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Get In The Game! with Geocaching


WindChill

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The Boy Scouts of America is including geocaching as part of its 100th anniversary activities ((link). They are calling it "Get In The Game! with Geocaching". Groundspeak is even supporting this with a free 30 day premium membership for Scouts.

 

Anyone else helping plan the geocaching activities for their local council?

Sounds like a good ticket item for a fall Woodbadge class participant. :shocked:

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I went through NYLT this past summer...one of the activities was a geocaching course. It was pretty awesome...25 or so caches spread out over a few acres of land at our council's camp. I think we had to find about ten of them to complete the course. The course instructer glued NYLT/Geocaching logos on pieces of wood and cut them up into puzzles. He stashed the various pieces through out the caches. Then set loose 6 patrols of 8 scouts with GPSr's to find them. Needless to say it was quite a bit of fun.

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I saw/read, I think in the slides from the recent webinar, that they have received all of the materials for the starter kits and they should be sent out very soon.

 

Ive got a meeting with the anniversary committee in a couple of weeks to kick off the planning in earnest. I think my problem is going to be keeping the scope of things to a manageable size...

Edited by WindChill
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I saw/read, I think in the slides from the recent webinar, that they have received all of the materials for the starter kits and they should be sent out very soon.

 

Ive got a meeting with the anniversary committee in a couple of weeks to kick off the planning in earnest. I think my problem is going to be keeping the scope of things to a manageable size...

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I am chairing the Get In The Game effort here in the Shenandoah Area Council. We have received the beautiful package from National and now ready to put out the 5 travel bugs for Pillars of Scouting. I believe the Treasures of Scouting will be next. I'd really like to do the Cache to Eagle program but although we only have 4 districts, we cover a lot of area geographically and I'm just not getting the support to carry out that part of it...YET...hoping that will change.

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Im still waiting for our kit.

 

Ive got an Eagle Scout / geocacher on board to do the public stuff while I focus on the private (summer camp, camporee, unit demonstrations). He is fired up to do a Cache To Eagle series but is having trouble locating appropriate project sites. We have a meeting with the Council folks tomorrow evening so Im hoping they will be able to help with that.

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The Cascade Pacific Council has started rolling out their "Treasures of Scouting" geocaches as of October 16. Feel free to search for treasures of scouting on geocaching.com. We have a large area to cover in our council, so we are planning to hide 15 to 20 caches.

 

We are still deciding on what items we want to send out for the Pillars of Scouting Travel Bugs.

 

The Cache to Eagle program is still in development as we research what projects to highlight.

 

We are getting great responses from the logs and will be having our first monthly drawing for the official Get In The Game geocoin very soon. The cards for the drawing are starting to come in. We have even received a card from a cacher on the other side of the country (Maine). Apparently he was in town and saw our cache here on geocaching.com.

 

Allan Campbell

CPCBSA Get In The Game!

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Im still waiting for our kit.

 

Ive got an Eagle Scout / geocacher on board to do the public stuff while I focus on the private (summer camp, camporee, unit demonstrations). He is fired up to do a Cache To Eagle series but is having trouble locating appropriate project sites. We have a meeting with the Council folks tomorrow evening so Im hoping they will be able to help with that.

 

The problems I have been seeing with getting projects to highlight in a Cache to Eagle series is the proximity to existing caches. In one case the pavilion erected for the project already had a cache hidden on it! LOL

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The problems I have been seeing with getting projects to highlight in a Cache to Eagle series is the proximity to existing caches. In one case the pavilion erected for the project already had a cache hidden on it! LOL

 

This has been a huge problem so far.

1.) You could make it a Private cache and have some sort of handout at the council.

2.) Or I think you could make it a Multi where you visit each location and then end up at a final cache. I think only the start and end of a multi needs to worry about proximity.

 

We may go with the Multicache idea if I am correct about proximity for the Cache to Eagle program. It has been hard enough to hide Treasures of Scouting without having to move them due to Multicache segment.

 

This has been great fun so far, and I hope is measured as a success for my council at the end of 2010

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1.) You could make it a Private cache and have some sort of handout at the council.

