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15Tango

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When I orginally donated I figured $30.00 a year was nothing for the amount of enjoyment I have gotten from Geocaching and still feel the same way.

 

I am fairy sure there are more than 95 of us left.

 

I'd be willing to back pay for all the months I missed to be #96.

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When I orginally donated I figured $30.00 a year was nothing for the amount of enjoyment I have gotten from Geocaching and still feel the same way.

 

I am fairy sure there are more than 95 of us left.

 

I'd be willing to back pay for all the months I missed to be #96.

 

Jeremy Irish is a total genius. Started a company that has 70 full-time employees, and people are willing to make donations? :laughing:

 

Yeah, 95 sounds low, but it's very possible. Don't go by the fact 10% of you have posted here. Almost everyone read or posted in the forums back then. :huh:

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When I orginally donated I figured $30.00 a year was nothing for the amount of enjoyment I have gotten from Geocaching and still feel the same way.

 

I am fairy sure there are more than 95 of us left.

 

I'd be willing to back pay for all the months I missed to be #96.

 

Jeremy Irish is a total genius. Started a company that has 70 full-time employees, and people are willing to make donations? :laughing:

 

Yeah, 95 sounds low, but it's very possible. Don't go by the fact 10% of you have posted here. Almost everyone read or posted in the forums back then. :huh:

 

Heck I'd pay for a platinum membership if I could just find that link again.

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Jeremy Irish is a total genius. Started a company that has 70 full-time employees, and people are willing to make donations? :laughing:

 

Yeah, 95 sounds low, but it's very possible. Don't go by the fact 10% of you have posted here. Almost everyone read or posted in the forums back then. :huh:

In 2002 when I paid for a Charter Membership, I really did think of it as a donation to help keep the website running. The biggest problems then were server capacity to handle the traffic. I wanted them to succeed and to buy more servers. It worked.

 

At that time, Groundspeak had zero employees. The three founders were still working at their full time jobs. First, Jeremy and Elias left their prior employer, and eventually Bryan followed. The first "employee" was Bryan's wife, Hydee.

 

Premium Member Only caches and the opportunity to customize your forum title were the biggest benefits. Pocket queries were so new that few could figure out how to use them. I started working with pocket queries months after paying, when I learned of ClayJar's "Watcher" software. There was no GSAK, no API, no mobile apps. The online cache maps were shapefiles.

 

So, yeah, I like pwb's choice of the word "donated."

 

Add me to the count of Charter Members who have posted to the thread, and to those who think the purported total is a bit low.

Edited by The Leprechauns
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Jeremy Irish is a total genius. Started a company that has 70 full-time employees, and people are willing to make donations? :laughing:

 

Yeah, 95 sounds low, but it's very possible. Don't go by the fact 10% of you have posted here. Almost everyone read or posted in the forums back then. :huh:

In 2002 when I paid for a Charter Membership, I really did think of it as a donation to help keep the website running. The biggest problems then were server capacity to handle the traffic. I wanted them to succeed and to buy more servers. It worked.

 

At that time, Groundspeak had zero employees. The three founders were still working at their full time jobs. First, Jeremy and Elias left their prior employer, and eventually Bryan followed. The first "employee" was Bryan's wife, Hydee.

 

Premium Member Only caches and the opportunity to customize your forum title were the biggest benefits. Pocket queries were so new that few could figure out how to use them. I started working with pocket queries months after paying, when I learned of ClayJar's "Watcher" software. There was no GSAK, no API, no mobile apps. The online cache maps were shapefiles.

 

So, yeah, I like pwb's choice of the word "donated."

 

Add me to the count of Charter Members who have posted to the thread, and to those who think the purported total is a bit low.

 

Thank you for your post. It gives me an entire new perspective on how all of this could easily not exist today if not for the selfless attitude of the Charter Members.

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Jeremy Irish is a total genius. Started a company that has 70 full-time employees, and people are willing to make donations? :laughing:

 

Yeah, 95 sounds low, but it's very possible. Don't go by the fact 10% of you have posted here. Almost everyone read or posted in the forums back then. :huh:

In 2002 when I paid for a Charter Membership, I really did think of it as a donation to help keep the website running. The biggest problems then were server capacity to handle the traffic. I wanted them to succeed and to buy more servers. It worked.

 

At that time, Groundspeak had zero employees. The three founders were still working at their full time jobs. First, Jeremy and Elias left their prior employer, and eventually Bryan followed. The first "employee" was Bryan's wife, Hydee.

