critic. The team member with the car will be the Driver. Give the Navigator one of the pre-programmed GPS and a briefing on how to select Find > Next to change from cache to cache. For obvious safety reasons the Driver cannot also be the Navigator! Now have them select a third team member to be the Scribe and give him the cache printouts. Give a fourth team member a digital camera, he'll be the Photographer. The remaining member will be the Critic.

 

Have each team select a Team Name.

 

The cache run will work like this: The Navigator tells the Driver where to go and while on the way the Scribe reads out loud the cache description so that everyone in the car knows what they will be looking for when they get there. Along the way and during the hunt the Photographer takes candid photos. Once the find is made the Scribe writes comments about it on the printout for later online logging. After the find and on the way to the next one the Critic tells everyone what they did wrong and how they can improve the next cache search.

 

Rotate the Navigator, Scribe, Photographer and Critic tasks after each cache so that all 5 team members are involved. This builds true team cooperation and interaction. Without going too deep into team dynamics I will say that everyone having a turn at being the Critic is very important. Of all the tasks in this game being able to effectively communicate regarding issues diplomatically and beneficially may be the most important skill a team member can develop.

 

The question of competition arises now... will this be a competitive effort or not? For company team-building purposes I say not, for casual geocaching get-togethers let the attendees decide.

 

Assuming a non-competitive environment turn all 4 teams loose at once. They will drive to the first cache location, trying within the bounds of safety to travel together. If cars get separated tell everyone to hang out at the parking site and wait for all to arrive before starting the hunt. Multiple cars traveling together is the first of the team's challenges... it takes interaction and communication between teams, especially in traffic such as in an urban environment.

 

Once all teams are there everyone hunts for the cache. Obviously this won't take long or be much fun if the cache is a Park-n-Grab, so you pre-selected caches that will take a little time to find either because of terrain or difficulty. And you selected caches at interesting places, giving hunters something to talk about while they are looking, didn't you. Yes you did!

 

Depending on how much time you want to spend at each cache you may instruct finders to be stealthy... trying to grab the cache, sign it and replace it without being seen while 19 others are searching all around you can be a real challenge! That way several hunters can all find the cache. Most often, however, whoever finds the cache hollers "Found It" and the other hunters can gather around, converse about the clever container, trade some trinkets or head back to the cars. The person who finds the cache signs a single Team Name, just one signature instead of taking the time and log space to have all 20 hunters sign it.

 

If you have selected the caches and the route carefully then you will have made a big circle and the last cache will be back close to the event venue. Ask one team member from each team to post the Scribe comments and photographs on a company website or on an internet photo-sharing site like PhotoBucket.com for all to see.

 

After the event email the list of caches found to each attendee so that they can log them on geocaching.com if they so choose.

 

Whether this outline is used for a casual group of friends or as a team-building exercise for co-workers I think that you will find this to be fun, unifying, educational and memorable.

 

Have fun, and if anyone tries this or something like it please share your experience by writing it up and sending me the results to be published as an article in The Online Geocacher e-zine. TheAlabamaRambler@gmail.com

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I am not sure what you mean by 'car rally', but I will guess that what you are looking for is what I call a 'caravan' or 'wagon train' wherein several carloads of cachers go on a 'cache run'.

 

One common way to do this is that cachers attend an event, socialize for a while and decide to go caching together. Two to five people, no problem, they will usually fit in one car. Get more than that interested and you need multiple cars. This is where the wagon train comes in. One car will usually be appointed the leader and the other cars follow him from cache to cache. At the cache site everyone groups together to hunt for the cache.

 

I attended a dinner event last week, for example, which ~60 cachers attended. During dinner I invited anyone interested to go after a new series nearby that had been published earlier that week... 15 caches of different types over a 25 mile route. A dozen or so wanted to go, and since I had found them all I would lead what ended up being a wagon-train of 5 cars. We traveled from cache to cache as a group, get to a cache site, get out and some would spend time standing around talking, some would pair up and go look for the cache, if it wasn't found quickly everyone ends up looking. This is great fun, and a wonderful way to spend time with cachers you rarely see or may not even know. Bonds of friendship are formed.