2.) Or I think you could make it a Multi where you visit each location and then end up at a final cache. I think only the start and end of a multi needs to worry about proximity.

 

Making it private defeats the purpose, which is to make people outside of Scouting aware of how much service Scouts provide.

 

Making it a simple two-stage multi is our plan for an existing cache near a site. Use some info about the project to get the coordinates of the final.

 

The proximity rule applies to all physical caches, including stages of a multi that have an actual container. We're hoping that wont really be an issue though.

 

Cache containers and physical stages should generally be separated by a minimum of 0.1 miles (528 feet or 161 m). A physical stage is defined as any stage that contains a physical element placed by the geocache owner, such as a tag with the next set of coordinates or a container. Non-physical caches or stages including reference points, trailhead/parking coordinates and question to answer waypoints are exempt from this guideline.

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Additionally, within a single multi-cache or mystery/puzzle cache, there is no minimum required distance between physical elements.

 

I read it slightly different when you add the next line.... Although I have never placed a Multicache.

 

I was hoping to place a single multicache with 12 additional waypoints and a starting and ending point. I wanted to have a cache container at each waypoint, 14 total. Is that not possible? I thought we would only have to worry about proximity on the start and end points. The other twelve would fall into the additional waypoints and have no required distance between physical elements.

 

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

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I read it slightly different when you add the next line.... Although I have never placed a Multicache.

 

I was hoping to place a single multicache with 12 additional waypoints and a starting and ending point. I wanted to have a cache container at each waypoint, 14 total. Is that not possible? I thought we would only have to worry about proximity on the start and end points. The other twelve would fall into the additional waypoints and have no required distance between physical elements.

 

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

I would suggest individual listing for each project. It’s a little more work that way but each project deserves its own cache page.

 

Have a look at my pages I have created thus far and I think you can see what attention each project deserves.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...d9-8d0cd310a9a3

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...12-9496b0e444c8

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...87-4c78445f3745

Edited by Roland_oso
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I'm new to Boy Scouts and volunteered to be a Wolf Den Leader for my Cubscout pack. I am however, a seasoned geocacher.

I saw the email from Geocaching last week and have volunteered for the Chief Seattle Council here in the PNW. They are just waiting on the kit to get here.

 

I am wondering if you have asked other geocachers in your area to help place caches in your area?? And is anyone planning on doing a CITO or other event?

I think holding a "kick-off" event in the area would be a great idea to let other packs and troops in the area know all about it and "get in the game".

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Yep. Im coordinating the efforts and planning the "private" activities. Ive got another geocacher who is planning all of the "public" activities. We'll both recruit additional local geocachers to help with the actual activities (placing the caches, hosting the events etc).

 

We are still working out the details but here is our general plan:

* public activities

- Geocaching 101 kick off event in Jan/Feb. We usually do one of these anyhow for the folks who got a GPS for Christmas.

- gc.com annual Earth Day CITO

- gc.com and BSA are working on an additional CITO day for Scout units to do at the same time.

- Cache To Eagle series (as described on GeoScouting.com)

- 100 caches for 100 years...the guy planning the public activities wants to place 100 caches in our council area.

- all of these are regular, public geocaching activities with additional advertising to Scout units

 

* private activities

- very short intro at round table

- article in newsletter

- offer to hold private geo 101 classes for units

- free-time and "activity station"/"merit badge session" caches at summer camp

- geocaching station at camporee

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I am wondering if you have asked other geocachers in your area to help place caches in your area?? And is anyone planning on doing a CITO or other event?

I think holding a "kick-off" event in the area would be a great idea to let other packs and troops in the area know all about it and "get in the game".

 

For the CPCBSA I have assembled a small group of volunteers for the Get In The Game! activities that we have planned. I contacted several geocaching groups to find volunteers to fill our sub-committee of the 100th Anniversary Committee. For large large area you are going to need help.