 

Premium Member Only caches and the opportunity to customize your forum title were the biggest benefits. Pocket queries were so new that few could figure out how to use them. I started working with pocket queries months after paying, when I learned of ClayJar's "Watcher" software. There was no GSAK, no API, no mobile apps. The online cache maps were shapefiles.

 

So, yeah, I like pwb's choice of the word "donated."

 

Add me to the count of Charter Members who have posted to the thread, and to those who think the purported total is a bit low.

 

Thank you for your post. It gives me an entire new perspective on how all of this could easily not exist today if not for the selfless attitude of the Charter Members.

 

Eh, I didn't word my post too well. I meant that Geocaching.com currently has 70 employees, appears to be doing fine, and people like Roman apparently want to give them $300 in back money so they can be retroactive charter members? Dude, they just list the caches, and are doing fine. We place them for you to find. :lol:

 

That being said, none of it could have happened without the people who ponied up $30 in the early days. I salute all 95 of you. Even though that sounds a little low. :P

Edited by Mr.Yuck
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Last year there was a Event held at the City of Bremerton Yacht Basin (very nice) only about 10 miles across the sound from Downtown Seattle. It included a trip on two old tall ships complete with cannons. Jeremy and his family attended this event.

He said his son really enjoyed shooting the cannon. I just happen to see him when he first got there and had my picture taken with him. I now wished I had asked him "How many charter members are left", as I have been wondering for a long time. I just thanked him for starting Geocaching. I had open heart surgery a couple of years ago and the wife had a stroke. i also lost three tendons attached to my rotocuff a few years back and had to give up most of my hobbies so geocaching is about all we are able to do. I will be 88 in April and the wife will be 87 in August and geocaching is our life. Dick

Edited by W7WT
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Jeremy Irish is a total genius. Started a company that has 70 full-time employees, and people are willing to make donations? :laughing:

 

Yeah, 95 sounds low, but it's very possible. Don't go by the fact 10% of you have posted here. Almost everyone read or posted in the forums back then. :huh:

In 2002 when I paid for a Charter Membership, I really did think of it as a donation to help keep the website running. The biggest problems then were server capacity to handle the traffic. I wanted them to succeed and to buy more servers. It worked.

 

At that time, Groundspeak had zero employees. The three founders were still working at their full time jobs. First, Jeremy and Elias left their prior employer, and eventually Bryan followed. The first "employee" was Bryan's wife, Hydee.

 

Premium Member Only caches and the opportunity to customize your forum title were the biggest benefits. Pocket queries were so new that few could figure out how to use them. I started working with pocket queries months after paying, when I learned of ClayJar's "Watcher" software. There was no GSAK, no API, no mobile apps. The online cache maps were shapefiles.

 

So, yeah, I like pwb's choice of the word "donated."

 

Add me to the count of Charter Members who have posted to the thread, and to those who think the purported total is a bit low.

 

Thank you for your post. It gives me an entire new perspective on how all of this could easily not exist today if not for the selfless attitude of the Charter Members.

 

Eh, I didn't word my post too well. I meant that Geocaching.com currently has 70 employees, appears to be doing fine, and people like Roman apparently want to give them $300 in back money so they can be retroactive charter members? Dude, they just list the caches, and are doing fine. We place them for you to find. :lol:

 

That being said, none of it could have happened without the people who ponied up $30 in the early days. I salute all 95 of you. Even though that sounds a little low. :P

 

Being a premium member and only elitist is not good enough for me, I want to be super elitist be that as the 96th charter member or a platinum member. $300 is nothing for the smuggness I'd feel.

Edited by Roman!
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Jeremy Irish is a total genius. Started a company that has 70 full-time employees, and people are willing to make donations? :laughing:

 

Yeah, 95 sounds low, but it's very possible. Don't go by the fact 10% of you have posted here. Almost everyone read or posted in the forums back then. :huh:

In 2002 when I paid for a Charter Membership, I really did think of it as a donation to help keep the website running. The biggest problems then were server capacity to handle the traffic. I wanted them to succeed and to buy more servers. It worked.

 

At that time, Groundspeak had zero employees. The three founders were still working at their full time jobs. First, Jeremy and Elias left their prior employer, and eventually Bryan followed. The first "employee" was Bryan's wife, Hydee.

