+Manville Possum Posted February 12, 2011 Share Posted February 12, 2011 (edited) Newb post, sorry to interject into something has obviously derailed anyway, but I feel that I have input that may be valuable, assuming all original, given scenarios are truly valid. I work in St. Clairsville, OH - My office has recently moved 1 block away, but for 8 years was across the street from the Belmont County courthouse, on the same floor as the Belmont County Magistrate's office (John Poludis - honestly, one of the fairest, most open-minded, and hilarious people I have ever known - passed on now, due to cancer). Mornings at the office were often spent chit-chatting with John, or more often, his two secretaries. The discussion turned to caching one day, actually by the secretary's lead. The original question - How many people actually seek proper permission, whatever that is defined as, which is another discussion, entirely. She told me a story, and this was probably a year, or better, before I even knew what caching was. Somebody (I'm sorry, I wish I could tell you more) had asked somebody else who worked in the courthouse (again, sorry), what was necessary to get proper permission to place a geocache. A similar scenario to that of your's ensued, in which the potential CO had to meet with the city council. I don't know the experience of the person attempting to place the cache, but I remember the girl telling me that they brought a video of them seeking out a cache with them to their meeting. Apparently they had chosen a cache in a location that was very close, and familiar to the council, and recorded video of the entire expedition. Also worth noting that the cache that they were going for had already been in place for a significant period of time (sorry, memory isn't reliable to put a real time-frame on it). Nobody had EVER been any the wiser. Once they watched the video, they deemed the entire thing to be harmless, and granted permission. Interesting side-note to that story though, and for some reason, I remember this distinctly: They were so interested that they continued to ask questions for quite some time. The one thing that they were not comfortable with - Guardrail hides. These are very popular among cachers, but they were very concerned about large numbers of people wandering along the roadways looking for stuff. I can see their point - it all comes down to common sense when planting your cache. Anyway, I really hope this helps... As I said, I'm a newb to caching, but I am in a unique position to share an experience. I also have no idea what has happened in this thread since I have begun typing "My response: Volume 1"... I really hope I helped, am not overstepping my bounds, and am still kind-of on topic. Guardrail hides carelessly done are dangerous and can be illegal where stopping on the highway is not allowed other than for emergencys. I have some guardrail hides that are in pull over/rest areas or senic overlooks. Our town is a small one, and geocaching is welcome. We use geotourism during our Clinch Mountain Music Festival. But we took time long before to educate local athoritys about our hobby and made sure we had permission. Most of the caches in our area are at places that we want to show off that other will enjoy. Edited February 12, 2011 by Manville Possum Hunters Quote Link to comment
+Sol seaker Posted February 12, 2011 Share Posted February 12, 2011 Question to the original thread owner: Did you have your meeting this Friday or is it going to be next Friday? either way, let us know how it turns out. Quote Link to comment
+Manville Possum Posted February 12, 2011 Share Posted February 12, 2011 Question to the original thread owner: Did you have your meeting this Friday or is it going to be next Friday? either way, let us know how it turns out. Yes, please let us know how it turns out. Also if you want to PM me the info of who your contact will be with, maybe I can send them a email. I have some contacts with the State, and have worked with other States also. But I think that you can handle the task on your own. Seems many are willing to help you and have provided good input. Quote Link to comment
Jason-Payne Posted February 14, 2011 Author Share Posted February 14, 2011 The meeting is this friday. I'll let you all know how it works out. Thanks for all the input. Most of you have been a big help. Quote Link to comment
+GeePa Posted February 14, 2011 Share Posted February 14, 2011 I am a trusting guy, but you have to admit that post #20 sure makes it look like you meant to reply as DangerPayne and forgot which account you were logged in with. Quote Link to comment
+Sagefox Posted February 14, 2011 Share Posted February 14, 2011 I am a trusting guy, but you have to admit that post #20 sure makes it look like you meant to reply as DangerPayne and forgot which account you were logged in with. I think we have moved beyond that part of this topic. Lets just let the space be spent on the geocaching presentation. That would be the most helpful thing we can do here. Quote Link to comment
Jason-Payne Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 I decided to go it alone and not find a verteran of the hobby. I didn't want to split the City Superintendant's attention. (Or as my 5 year old nephew called him, the City Super Nintendo) You can make people more open to your ideas if you keep thier attention in one place with one point of view. I prepared a 2 part presentation. Part 1 focused on the basics and philosophy of geocaching. I centered the opening around "What is Geocaching" and "Who Geocaches". I stressed how it was family friendly and that anyone could take part in it. Then I went into the impact of the hobby, focusing on "Cache in Trash Out" and the added "tourism" of the sites. Also mentioning that the areas would not be modified in any way by digging holes, drilling into trees, etc. I closed part 1 with the open policy of the county to geocahing (Manassas is an independant city and not part of the county), and also some caches that already exsisted inside the city limits on Private property. Then when I judged that they had an overall positive view, I brought up the number of caches that already exsisted on public lands. We viewed geocaching.com and did a quick search of the zip code, where they were amazed that all of this has been going on for years without them knowing. Part 2 of the presentation consisted of the policies, restrictions and approval processes of various counties and states to geocaching. This part of the presentation was not on the agenda. I was going to pull this out if I judged that the group had an overall negative idea of everything. They seemed rather positive to everything, so I didn't present part 2. The group was small, just 2 people which made things easier. They came out of the presentation really excited about the possibilities of Geocaching within the city parks. The Superintendant was actually tossing around the idea of holding a geocaching event as part of the 150th anniversary celebration this summer. (150th anniversary of something to do with the Civil War... I'm not sure. Probably one of the battles of Bull Run.) They decided that there would be no approval process for placing caches in the parks and no real restrictions. All anyone really has to do is email or call the Neighborhood Services Coordinator and let her know where the cache is being placed. But even then they didn't seem to stress about it because they said that they could just do a search on this site to find out where they are at. At the end of the meeting, they pulled out a map of the city and highlighted all the parks and walking trails to help me find good locations to place caches at. They also hinted again that they were thinking about holding an event this summer... Everything went really well. Thanks for all your help, guys and gals. I appreciate it. Now I am going hiking because it's 72 degrees and sunny outside. Quote Link to comment
+Sioneva Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 Well done! I'm glad to hear that it went all right. It's nice to have a flexible Super Nintendo to deal with, I bet. Enjoy your hike... I envy you! Quote Link to comment
+Lil Devil Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 Kudos to you! Well done! Quote Link to comment
+Ecylram Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 Sounds like a smashing success!!! I really appreciate all the hard work you put into this so that other geocachers can enjoy the area. Good job!! Quote Link to comment
+MamaKatS Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 CONGRATS!!!!!!!! Enjoy the weather! it's about the same here (except cloudy...but at least warm)... I have a three-day weekend (I (heart) my job!) Monday is a school snow-day makeup day, so... it's a full-on GEOCACHE FREEDOM day for me. Plus whatever I manage to get into over the weekend. :-) Anyway, congrats and enjoy the warmth! Quote Link to comment
+farrtom Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 Evan with permission you need to be careful about where cache's are hid. We hid one along our Greenbelt before winter, we went back to check on it (we, my daughter and I, had not finished getting listed) and it was gone along with another cache close by. The area had obviously been cleaned of brush, trees ect. The Greenbelt Foundation had given permission but the city work crews (or whoever did the cleanup) still got rid of the caches. Quote Link to comment
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