 

http://www.cpcbsa.org/activities/100_years/geocache.html

Edited by campbell_cache
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I got our kit yesterday...It contains:

 

* 25 Cache to Eagle patches (pic) - to be given to those who complete the Cache to Eagle series

* 30 unactivated geocoins (pic) - everyone who returns a reply card from the Treasures of Scouting caches goes into a drawing for a coin. New drawing each month

* 5 activated Pillars of Scouting TB tags (pic)

* 1 unactivated Pinewood derby TB tag (no pic, just a regular TB tag)

* 1 printed page of instructions

* 1 GeoScouting tri-fold brochure

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Gents,

 

Is anyone from the Heart of America Council working on this project? I am a Cub Scout leader and interested in helping/organizing/participating. Thanks for any information?

 

svaquarelle

 

Yes I am, we are waiting some supplies from National. I will put you on the list.

 

Thanks! My understanding from the Get in the Game folks at Groundspeak is that HOAC has yet to request their kit. Let me know if I can assist.

 

svaquarelle

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I'm the Get in the Game coordinator for Greater NY Councils. I was appointed in October but we are off to a very slow start. Very few scouters in GNYC are geocachers so I'm basically starting with GC 101 each time I open my mouth. However, now that I've had time to work on it and think about it, this is a modified posting that I put on the MetroGC forum last week..

 

1. On January 9 at BMCC there is a big Scouting training event (members only) and I am doing an Intro to GC workshop. This is my main kick-off. I have done a number of GC101's in the scout camps, camporees, etc, but now I'm official. I hope this is where I can really get unit leaders motivated and excited.

 

2. Within the next month, I will be placing a series of medium to large caches that will contain information cards. When these are mailed back, they will be in a drawing for custom geocoins (unactivated) I'm placing three of the themed caches in my scout camps and one at a round table location ("adults") The last theme is "Venturing" and I am at a loss as to where to place it to make it meaningful. Most places suggested by Venturing won't support a large cache. I'm ready to go with two of them -- but am sitting on my hands waiting for the council to print the reply cards

 

3. I have in my possession 5 unique dog tags that have their own GC logo. There are only 1500 in circulation (although less than 100 have been released so far). They will be dropped in the new caches going on line in the next few weeks. The Pillars of Scouting travel bugs are registered to National..not the individual councils. So to individualize by council, it has to be as a log..so I am doing that and fastening laminated info sheets/patches on them

 

4. I hope to put out at least 36 micro/small caches in the next 3 months on what is called the Cache to Eagle series. There will be 12 in Manhattan, at least 12 in Queens and 12 scattered around the rest of the city. They will highlight eagle scout service projects. All will have code words in them and when you find all 12 in the series, you can have a special patch mailed to you. As stated previosuly in someone else's posting, getting information on projects is like pulling teeth. I gave up asking for GC specific sites, now just send me ANYTHING, and I will sort it out latert. We have 8 districts--I got response from 3..and I'm on the council advancement committee--talk about apathy!

 

5. I am planning a BIG Intro to GC day on April 10 and I will need the Society's help to pull it off. There is one in Trenton NJ on January 2. I think Jan 2 is nuts for this type of event but I am going to lend a hand.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_de ... 5a570c81f5 (they had about 40 scouts out -- temp was 28 degrees with windchill of 2. Kids learned basics but I think the spring is the better way to go.

 

6. I hope to introduce the game to of kids and leaders in the next few months and am encouraging them to set their own caches. On fellow from College Point talked to me about putting a historic trail in College Point.

 

7. There may be a big CITO on April 24. (I hear it's the nationwide service day) Not my event but I will try to piggy back with it.

 

8. There will be a new Geocaching merit badge out in April. Looks like I will be the first counselor in the city for it and I expect one of my scouts in Troop 70 to be one of the first earners in the nation. I have 2 or 3 kids that I call Geocaching Hounds as they can really sniff out cache locations.

 

9. There will be a Travel Bug 'race' in the spring (kicks off nationally on March 6 I believe) that will carry a Pinewood Derby car

 

10. I am in the process of putting together a GC Committee of GCing scout leaders. Very few out there. I may also want some non-scouting GCers on the committee as advisers.

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Sounds like things are coming together for you Tatonka (Im a Mighty Mighty Buffalo from C-10-09).