 

I've done this repeatedly with anywhere from two carloads informally getting together to a formal planned run at a mega-event (GWIII in Florida) where 23 carloads cached our way as a wagon train from Jacksonville to St. Augustine and back.

 

We use everything from pre-planned routes to ham radio, cell phones, FRS/GMRS hand-held radios and such to stay together. More than 3 cars starts to be a bit of trouble keeping together in traffic, so both plans and communications are pretty much required beyond that, else everyone gets separated, which can be frustrating to some. Mostly when you get separated you call the leader, find out what cache they are headed for next and meet there.

 

Wagon-trains of this nature are usually slow-moving relaxed social events with cars joining and departing at leisure. Sometimes they can be high-speed numbers runs where the leader chooses fast easy caches and the group picks a number, say 50 caches, and they're off.

 

So, I can easily see that basic concept being used as a team-building activity.

 

Let's say I have 20 employees and wanted to have a fun team-building event, here's what I would do, and this is what I think you are asking about...

 

In advance of the event arrange for 4 GPSr to be available. Have them pre-loaded with maps and with the cache data for, say, 10 pre-selected caches of different levels of terrain and difficulty. Determine a logical route from cache to cache, preferably a circle that starts and ends near the event location. Since I am assuming a company event most participants won't have their own GPS and PDA for paperless caching, so print the 10 cache listings, at least 4 sets of copies but you could give every attendee a set. If you select 10 caches and have 20 attendees that's a lot of wasted paper, so I would print four sets and let each of the teams (yet to be formed) share one. This promotes team interaction and saves a lot of copying. Buy or borrow 4 FRS/GMRS walkie-talkie radios and make sure that the batteries are charged and that they are all tuned to the same channel.

 

Contact the owners of the selected caches and ask them to check on their cache shortly before your event if there is any reason at all to think it might need maintenance, or go check them yourself. It's a serious bummer to take 20 inexperienced cachers on a DNF... or to a wet and smelly cache. You do NOT want to do this! Ask the owner if a single team signature will be acceptable; skip the cache if it's not okay, as waiting on 20 signatures just holds things up too long for a group event of this nature.

 

Reserve tables or a pavilion and have a picnic at a park. Don't cater it, anyone can do that. Boring! Instead have attendees each bring a dish or supply item... a 'pot-luck' dinner. This will add an element of personal involvement, investment and creativity (not to mention being a fairly good psychological evaluation tool... the guy who shows up with a bucket of cold chicken from the local drive-through and the guy who brings his favorite home-cooked hot dish or pitches in to cook burgers on-site will likely be quite different types of people, always a good thing to know when you are looking for leaders (Hint: they guy with the cold store-bought chicken likely isn't one)!).

 

Select a back-up indoor location, say a local restaurant, in case of inclement weather.

 

Just like at any geocaching event have arriving attendees sign a sign-in sheet. Ask on the sign-in sheet "How many adults will your car hold?"

 

Before the event make, find or buy four small containers... film cans will do though they're not very creative. Semi-Creative might be giving all attendees an identical new fountain pen to put in their pocket, four of which contain a log instead of an ink cartridge. Put a log in each container labeled North, South, East and West. Give one at random to four attendees as they arrive. Early in the picnic announce that there are four event caches to be found, and that they are in unknown person's possession. Attendees must ask each other attendee if they have one of the caches. If the person being asked does have it he quietly reveals it. The log is signed (ask them to be stealthy when signing the log so as not to give the new cache-holder away) and the cache is passed on to the person who 'found' (asked for) it. Add a reward if you want - those who sign all four logs get an hour off early on Friday or a green-fee discount coupon for the local golf course, whatever. Whether your attendees know each other or not this sets up social interaction, introductions, and a level of ease with each other. I have seen this work very successfully at many events since JoeGPS introduced it at GWII and I use it at almost all of my events.

