Geocaching and Blood Giving in France ?

[+Rïon]

Hi everybody,

 

I have a question that has been bothering me for a few days. I'd like to put together two things I like doing : geocaching and giving my blood.

You have to know that I'm french, and in France, you don't get a penny for your blood. You really "give" it. I think it's good, because you know people don't do it for the money, but it's also not rewarding enough for most people. Only 4% of French people give their blood frequently, and that's really not enough.

 

I recently received a certificate for the blood and plasma giving I've done, and during the ceremony, the doctors told us it would be great if we could find new ways to make people give their blood. So I thought about geocaching.

 

My idea is to allow people to log my cache as "Found it" only if they gave their blood in one of the French Institute of Blood. I don't know yet if I'd do it like a Virtual Cache (you have to take a picture of you giving your blood, for example), or if I ask the doctors in the Institute close to my city to give the Cache to every geocacher who comes.

 

Of course, if some people can't give their blood for medical reasons, I would still allow them to log the cache as "Found It".

 

So, my question is :

 

Do you think there is a problem making this kind of cache ? I'm totally opened to any critic, as long as it is constructive, of course . I'm concerned about the ethical side of this cache.

And if it's a good idea, how do you think I should do it ?

 

Thanks in advance for your help and your comments on this cache. Once again, you can tell me if it's a bad idea, that's why I opened this topic.

[Keystone]

Your idea has issues under two sections of the Listing Guidelines.

 

First, it's an Additional Logging Requirement. Finders of your cache can claim a find online if they sign the logbook.

 

Second, it's a solicitation that advocates for the social or charitable cause of giving blood. Noble as that cause is, Geocaching.com strives to keep its listings free of agendas. It is too hard to decide where the line is for a "worthy" cause. Please keep your charitable activities separate from your geocaching activities.

[+Touchstone]

Unfortunately, an Event of this sort would more than likely not be Published on this site for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it fails the Solicitation portion of the Guidelines. Your best bet would be to organize something through your local geocaching organization.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I give blood almost every time I have to bushwack a long ways to a cache.

 

Someone had to say it.

[+Manville Possum]

I give blood almost every time I have to bushwack a long ways to a cache.

 

Someone had to say it.

Glad it was you, but I thought about a DNF that I logged last night in a Mall parking lot. Darn thorn bush and no attributes.

To the OP, thanks for giving blood. I can't for medical reasons but my wife does every 8 weeks or so. I have been given blood, so I just want to say thanks to those of you that do donate blood.

[+addisonbr]

What Keystone said. Giving blood is about as uncontroversial as any agenda I can think of, but asking people to do it is still a bit of an agenda, and as such a camel nose under the tent. And the Additional Logging Requirement is fairly difficult to get past - to be listed here you wouldn't be allowed to require anything except for signing the log book (or completing a caching-related challenge, but NYPaddleCacher's pain aside, donating blood wouldn't count).

 

I hate to suggest other listing sites, but an idea like this may work better on a platform that doesn't have guidelines against causes or ALR's. Or perhaps it may work as a Ciste, which I understand is pretty popular in France?

[+Rïon]

Thank you all for your answers. I understand what you said, therefore I will not do this cache. I knew it would be problematic, that's why I asked.

 

Well, I guess I'll have to keep doing what I currently do : talk about blood giving to anyone who doesn't know much about it.

 

Thanks again for your answers, this topic can be closed now

[+pkupmn98]

What about a travel bug? I'm picturing a dogtag hooked to a blood drop shaped keychain, or the red cross icon thing. Have its mission be to get its picture taken with folks giving blood or something similar. Just a suggestion that I've heard about similar ideas that wouldn't work for caches. I'd get my pic with it as I was giving blood! Let me know if you start one, because I think it could do well.

[+Rïon]

That's actually a very good idea ! I'm sure I can find a bloodgiving keychain somewhere.

 

I don't know why I didn't think of that. It's so much easier than creating a cache, it should have been the first thing I thought about.

 

Thanks a lot pkupmn98 !

[+pkupmn98]

Woo Hoo! See world, I'm HELPFUL! Best of luck to ya, Rïon!

 

ETA the little dots

Edited December 20, 2010 by pkupmn98

[+WRASTRO]

Woo Hoo! See world, I'm HELPFUL! Best of luck to ya, Rion (i dont know how to make the little dots over the i)

Copy and paste is your friend! Rïon

 

I agree the blood donor idea is a noble one and the travel bug concept may be the best option.

[+pkupmn98]

Haha, i should have thought of that!

[+Tobias & Petronella]

How about placing a cache near a blood donation center and on the cache page tell what is done with the blood, how much hospitals and doctor say is needed and why. In other words, just tell the facts about idea of blood giving.