 

I had more response from geocachers who are/were Scouts than finding Scouters who geocache.

 

I had a bunch of time over the holidays and was able to get caught up on some things. I created a flyer for our RoundTable but wanted to offer more info than was reasonable for a flyer. I threw together some pages to provide more info: www.vintonbbs.com/GetInTheGame I forgot about the special CITO so will have to get that added.

 

We have a kick-off event next weekend and the caches are starting to come online.

Edited by WindChill
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I am Glacier's Edge Council coordinator from the Madison, Wisconsin area. Things are moving along here with the Treasures of Scouting caches. I have placed some caches and released all the TB's. I have also placed some Cache To Eagle Caches. You can look up (Glacier'sEdgeCouncil) to find my caches.

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I'm the VP Marketing & Communications for Keystone Area Council in southcentral PA. I just prepared a 12 point cache for one of my Wood Badge tickets (NE-VI-64 - Buffalo).

I hid them all at our Council's Camp (Hidden Valley Scout Reservation) and logged them into geocaching.com only to have them placed on hold because folks need permission from the camp ranger to enter the property.

Has anyone else run into that problem?

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We chose not to hide any public (gc.com listed) caches on camp property for a whole variety of safety/security/liability reasons. We did talk to our Scout Exec and Camp Director about putting on right at the front entrance to camp. They didnt like that for the same reasons.

 

Scout Exec did give permission, in fact was very excited, to have one under the bushes at the Service Center.

 

We will have a dozen or so caches on camp property for summer camp participants to find. They will be publicized in the summer camp leaders guide. Coordinates and puzzle info will be available from the QM or Trading Post when you get to camp.

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Sounds like a nice series from the logs.

 

I would suggest that you have a reviewer change them from "traditional" to "mystery". There are people who will hunt traditional caches without ever reading the description. It would only take one of these people wandering around camp to ruin the whole thing.

 

WindChill

"Im going to work my ticket if I can"

(C-10-09 Mighty, Mighty Buffalo)

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Indian Waters Council of Columbia SC is Getting in the Game later this month. We have our kit and will be starting soon. We are encountering the same problems with Eagle Caches, too, so we will be hunting some down via the District Advancement chairs.

 

BTW, TY, campbell_cache, for posting a photo of your TB for Pillars. That has inspired me- I was thinking wayyyy more difficult (therefore time-consuming) and I think that simple and FAST is best! My dad used to say that it did not have to be perfect, it had to be DONE!

 

Anyone in our area, please let us know if you have a cache that would be good to place an item, as we want to get some of the Pillars going out first.

 

Yours in Scouting Service

Lorie McGraw

AKA pyromomma (who is an absolute noob to all of this :) )

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This from the folks at national, just got it passed to me today by one of our team.

 

Webinar on Wed. Feb 3, 2010 for Get in the Game!/ Race to 2010 and Cache In, Trash Out Geocaching Activities

1-2PM CST (2-3 PM EST)

 

Join us for a Webinar on February 3

Log on to: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/206114265

 

Learn about two exciting new Get in the Game! geocaching activities for councils, districts, and units. We’ll also share with you some fun geocaching ideas from councils across the country and give you more tips on how to make the most of your council starter kits.

 

We hope you can join our Webinar live, but if you can’t, it will be recorded and posted to the Anniversary Academy page on YourSource. Feel free to forward this invitation to anyone who may want to attend!

 

Title: Get in the Game! Race to 2010 and Cache In, Trash Out Geocaching Activities

Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Time: 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. CST

 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation e-mail containing information about joining the Webinar.

 

Please pass this on to your team members

Lorie in Columbia SC :o:)

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The Boy Scouts of America is including geocaching as part of its 100th anniversary activities ((link). They are calling it "Get In The Game! with Geocaching". Groundspeak is even supporting this with a free 30 day premium membership for Scouts.

 

Anyone else helping plan the geocaching activities for their local council?

 

I have the starter kit, but I don't see information about the 30 day membership upgrade. Can someone provide some guidance on how to request the upgrade?

 

Thanks

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You know...I dont remember anything in my kit either but Id have to check it again.