 

Premium Member Only caches and the opportunity to customize your forum title were the biggest benefits. Pocket queries were so new that few could figure out how to use them. I started working with pocket queries months after paying, when I learned of ClayJar's "Watcher" software. There was no GSAK, no API, no mobile apps. The online cache maps were shapefiles.

 

So, yeah, I like pwb's choice of the word "donated."

 

Add me to the count of Charter Members who have posted to the thread, and to those who think the purported total is a bit low.

 

Thank you for your post. It gives me an entire new perspective on how all of this could easily not exist today if not for the selfless attitude of the Charter Members.

 

Eh, I didn't word my post too well. I meant that Geocaching.com currently has 70 employees, appears to be doing fine, and people like Roman apparently want to give them $300 in back money so they can be retroactive charter members? Dude, they just list the caches, and are doing fine. We place them for you to find. :lol:

 

That being said, none of it could have happened without the people who ponied up $30 in the early days. I salute all 95 of you. Even though that sounds a little low. :P

 

Being a premium member and only elitist is not good enough for me, I want to be super elitist be that as the 96th charter member or a platinum member. $300 is nothing for the smuggness I'd feel.

 

Would that be platimum elitist? :) I guess my first badly worded post, and 2nd slightly better worded post were taking the angle that it sounded almost like you wanted to make a donation? I thought that was kind of funny. You know, we've all seen those web pages where some guy wrote some little script for a third party website that has a "PayPal Donate" button on the side. I don't think we'll be seeing one here. Although there very well may have been one in 2001 or so!

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Just another of the 95 (is that all? really? hmm) checking in. I didn't know we would ever be Charter Memebers either. Member's only caches and PQ's didn't exist. My thought was... "I am having so much fun with this website. If it ever goes away I don't want it to be my fault" So I donated my $30 and just kept it going even when my caching tapered off to almost nothing. Glad I did to cuz now I'm back and the title of Charter Member is pretty cool.

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By the way, maybe the person who told Starbrand 95 left a zero off the end? :laughing:

Seemed low to me but how often do you get to eat lunch with Jeremy in a Museum café?? :P

Well, I ate lunch with Jeremy in the kitchen of a restaurant in New Orleans, does that count for anything? Before there were the $30 memberships we were donating to the cause with a PayPal button that was on the site.

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I don't visit the forums much, and rarely post, so I was surprised to hear about the interest in Charter Members. A few weekends ago, I was sitting around a camp fire in the middle of Michigan at a weekend event. There were old timers swapping stories, newbies asking questions, kids enjoying smoores and dogs hanging around waiting for the kids to drop their treats. Clear skies, warm temps and almost no bugs.

 

The topic of how/when did you start geocaching came up and we all shared our stories. After I finished mine, a young guy across the fire and from across the state asked me if I was a charter member. Well, yes, I guess I am, I answered. He, for some reason, got pretty excited about that and went on and on about how few charter members were left. After a bit he asked me why I had kept up with geocaching for so long, and I had to ponder that a bit.

 

My response? It's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

 

Geocaching has given my family the opportunity to get outdoors and explore places that we never would have for any other reason. That story we started all those years ago is still being written, one cache log at a time.

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I don't visit the forums much, and rarely post, so I was surprised to hear about the interest in Charter Members. A few weekends ago, I was sitting around a camp fire in the middle of Michigan at a weekend event. There were old timers swapping stories, newbies asking questions, kids enjoying smoores and dogs hanging around waiting for the kids to drop their treats. Clear skies, warm temps and almost no bugs.

 

The topic of how/when did you start geocaching came up and we all shared our stories. After I finished mine, a young guy across the fire and from across the state asked me if I was a charter member. Well, yes, I guess I am, I answered. He, for some reason, got pretty excited about that and went on and on about how few charter members were left. After a bit he asked me why I had kept up with geocaching for so long, and I had to ponder that a bit.

 

My response? It's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

 

Geocaching has given my family the opportunity to get outdoors and explore places that we never would have for any other reason. That story we started all those years ago is still being written, one cache log at a time.

 

I had a similar discussion at an event last night. People were amazed that I had been caching for so long and that I'm still an active cacher. It is interesting how the sport/hobby has changed over the years. When people ask why I still do I tell them that I started caching because it made hiking more fun, and that's the main reason I still do it today.