 

There are those (like yourself) that believe it is a good thing to do, however there are those that believe it is not. If you use only facts and not beliefs, my guess is that it might work. Good luck.

[Andronicus]

There are religious groups who are against blood donations. So, as with almost everything, it is controversial.

[Andronicus]

You could also try to setup a offset multi that would require the finder to go to blood donating educational locations. You could try to get your local blood guys (red cross?) to setup some educational plaques outside of their clinic. Then have people read the 10th word, or whatever, on the plaque. You wouldn't have to encourage people to donate on the cache page, they would get the encouragment while finding the cache

[+narcissa]

A cause that seems perfectly innocent and worthy to one person can appear totally different to somebody else! I don't know what it's like in France, but blood donation is controversial on several counts here in Canada. Some religious groups are opposed to it, as others have mentioned. Another issue is the screening process, which is outdated, inconsistent, and discriminatory. We also had a tragic tainted blood scandal that resulted in many recipients being infected with Hepatitis C and HIV.

[+Sol seaker]

I love the idea of just stating the statistics on the cache page.

 

Or you could even do a puzzle cache (with a link to a page) that the cacher has to fill in the statistics by themselves.

 

something like, "only ____ out of every 100 French people give blood."

http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/men...0003481a10aRCRD

 

and give a link like that where they can get their answers easily (since the point is them learning).

 

I would make it strictly informational and have absolutely NO hint of any pressure to give blood. Just facts and figures, that's it. Have the final near a major blood center.

 

There are many people who can't give blood due to medical reasons, and some for religious reasons, or whatever. I think that's why it's a great idea to make this cache an equal cache for all and just have it be informational, with no hints of anyone actually doing anything about it. That way with the information, they may decide to or not. It's totally in their hands.

 

Just an idea.

[+niffir]

What Keystone said. Giving blood is about as uncontroversial as any agenda I can think of, but asking people to do it is still a bit of an agenda, and as such a camel nose under the tent. And the Additional Logging Requirement is fairly difficult to get past - to be listed here you wouldn't be allowed to require anything except for signing the log book (or completing a caching-related challenge, but NYPaddleCacher's pain aside, donating blood wouldn't count).

 

I hate to suggest other listing sites, but an idea like this may work better on a platform that doesn't have guidelines against causes or ALR's. Or perhaps it may work as a Ciste, which I understand is pretty popular in France?

 

You would think it would be uncontroversial, but it isn't. One day when I was wearing a blood donation t-shirt in DC, someone came up to me and berated me about how I should be ashamed to be wearing it because of something about the policies of the Red Cross as related to blood donation. I'm beginning to think that there is nothing that doesn't offend someone.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

What about a travel bug? I'm picturing a dogtag hooked to a blood drop shaped keychain, or the red cross icon thing. Have its mission be to get its picture taken with folks giving blood or something similar. Just a suggestion that I've heard about similar ideas that wouldn't work for caches. I'd get my pic with it as I was giving blood! Let me know if you start one, because I think it could do well.

 

This actually has a good precedent. When I first started geocaching it seemed like I was finding "Unite for Diabetes" travel bugs everywhere.

 

Here's an example: http://coord.info/TB1BWX4

[+hzoi]

Have a breakfast or lunch event near the blood donation center on a day when the center is open. Just a regular event, no agenda attached. Near the end of the event, get up, thank everyone for coming, let them know that there is a blood donation center nearby, that you are about to head over, and you'd love for anyone who is interested in giving blood to come over with you. (Offer bribes if you feel it's necessary.)

[+sTeamTraen]

The "agenda" issue is not so much with blood donation being controversial, as with it being an agenda. Even if you can come up with an agenda that everybody agrees with - I would give examples, but someone would find a pedantic way to object to them - the agenda guideline is there to keep cache pages free of solicitations.

 

The other issue in the OP's suggestion is the requirement to have given blood, which as Keystone pointed out is an Additional Logging Requirement, which is no longer allowed. It is also an exclusionary requirement, because not every body can give blood. For example, I cannot give blood in France because I resided in the UK at some point between 1980 and 1996, and so I officially have Mad Cow Disease (as my friends will confirm).

[+lil_cav_wings]

I thought about doing the same thing with a cache for breast cancer awareness (specifically Susan G. Komen), and ended up with the suggestion from a handful of very good cachers to try a TB instead.

 

TBs are easy and you can raise as much social awareness as the number of TBs you drop.

 

I'm sending a "Think Pink" TB out when I come across a good cache for it, and I set up the TB's page to include information about breast cancer. I'm making a donation of $2 per cacher, in their honor, for everyone who moves the bug. No cost to them, and the word gets out.