 

Id suggest contacting Mary Stevens, the national Get In The Game coordinator, at bsagetinthegame@gmail.com. You might also contact the geocaching.com volunteer reviewer for your area and have him/her "ask around"

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I don't see information about the 30 day membership upgrade. Can someone provide some guidance on how to request the upgrade?

 

Thanks

The webinar last week said that the codes for upgrading for 30 days were being sent (via email?) to the Councils that had requested kits -Check with the person who got the Council kit for the codes, or bsagetinthegame@gmail.com to find out more.

They have 5000 upgrades to be given out. My notes do not say how many per council, but I remember that they said that they were going to start out with 10-20 codes per council and then would send more if needed. Each code is good for one upgrade, evidently to prevent wholesale distribution via emails, etc. :)

 

:laughing: A real noob question: is there any reason why our council should have a premium membership for geocache.com? We have no budget for this and the money coming from volunteer's pockets might be better spent on printing and TBs.

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Thanks pyromomma, I missed the webinar.

 

I cant imagine why a council would want/need a premium membership. In our case, the "council" is not really involved in the geocaching activities. I approached the Scout Exec with the program info and a general plan for what I wanted to do. He gave the okay and told me who could provide support such as printing the "more info" cards. My point is that nobody in the office is a geocacher so a membership does them no good. All of the caches are listed from my, or my #2, account.

 

My understanding was that the trial memberships was for any Scout/Scouter that wanted one. Not sure how we'll go about giving them out. Maybe "coupons" in the anniversary caches.

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My understanding was that the trial memberships was for any Scout/Scouter that wanted one. Not sure how we'll go about giving them out. Maybe "coupons" in the anniversary caches.

 

I like that idea - maybe the first few people to find the caches? We have 2 Cub Packs in my district that have a cache, I think that they might like to try it out.

I just am not sure what all the casual cacher needs that the basic membership does not supply.

Still learning, day by day.

Our GITG committee set up an account so that we could have "official' scouting stuff come from it - it is co-managed by several folks in our committee. That way if one of us leaves it can continue down the road and oothers can step in and keep it going.

 

Our profile is IndianWatersGeoScout. We hope to have some caches out in the next few weeks. :)

 

Edited to add that the coupons/codes ARE for any Scout/Scouter who wants one - the codes are just individual codes, not a 'use coupon code xxyyzz' deal like for free shipping at Scoutstuff. If you have a bunch of people that want them, ask for them - one of the webinar gals said that if they ran out of codes they would get more.

Edited by pyromomma
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The casual cacher probably doesnt need a premium membership. The big thing that it gets you is "pocket queries". A PQ is a "saved search" that you can schedule to automatically run on certain days and have the results emailed to you.

 

The results are in a standardized (XML) format that contains most all of the information from the cache page, including: coordinates, description, hints and the most recent 5 logs.

 

The PQ results can be used by a variety of software programs to do things like plot the locations on a map, help plan a geocaching trip or "go paperless". Do some searching to see what programs are available and what they can do for you. The most well-known is Geocaching Swiss Army Knife, or GSAK. Best $20 dollars I have spent on geocaching.

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A few of ways...

* you can have multiple bookmark lists so you can organize what you are watching.

* you can turn email updates on or off independently for each list.

* you can share bookmark lists so everyone else can see them.

* you can create a pocket query of the caches in a bookmark list.

 

Each cache page has a section that shows a list (with links) of the bookmark lists that include the cache where as it only shows the number of people watching a cache with no way to see who is watching.

 

As I mentioned, I dont use them much so I may have missed some.

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A few of ways...

* you can have multiple bookmark lists so you can organize what you are watching.

* you can turn email updates on or off independently for each list.

* you can share bookmark lists so everyone else can see them.

* you can create a pocket query of the caches in a bookmark list.

 

Each cache page has a section that shows a list (with links) of the bookmark lists that include the cache where as it only shows the number of people watching a cache with no way to see who is watching.

 

As I mentioned, I dont use them much so I may have missed some.

[/quote

 

San Diego BSA are active!

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