 

After dinner divide the group into 4 teams of 5 by randomly selecting them from the sign-in sheet. This keeps friends from grouping together and strangers are now team members. Make sure to select in each group one person who on the sign-in sheet stated that they could carry 5 in their car. Give one person on each team an FRS/GMRS walkie-talkie or have one person on each team share his cell phone number with someone on each of the other teams so that all teams can communicate with one another.

 

Explain geocaching in simple terms. Really. KISS. Now is not the time to elaborate on TBs or geocoins. If it takes you more than 30 seconds to explain geocaching you're doing it wrong!

 

Have each team select people for these roles: Driver, Navigator, Scribe, Photographer and Critic. The team member with the car will be the Driver. Give the Navigator one of the pre-programmed GPS and a briefing on how to select Find > Next to change from cache to cache. For obvious safety reasons the Driver cannot also be the Navigator! Now have them select a third team member to be the Scribe and give him the cache printouts. Give a fourth team member a digital camera, he'll be the Photographer. The remaining member will be the Critic.

 

Have each team select a Team Name.

 

The cache run will work like this: The Navigator tells the Driver where to go and while on the way the Scribe reads out loud the cache description so that everyone in the car knows what they will be looking for when they get there. Along the way and during the hunt the Photographer takes candid photos. Once the find is made the Scribe writes comments about it on the printout for later online logging. After the find and on the way to the next one the Critic tells everyone what they did wrong and how they can improve the next cache search.

 

Rotate the Navigator, Scribe, Photographer and Critic tasks after each cache so that all 5 team members are involved. This builds true team cooperation and interaction. Without going too deep into team dynamics I will say that everyone having a turn at being the Critic is very important. Of all the tasks in this game being able to effectively communicate regarding issues diplomatically and beneficially may be the most important skill a team member can develop.

 

The question of competition arises now... will this be a competitive effort or not? For company team-building purposes I say not, for casual geocaching get-togethers let the attendees decide.

 

Assuming a non-competitive environment turn all 4 teams loose at once. They will drive to the first cache location, trying within the bounds of safety to travel together. If cars get separated tell everyone to hang out at the parking site and wait for all to arrive before starting the hunt. Multiple cars traveling together is the first of the team's challenges... it takes interaction and communication between teams, especially in traffic such as in an urban environment.

 

Once all teams are there everyone hunts for the cache. Obviously this won't take long or be much fun if the cache is a Park-n-Grab, so you pre-selected caches that will take a little time to find either because of terrain or difficulty. And you selected caches at interesting places, giving hunters something to talk about while they are looking, didn't you. Yes you did!

 

Depending on how much time you want to spend at each cache you may instruct finders to be stealthy... trying to grab the cache, sign it and replace it without being seen while 19 others are searching all around you can be a real challenge! That way several hunters can all find the cache. Most often, however, whoever finds the cache hollers "Found It" and the other hunters can gather around, converse about the clever container, trade some trinkets or head back to the cars. The person who finds the cache signs a single Team Name, just one signature instead of taking the time and log space to have all 20 hunters sign it.

 

If you have selected the caches and the route carefully then you will have made a big circle and the last cache will be back close to the event venue. Ask one team member from each team to post the Scribe comments and photographs on a company website or on an internet photo-sharing site like PhotoBucket.com for all to see.

 

After the event email the list of caches found to each attendee so that they can log them on geocaching.com if they so choose.

 

Whether this outline is used for a casual group of friends or as a team-building exercise for co-workers I think that you will find this to be fun, unifying, educational and memorable.

 

Have fun, and if anyone tries this or something like it please share your experience by writing it up and sending me the results to be published as an article in The Online Geocacher e-zine. TheAlabamaRambler@gmail.com

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:anitongue: Thankyou so much, it is definitely what I was looking for.

I have walkie talkies and was wanting to send them off in two's.

I plan to get them to use GPS's and do a questionairre around where I work, get them used to using it.

 

We will be going to do a few caches and having a nice meal at a winery.

 

I will be definitely studying your suggestions as there are quite a few things I did not think of.

 

Thanks again.

 

Sallysatnav

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