Improving communications with cache hunters

[+-CJ-]

My question is addressed to COs from not yet "cache saturated" areas who own 40-50 physical hides or more and continue placing new geocaches with the idea of their area/community getting more "geocaching developed". (I'm not talking about power trails).

 

My "hidden/found" ratio is 13.5% now (compared to 0-2% for many active forum inhabitants). This means that I place caches more often then they do and hunt for caches much less time then they do. Currently I own over 60 caches and I'm going to increase this number to at least 100 this year. This is the only way to promote the game around here, I think. More caches, more new people involved in this sport, more new COs, more attendees at our local events, etc. This scheme works though not at turbo speed, you know.

 

Cache placement leads to a bunch of issues, maintenance among them. Of course, I take care about my hides; however if you live in a country with large distances, poor roads and very small geocaching community, and having many caches to take care of - you should consider using other people's assistance when possible. I appreciate when cachers call me or write me by email suggesting help. It's difficult because there are novices that are too shy to make a simple phone call and experienced cachers that believe they must avoid doing any maintenance, asking any questions and communicating with the CO in any way. I wish to encourange people being more active when going outdoors for geocaching: to be ready to contact COs when necessary, make small repairings to the caches found, etc.

 

The question is what you usually do to improve communications with people who visit your geocaches. Any educational materials (maybe they are worth being translated into my language), special events, announcements in your geocache listings, bookmarks, contests, anything.

[cezanne]

My question is addressed to COs from not yet "cache saturated" areas who own 40-50 physical hides or more and continue placing new geocaches with the idea of their area/community getting more "geocaching developed". (I'm not talking about power trails).

 

Even though your question is not directed to people like myself, I still decided to reply. I guess you will not receive many replies from your very small target audience in this forum.

 

I have experienced the early times of geocaching in my area and so I might have something to contribute. While I started to hide geocaches early, I never ever would have thought about hiding 50 or even 100 caches. Most of my caches are however complex and some others might turn some of them into several separate caches.

 

Back to your question. I remember that one of the pioneers in my area and the hider of the first cache in the province of Styria for about a year contacted each finder of one of his caches by e-mail (if he has not done so before - he had a list of all finders even on his profile) and asked them about their experience and whether they would not want to consider to hide a cache.

 

Of course the situation in your country is different, both because some of your finders will be very experienced cachers, either tourists or cachers from the Russian site and because your country is very large and has so many remote coins.

 

A way to get new people into geocaching is to promote it in other groups (e.g. among people from orienteering, scouts, hiking associations ....).

 

As the communication channels are regarded: Personally, I would not to have to call someone not very known to me (that's not a question of how long someone is into geocaching, but rather is a personal issue) and so I would strictly prefer contacts via e-mails. This also leaves the chance for someone not to respond at all.

 

 

Cezanne

[+terrkan78]

I think communication can be improved by getting the word out that you appreciate communication. I hesitate to contact COs because I seldom get a response (and a few of the responses that I have gotten were unpleasant).

 

I'm thinking a note on your profile, a note on each cache page, and a physical note inside each cache along the lines of: "If you need help with any of my caches, please just shoot me an e-mail/text or give me a call...I'm happy to respond and I enjoy hearing from other geocachers. If you notice that any of my logbooks are full/wet or my caches are in need of minor repairs, I always appreciate any help you can offer while you're at my cache (absolutely no obligation, of course), and please know that I will gladly do the same for your caches. I love geocaching, and I want to do everything I can to help it grow in our community. [First name, e-mail, phone number.]" (Maybe don't include the phone no. in the physical cache if you think muggles might be a problem.)

 

If you can get people to come to events, that will increase the sense of community, which increases the likelihood of people going above and beyond when they find a cache that needs a new logbook or container repairs. I think it might also increase the odds of more new caches being placed.

[+SirDonB]

I am a cache owner myself, and I am not in your targeted group. I feel that as a newer cacher in my area, going to events and meeting other people that share the hobby is extremely important. I have made a few friends that I cache with now were I would be out on my own hoping to run into some one, and my area has a very heathy cache saturation and community. If you host an event, try to do it on a day, time, and place that is convienent for the majority of the people in your area. My biggest problem is that most events held close enough that I could attend are on days and times that I am working. It is very fustrating that I can not attend and event and want to.

 

Also, I agree with if you are looking to not only increase the number of caches to find in your area, but the number of people to go out and find them, I would look towards groups that are simular like the mentioned Scouting groups, orienteering, hiking associations, etc. I would also look to see if you have any groups that do histroric preservation, land preservation etc. They may be interested in the hobby as well as a way to bring people to areas they want to highlight in a non commercial way.

[+L0ne.R]

I remember those olden days of few caches and few cachers. Events helped increase traffic. Probably the media played a bigger role - articles in local newspapers and in magazines did a lot to get the word out. Now when people spot me searching for something in the woods they ask if I'm geocaching. I usually ask if they geocache and the answer has been no , but they've heard about it. It's actually getting quite rare in my area to find someone who has never heard of geocaching.

[+-CJ-]

Thank you all for your opinions.

 

Still waiting for someone from the target group. I know, there are different communities and I will certainly try different approaches. However this thread has been useful too.

 

Let me suggest a short and clear scenario to be more specific.

 

Currently most of my visitors are foreigners. I live in the capital of the country where tourists come quite often. What could I do to improve my communications with visitors of this specific category?

 

Adding a string with my personal contacts and invitation for help would probably make some good though I already tried similar approach once and haven't succeeded. The problem is that cachers of this category don't have much time here in this country to get any use of correspondence with COs. Or, at least, they think this way. Really, if I failed to find a cache on Wednesday and my flight is on Friday morning, should I write to the CO and ask for assistance with any cache? I would most probably have no time to pay another visit to this location. Even if I have time, I doubt that we could get any help in such a short period.

 

I understand that some people may have troubles with calling by phone and asking questions to some unknown person. In our country this practice has been common. Several years ago when the game on the Russian geocaching website was pretty active there wasn't a weekend in my life without a couple of phone calls from my hides. Apart from making fellow geocachers happy with knowing they are not alone, there were cases of emergency when we had to organize a sort of a rescue operations for people who went geocaching and got lost in our woods (especially in winter). Anyway, I still can agree that if you don't like talking to strangers by phone you won't call me even if my phone number is written in big thick red letters at the head of a cache's listing. However, why don't get into contact by email before coming to the area? Groundspeak advises people doing this, so why not using your chance to get acquainted with the local community? I get such requests very rarely. I wonder if my attempts to be friendly and make communications easier are worth doing. Perhaps there are some cultural differencies, not individual features of a given person.

 

Another example are events. We've conducted a series of events last year. These were mostly small meetings in the downtown Moscow at hours that we thought may be convenient to many people. Event listings were always translated in English. We highlighted the fact that working language could be English if there were attendees that do not speak Russian. Despite these attempts I remember very few foreign cachers who attended our events (though I noticed that cachers always log some hides at the dates of events). I don't remember any foreign cacher who published a "meet-and-greet" event in Moscow in 2013. Last year I monitored this practice in Ireland and was pleased to see that it was common when guests came to Dublin and invited locals to small meetings like "Greetings from New York" or "Vikings are here again!". I personally would be happy to attend such a small event in my city but they just aren't published for some reason.