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How many of us Charter Members (people who bought Premium Memberships during the first year or so they were offered) are still active? I only know of a handful in my area. How about those who were Charter Members, gave up on geocaching for a while, then came back as plain ol' Premium Members (if that is possible - since I maintained my membership ever since I was first a member, I wouldn't know from personal experience if I would lose my Charter Member status if I let my membership lapse, then become a Premium Member again).

 

On a related note, it would be neat if, say during during the 10 or 15 year anniversary of memberships being offered, or something similar, Groundspeak was to roll out a Charter Member only coin or travel bug, only offered for sale to those of us Charter Members who are still active in the pastime.

 

I think that is a great idea! I'd enjoy having any kind of commemorative, whether a coin, a t-shirt, a hat, etc. Not really too picky on what.

 

Mac

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...

In 2002 when I paid for a Charter Membership, I really did think of it as a donation to help keep the website running. The biggest problems then were server capacity to handle the traffic. I wanted them to succeed and to buy more servers. It worked.

 

At that time, Groundspeak had zero employees. The three founders were still working at their full time jobs. First, Jeremy and Elias left their prior employer, and eventually Bryan followed. The first "employee" was Bryan's wife, Hydee.

 

Premium Member Only caches and the opportunity to customize your forum title were the biggest benefits. Pocket queries were so new that few could figure out how to use them. I started working with pocket queries months after paying, when I learned of ClayJar's "Watcher" software. There was no GSAK, no API, no mobile apps. The online cache maps were shapefiles.

 

So, yeah, I like pwb's choice of the word "donated."

 

Add me to the count of Charter Members who have posted to the thread, and to those who think the purported total is a bit low.

 

Great post. Dang kids walking around with their iphoneys and googy maps and cell phones to call previous finders or the CO's when they can't find the cache after 12 seconds don't realize how good they have it! :laughing:

 

I also felt that the membership was nothing more then a donation, and really didn't expect more back from it, other than hoping they could stand up some new servers.

I did get into the PQ's right away. I still have PQ #245 for my nearest to home.

 

95 charter member, while does seem low, off the top of my head, I can only think of 3 or 4 cachers in NJ that were caching in 2002 that are still active, so, maybe the number isn't that far off.

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Count us in as Charter members as well.

 

Started back when we still had to print out anything you wanted to look for, no PQ, no apps, nothing but a lot of printing.

 

Back before "Micro" and "Nano" where even thought of. Ammo cans, Large buckets and even a barrel or two.

 

We "found" several of our old notebooks with a few hundred printed pages still in them. I will have to see how many are still active.

 

I remember on argument on these forums about a person finding 19 caches in one day. The argument was that no one could find that many in a day. Now I see where people have in excess of 1100 logs in a day but those where for "micro" items - "micro and nano" sized containers are NOT caches by the by - and I did one road trip that was over 22 straight hours, 350 plus miles to get 29 caches, all there where in the area.

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Count us in as Charter members as well.

 

Started back when we still had to print out anything you wanted to look for, no PQ, no apps, nothing but a lot of printing.

 

Back before "Micro" and "Nano" where even thought of. Ammo cans, Large buckets and even a barrel or two.

 

We "found" several of our old notebooks with a few hundred printed pages still in them. I will have to see how many are still active.

 

I remember on argument on these forums about a person finding 19 caches in one day. The argument was that no one could find that many in a day. Now I see where people have in excess of 1100 logs in a day but those where for "micro" items - "micro and nano" sized containers are NOT caches by the by - and I did one road trip that was over 22 straight hours, 350 plus miles to get 29 caches, all there where in the area.

 

I kind of miss those days.

 

I always enjoyed reading the adventures of CCCooperAgency, loading the kids into the car and Traveling from Western PA to NJ to find 20-30 caches in a day.

 

The 528ft rule was almost a moot point, as 1 cache in a park was enough. 2 or 3 would be OK if there where lots of hiking trails.

And what happened to the philosophy, why place 2 or 3 caches, when you can make it a multi?

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Started back when we still had to print out anything you wanted to look for, no PQ, no apps, nothing but a lot of printing.

 

Oh yes indeed!

 

An early cache trip for us involved driving from Northern California to Seattle for the winter holidays, then to Las Vegas for a drive-through wedding and then back home again.

 

I wanted to have lots of options along the way so I printed up 161 caches - that's three or four pages per cache. Lots of paper. We found 61 caches for the trip and for those we did not find I carefully unstapled the pages and printed more caches on the back sides. That became my pattern until we got a PDA and went paperless.