[+addisonbr]

Even if you can come up with an agenda that everybody agrees with - I would give examples, but someone would find a pedantic way to object to them

I'm on a mailing list where someone recently claimed that nobody would object to criticism of the Nazi Pedophile League. Someone, and I swear it was in earnest, challenged the claim.

 

Then my brain told me that until I stop joining mailing lists and hanging out on Internet forums, we might need to take a break from each other. It grabbed a little suitcase, a tiny bowler hat, stood up on its little anthropomorphic brain-legs, and clomped over to a little door, slamming the door shut behind itself. It was pretty weird.

[+narcissa]

Even if you can come up with an agenda that everybody agrees with - I would give examples, but someone would find a pedantic way to object to them

I'm on a mailing list where someone recently claimed that nobody would object to criticism of the Nazi Pedophile League. Someone, and I swear it was in earnest, challenged the claim.

 

Then my brain told me that until I stop joining mailing lists and hanging out on Internet forums, we might need to take a break from each other. It grabbed a little suitcase, a tiny bowler hat, stood up on its little anthropomorphic brain-legs, and clomped over to a little door, slamming the door shut behind itself. It was pretty weird.

 

Hey, Nazi Pedophiles are people too.

[+Sol seaker]

Even if you can come up with an agenda that everybody agrees with - I would give examples, but someone would find a pedantic way to object to them

I'm on a mailing list where someone recently claimed that nobody would object to criticism of the Nazi Pedophile League. Someone, and I swear it was in earnest, challenged the claim.

 

Then my brain told me that until I stop joining mailing lists and hanging out on Internet forums, we might need to take a break from each other. It grabbed a little suitcase, a tiny bowler hat, stood up on its little anthropomorphic brain-legs, and clomped over to a little door, slamming the door shut behind itself. It was pretty weird.

 

Hey, Nazi Pedophiles are people too.

 

Although many would debate that too!!

[hoosier guy]

I admire your willingness to help others. I was going to do a cache to get people to volunteer for a cause of their choice. But the reviewer made the point, and it is a good one, that yes my cache was well intended and wouldn't cause a problem but that would open the way for other caches that might. Good call on the reviewers part I think.

 

Hope the TB idea works out for you. Thanks for caring.

[+Jennifer&Dean]

I like the TB idea. I've got a Donation awareness key chain I've been thinking of sending out in memory of the unknown girl I donated Bone Marrow and Stem Cells for a few years ago. While she didn't survive her illness, she has a place in my heart and I would love to make more people aware of the Be The Match foundation's work.

If it wasn't for the Be the Match team, I would not have gotten into donating blood, as they were some of the nicest people I have ever worked with and really made me aware of the need in my community.

 

Your post might be the instigator I need to put the TB out.

Jennifer

[+Rïon]

Narcissa : giving blood in France is not so much controversial. Of course, some religion groups are against it, and some people think the guideline to give blood should be changed (which I agree with, homosexual people still can't give their blood, even if they have only one partner and have medical prooves that they don't have AIDS...), but since it's something you do for free, it's a good thing for most people. We did have a problem with contaminated blood too, about 20 years ago, but they've totaly changed the guideline since. They're über-careful now.

 

Sol seaker : a puzzle cache is a good idea too. If people read about the importance of giving blood and that only a few people do it, maybe they'll want to give, at least once. I'll think about it, but I think I'll start with the TB.

 

NYPaddleCacher : same thing, I've found I-don't-know-how-many Diabete TB when I started, even here, in France !

 

Hzoy : organizing an event, even a small one, is a bit too much for me, for now. It hasn't been a year since I started, I don't feel capable of doing such a thing. However, I'll keep the idea in a corner of my head and use it when I feel confortable with the organization of an event

 

lil_cav_wings : great idea to make a donation everytime a cacher finds your TB ! Talk about having a heart !

 

Jennifer&Dean : Glad I could help ! It's great to give Bone Marrow ! I wish I could be on the list too, but I need to lose just a few kilos before I can be on the list... Thanks for helping this girl, I'm sad it didn't save her... Go ahead with your TB, great idea !

[+hzoi]

Organizing an event is actually pretty easy. You find a restaurant with a back room, or even just a park with a free pavilion, and you publish the listing. If there is a space limitation, you say so up front: Only seats for 40 cachers. You keep in touch with the venue and adjust the reservation accordingly.

 

Or you could just make it a flash mob, just pick a spot and a time and people show up. Actually, for this, a flash mob might make even more sense than a more traditional "meet, greet, and eat" event.

 

Once you get your first event out of the way, you'll be amazed how easy they are.

Edited December 20, 2010 by hzoi