GEO 101 Event Series

[+SniperChicken]

The Mississippi Geocacher's Association along with many other caching organizations are planning a series of GEO 101-An Introduction to Geocaching event series. These events will be held all over the state to educate new cachers and to invite those wishing to discover the hobby of geocaching out for some one on one.

I wish to expand the idea to other states and organizations and would love to see other GEO 101 Events sponsored all over. These events will be hosted by experienced geocaching volunteers . Similiar to the World Wide Flash Mob and 12/12/12 events except these will be held throughout the month of March. Plenty of time to get plans made and a bunch of events published.This may even become an annual thing as lots of these new cachers have no caching partners or friends to learn from or ask questions to. Events are great,getting new cachers to attend is even better but we need to take the time and effort to inform and lead these newer cachers instead of complaining about any uninformed improper actions that they routinely commit.

 

That being said i am asking for volunteers throughout the caching communities to join in,recruit some seasoned cachers and help plan an event in your local area during the month of March 2013. Thanks in advance for anyone wishing to join in on this movement.

Scott Bishop (SniperChicken)

President of the Mississippi Geocacher's Association

 

Please reply or email me if you have any questions regarding this.

[+CanadianRockies]

While I applaud your idea of encouraging people to host GEO 101 events, I'm not sure that picking a single month for these events is the best way to go about it.

 

For example, Calgary has two weekend-long Cache-and-Release (CAR) type events each year. Last year, the event organizers hosted a series of four "Introduction to Geocaching" events/workshops during the weeks leading up to each of these CAR events. This made more sense than holding these workshops during some arbitrary month. First, it was a good way to let new people know about the upcoming CAR events. Second, the knowledge that was shared probably led to CAR participants hiding more and better caches for those CAR events, thus improving the quality of those CAR events.

 

If there's only enough interest to hold two of these event series each year, then I'd prefer they be held when they do the most good.

 

You also might want to keep in mind that, in much of the Northern Hemisphere, many areas often are still covered in snow during March. Event organizers might have a difficult time generating much interest in these events, especially among newbies who might not be as enthusiastic about this activity. March might be a good month to hold these events in Mississippi but not such a good month to have them in Alberta, Minnesota, or Finland.

[+niraD]

The Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department sponsors Introduction to Geocaching classes every couple months or so. They aren't listed as events on geocaching.com though.