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Count us in as Charter members as well.

 

Started back when we still had to print out anything you wanted to look for, no PQ, no apps, nothing but a lot of printing.

 

Back before "Micro" and "Nano" where even thought of. Ammo cans, Large buckets and even a barrel or two.

 

We "found" several of our old notebooks with a few hundred printed pages still in them. I will have to see how many are still active.

 

I remember on argument on these forums about a person finding 19 caches in one day. The argument was that no one could find that many in a day. Now I see where people have in excess of 1100 logs in a day but those where for "micro" items - "micro and nano" sized containers are NOT caches by the by - and I did one road trip that was over 22 straight hours, 350 plus miles to get 29 caches, all there where in the area.

 

I kind of miss those days.

 

I always enjoyed reading the adventures of CCCooperAgency, loading the kids into the car and Traveling from Western PA to NJ to find 20-30 caches in a day.

 

The 528ft rule was almost a moot point, as 1 cache in a park was enough. 2 or 3 would be OK if there where lots of hiking trails.

And what happened to the philosophy, why place 2 or 3 caches, when you can make it a multi?

 

We too printed out quite a few cache pages, making sure not to decrypt the hint. That was saved for manually deciphering if we got stuck on a cache. There was no mapping on the gpsr which added to the challenge. Caches were few and far between so even going for a 35mm was fun. One thing is for sure, most of those caches brought a person to an interesting place.

 

Things have certainly changed over the years, and imo, not for the better.

I miss the good old days! :(

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...

In 2002 when I paid for a Charter Membership, I really did think of it as a donation to help keep the website running. The biggest problems then were server capacity to handle the traffic. I wanted them to succeed and to buy more servers. It worked.

 

At that time, Groundspeak had zero employees. The three founders were still working at their full time jobs. First, Jeremy and Elias left their prior employer, and eventually Bryan followed. The first "employee" was Bryan's wife, Hydee.

 

Premium Member Only caches and the opportunity to customize your forum title were the biggest benefits. Pocket queries were so new that few could figure out how to use them. I started working with pocket queries months after paying, when I learned of ClayJar's "Watcher" software. There was no GSAK, no API, no mobile apps. The online cache maps were shapefiles.

 

So, yeah, I like pwb's choice of the word "donated."

 

Add me to the count of Charter Members who have posted to the thread, and to those who think the purported total is a bit low.

 

Great post. Dang kids walking around with their iphoneys and googy maps and cell phones to call previous finders or the CO's when they can't find the cache after 12 seconds don't realize how good they have it! :laughing:

 

I also felt that the membership was nothing more then a donation, and really didn't expect more back from it, other than hoping they could stand up some new servers.

I did get into the PQ's right away. I still have PQ #245 for my nearest to home.

 

95 charter member, while does seem low, off the top of my head, I can only think of 3 or 4 cachers in NJ that were caching in 2002 that are still active, so, maybe the number isn't that far off.

 

One of that 3 or 4 checking in here. It was the same for me. I definitely looked at charter membership as a donation. The only perk I used at first was the custom forum title (I don't know if that is even a charter member only thing anymore). I was a charter member for more than a year before I used PQs.

 

I think all charter members remember stacks of cache pages all over the place. In your car, on your desk, in your pack. I was still finding them years after I went paperless.

 

I also remember that when going for a FTF you were as likely to meet a cacher from a nearby state as someone local. When a new cache popped up people drove many miles for it. The "local" caching community included cachers from NJ, PA, NY and CT.

Edited by briansnat
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I kind of miss those days.

 

I always enjoyed reading the adventures of CCCooperAgency, loading the kids into the car and Traveling from Western PA to NJ to find 20-30 caches in a day.

 

The 528ft rule was almost a moot point, as 1 cache in a park was enough. 2 or 3 would be OK if there where lots of hiking trails.

And what happened to the philosophy, why place 2 or 3 caches, when you can make it a multi?

 

I generally limited myself to one cache a day so I wouldn't run out of caches to find. So I supplemented my token 1 cache with as many benchmarks I could find in the area near the cache.

I can still remember a time where there were 2 caches in the same park, but I forced myself to just go after one of them the first time I was there (even though the second one wasn't far away). It worked out well as I was able to return with a friend to introduce him to caching. So he got to find two and I got to find the one I skipped the last time.

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Here's a UK Charter Member checking in (I don't visit the forums very often these days). I certainly considered membership as a donation to start with, we were keen to see geocaching succeed and this was a good way to help that to happen.

 

I used to print every single new cache in England and kept them in a folder which got transferred continuously from house to car!

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I wanted to become a premium member towards the beginning, but my husband wouldn't have any of it. I remember how miserable I was, putting coords into the gps by hand (those old garmin V's and etrex's), practically crying because I had to laboriously put multiple caches in for an area we were visiting, knowing we would only look for one or two in the end. Durn husbands. :anitongue:

 

I finally got a pm somewhere around 2004/2005, as a gift. After seeing how convenient it made caching, my husband relented and thought being a pm was great.

 

It does bum me out that I'm not a charter member. I would be, if it had been my choice. :anibad::rolleyes:

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Congrads to all you geo cachers who have maintained your Charter Member status.

I'm pretty sure I was a charter member, but I'm not positive.

I am not sure it requires any sort of activity. A buddy (mentioned in another thread) is a charter but hasn't been to the site since 2008. I thought that charters were offered a "lifetime" membership by paying to what equaled to 10 years of membership back in 2002-ish.

 

However, if you were a CM and not now, it may require continuous payment. As mentioned, I paid, but never seem to remember benefits...not at first anyway. Donations, and as I've pointed out in other threads, why I have been critical at times about the PMO caches, but there is a already threads on that.

 

As said, I just think it would be cool to honor those that have stuck around long, regardless of payment. Hell, not even old caches placed by old members seem to get much respect anymore.

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There has never been a "lifetime" membership option, or any other membership period longer than one year.

 

The requirements for Charter Membership were to have become a premium member during the first year when premium memberships were offered (spring 2002 to spring 2003) and then keep that premium status current.

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There has never been a "lifetime" membership option, or any other membership period longer than one year.

 

The requirements for Charter Membership were to have become a premium member during the first year when premium memberships were offered (spring 2002 to spring 2003) and then keep that premium status current.

Is it possible to "pre-pay" for membership? As mentioned, back in the day PayPal was used. Maybe he just sent in money ahead of time. I don't think he's paid yearly.

Edited by TheWeatherWarrior
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There has never been a "lifetime" membership option, or any other membership period longer than one year.

 

The requirements for Charter Membership were to have become a premium member during the first year when premium memberships were offered (spring 2002 to spring 2003) and then keep that premium status current.

 

And I believe the benefit of becoming a Charter Member was that the yearly fee was locked in at $30 as long as you continue being a Charter Member.

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95 doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I believe there are only 2 of us in New Mexico, albeit this is a small state population-wise. I originally considered the $30 fee a contribution to help with the costs of keeping the servers going, hence I never let my membership lapse. I know many old-timers around here who let their memberships lapse at one time or another, as it wasn't essential like a car or house payment, and then paid up again at a later date to take advantage of the Premium membership features, but now are Premium, not Charter members. Also, in the early days we didn't have new geocaches popping up every day, as is the case now. If no new caches popped up for weeks at a time and hardly any of them (in those days) were "Premium Members Only" caches, there wasn't an urgency to renew or keep the membership current at all times.

 

On an aside, my avatar hasn't changed since I started geocaching in 2002. It is a photo of my long gone original geodog, Tuxawuxa, hence the geocaching handle.

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Just wondering if there is a "list" of the currant Charter Members or at least a number for how many original charter members there where and the number of currant members.

I was curious after this thread got bumped; I never believed the "95 remaining charter members" number claimed in this thread. So, I made a spreadsheet that began by listing all the charter members who have posted in this thread, plus some charter members who I know personally. Then I looked at three cache listings: Geocaching HQ, a recent Midwest GeoBash that I attended, and a recent GeoWoodstock that I attended. Every cache listing reports the current membership status of each account posting a log to that listing. Just by this very small sample, I was able to get to "116 currently active charter members." I could post an alphabetized list if anyone is interested, but to me it's rather pointless as it is incomplete and based just off those listings. I now believe the number is much higher.

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I remember on argument on these forums about a person finding 19 caches in one day. The argument was that no one could find that many in a day. Now I see where people have in excess of 1100 logs in a day but those where for "micro" items - "micro and nano" sized containers are NOT caches by the by - and I did one road trip that was over 22 straight hours, 350 plus miles to get 29 caches, all there where in the area.

 

You can still drive 350 miles to get 29 really good caches in a day. You just have to be content with the knowledge that you're driving past thousands of not as good caches.

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There are currently 491 Charter Members.

 

I just ran across this thread recently and started to build my own count in this bookmark list. It's up to 200 currently.

 

It's not so much about the caches, but more of a directory of Charter Members with one of their caches listed. Unfortunately it's in order of the cache name instead of the cache owner name so it's not a user friendly search for someone in particular, but I was hoping to get any further inputs to get it closer to the 491?

 

A couple of issues I've run into so far - some Charter Members do not have caches listed for them so they would not make the list. In the case of all archived caches, I just picked the most recently active and went from there.

 

I have a cache page in the works that would use this information and I'm in discussions with a reviewer as to it's appropriateness. Basically it would be a Challenge cache where you would have to find some number of Charter Member's caches (only 1 per). I'm thinking it would be a mix of a Reviewer and Jasmer Challenge in terms of difficulty?

 

Any inputs appreciated - thanks

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Great bookmark list, bigcall, and an interesting challenge concept.

 

If it helps you any in establishing whether a challenge is "reasonably attainable", I've found caches by around 40 of the listed charter members, and 11 of the specific caches on the bookmark list. You will want to set your required number of finds low enough so that it's attainable, and low enough so that the finder has a reasonable choice of which owners' caches to go after.

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I just ran across this thread recently and started to build my own count...

 

It's not so much about the caches, but more of a directory of Charter Members with one of their caches listed. Any inputs appreciated - thanks

 

Yikes! Just a few hours after your post I unknowingly archived the cache you listed for us (Snag It) after a 13 year run. We moved out of that state seven years ago so all our early caches are archived. Here is our next oldest active cache: MR Ducks

 

Looks like we've found a handful or two of those caches. It was fun to go through the list and see all the familiar names. I will bookmark it and check back again as it progresses.

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Great bookmark list, bigcall, and an interesting challenge concept.

 

Hey! Wait! What happened to my charter membership? I've paid on time for over 10 years!

 

I was going to make a snarky comment about my caches not being on the list so I went and checked and it was... GONE.

 

Not kewl.

Edited by fizzymagic
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...I remember how miserable I was, putting coords into the gps by hand (those old garmin V's and etrex's), practically crying because I had to laboriously put multiple caches in for an area we were visiting, knowing we would only look for one or two in the end. Durn husbands. :anitongue: ...

A little off topic:

 

You wouldn't belive it but thats how we cache mostly. I have still my e-trex and since a half year an "Oregon" but still go to the website, look at the card, take a piece of paper, write down the coords. This paper is carried by my little daughter very safly to the car (she calls it "Geotetsch suchen"), she often scrunches it up unintentionally, hard to type in at the location.

But thats how we have fun, finding about two or three caches. Are we a kind of "Oldschool Geocachers"? I also don't know whats GSAK is, okay I know it, but I think I don't need it.

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There are currently 491 Charter Members.

 

I just ran across this thread recently and started to build my own count in this bookmark list. It's up to 200 currently.

I've found 16 caches on your charter-member bookmark, and own one (I adopted GCD, but I won't protest it being my representative cache on the list ;)). There are other COs listed where I have found other caches they own.

 

My 2 cents, in case it helps with coming up with feasible numbers for a challenge.

Edited by hydnsek
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Great bookmark list, bigcall, and an interesting challenge concept.

 

If it helps you any in establishing whether a challenge is "reasonably attainable", I've found caches by around 40 of the listed charter members, and 11 of the specific caches on the bookmark list. You will want to set your required number of finds low enough so that it's attainable, and low enough so that the finder has a reasonable choice of which owners' caches to go after.

 

I was originally thinking ~10% or 50 (as a nice round number that I happen to have found). That might be tough though, so I was thinking of a "lite" version as well that might "only" require say 20 or 25.

 

I'll make the change on your cache Team Sagefox, but which cache isn't as important as finding the Charter Member and scanning a list of their caches.

 

I was hoping that there was an automated way to generate this, and perhaps a GSAK macro is possible, but I took the brute force approach. It mostly involved pulling up popular caches and doing a cache page word search "find". I also used GSAK and sorted by owner ID number, thinking that anything less than 111000 was at least around then. Problem was I still had to pull them up to see if they were a Charter Member.

 

Thanks for the feedback, I'll keep at it, but the numbers were starting to dwindle using my techniques.

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