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I've just organised an event in my local area and have had the lowest will attend count ever. Five years ago there was a monthly series of events called North West Monthly Meets which were frequented by at least 40 people but they fell by the wayside because the main organisers gave up caching and I couldn't sustain arranging an event every month on my own. So I started going to events further afield and started going to other monthly events about 50 miles from home.

 

I recently got the NWCMM meets going again but no-one in my local area again is interested in organising them and now the NWCMM events are being arranged 50 miles from home so there's an event every two weeks in South Manchester.

 

There's an active facebook group of NW cachers but noone is interested in arranging or going to events in my area anymore. There's naff all new caches published or ftf hunts like there was 5 years ago. Loads of my caches are up for resuscitation.

 

has anyone elsewhere in the world seen this happen before? It feels like I'm on my own in my part of the world now :o

Edited by The Magna Defender
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has anyone elsewhere in the world seen this happen before?
Yep.

Sorta near me, a cacher held monthly events and saturated the area with his own (or the group name he formed) caches.

Locals thought it was great and hit all, and participated in every event offered.

- They didn't have to do anything other than find them and attend. Happy. :)

 

Eventually folks simply lost interest. Same caches, same people at events...

 

Locals rarely place caches there anymore. No, or little room anyway, certainly none in areas of interest.

- Events are often only a small clique now too.

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I've just organised an event in my local area and have had the lowest will attend count ever. Five years ago there was a monthly series of events called North West Monthly Meets which were frequented by at least 40 people but they fell by the wayside because the main organisers gave up caching and I couldn't sustain arranging an event every month on my own. So I started going to events further afield and started going to other monthly events about 50 miles from home.

 

I recently got the NWCMM meets going again but no-one in my local area again is interested in organising them and now the NWCMM events are being arranged 50 miles from home so there's an event every two weeks in South Manchester.

 

There's an active facebook group of NW cachers but noone is interested in arranging or going to events in my area anymore. There's naff all new caches published or ftf hunts like there was 5 years ago. Loads of my caches are up for resuscitation.

 

has anyone elsewhere in the world seen this happen before? It feels like I'm on my own in my part of the world now :o

 

That's not strictly true.

 

Years ago the NWCMM events were organised SPONTANEOUSLY by a thriving geocaching community around the CHORLEY area - with the occasional event slightly further North while you were at University in Lancaster. The community didn't need to worry about stepping on anyone's toes.. or booking a slot months in advance.. or waiting their turn.

 

When you, apparently, got them going again - a document was stickied to the top of a Facebook group which has thousands of members, the majority of whom live outside the local area to where the NWCMM's originated and that meant that the NWCMM became another KT event - with the majority of the events being held too far away for most locals. Not only that, there were rules to be adhered to. :o All NWCMM events should only be held mid-week AND we had to be sure to avoid planning it for the same week as the KT event.

 

Last November when a long standing local caching team wanted to hold a NWCMM event for Lancashire Day they weren't allowed to call their event a NWCMM because someone from KT Land had already bagsied that month, months in advance.

 

In my experience Will Attend logs count for little - there will always be some folk who just turn up on the night - not everyone can plan ahead.

 

As far as new caches being published goes - that's a saturation issue. I've been caching for almost 9 years and I still have over 1000 unfound caches within 10 miles of home... and the majority of those are unfound for a reason.

 

FTF hunts are more trouble than they are worth - too many sore losers and too much bitterness.

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As far as fewer event attendees, I think one factor could be the recent removal of the upcoming event listing in the weekly newsletter. I don't have any hard data, but it feels like there have been fewer attendees at events since that change. I think it's just harder for cachers to learn and remember about upcoming events than it used to be.

 

As far as fewer cache publications, this isn't something that's a problem here. We're pretty saturated in my area, but we also keep on top of problem caches and get them archived when necessary. When combined with a number of locals who have recently been archiving old caches in order to foster turnover, this means there's enough opportunity for new cachers to hide caches and there are enough new caches to keep the local finders happy.

 

No stagnation here. :lol:

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As far as fewer event attendees, I think one factor could be the recent removal of the upcoming event listing in the weekly newsletter. I don't have any hard data, but it feels like there have been fewer attendees at events since that change. I think it's just harder for cachers to learn and remember about upcoming events than it used to be.
We have a local volunteer who maintains a Google Calendar for events in the region, so I have the advantage of seeing events when I view my personal calendar. But still, they are often a surprise, because often I first see them the day of the event, or maybe the day before. By that time, I've probably scheduled a conflicting commitment.

 

The big event days promoted by Groundspeak are the exception, just because I get advance notice of the date, even if I don't know the specifics at the time.

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As far as fewer event attendees, I think one factor could be the recent removal of the upcoming event listing in the weekly newsletter. I don't have any hard data, but it feels like there have been fewer attendees at events since that change. I think it's just harder for cachers to learn and remember about upcoming events than it used to be.
We have a local volunteer who maintains a Google Calendar for events in the region, so I have the advantage of seeing events when I view my personal calendar. But still, they are often a surprise, because often I first see them the day of the event, or maybe the day before. By that time, I've probably scheduled a conflicting commitment.

 

The big event days promoted by Groundspeak are the exception, just because I get advance notice of the date, even if I don't know the specifics at the time.

Often? Really? I remember 2 or 3 recent instances where I didn't receive new event notifications and therefore wasn't able to add entries when the events were published. Given that at least several events are hosted every week lately, I never thought that was "often".

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has anyone elsewhere in the world seen this happen before? It feels like I'm on my own in my part of the world now :o

Up until a couple of years ago, my area (the Gosford LGA on the NSW Central Coast, Australia) had a very active community with frequent well-attended events and 70 or so new caches a year, but then it all went very quiet. So far this year there's been only five new caches, including one of mine, and the last event was one I hosted back in October, with 6 cachers and their families attending (two from outside the area).

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We have a local volunteer who maintains a Google Calendar for events in the region, so I have the advantage of seeing events when I view my personal calendar. But still, they are often a surprise, because often I first see them the day of the event, or maybe the day before. By that time, I've probably scheduled a conflicting commitment.

 

The big event days promoted by Groundspeak are the exception, just because I get advance notice of the date, even if I don't know the specifics at the time.

Often? Really? I remember 2 or 3 recent instances where I didn't receive new event notifications and therefore wasn't able to add entries when the events were published. Given that at least several events are hosted every week lately, I never thought that was "often".
Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound like it's your fault. It really comes down to my own calendar habits. It works better to remind me of upcoming events that I'm already aware of, than to notify me of upcoming events that I might be interested in.

 

As far as I can tell, events are usually listed on the Geocachers Bay Area calendar well in advance. It's just that I don't check my personal calendar far enough in advance. Or when I check my calendar on my phone, it shows my primary calendar, but none of the secondary calendars.

 

When I notice a geocaching event that I want to attend in advance, I copy it to my primary calendar, so I know it will show up. Or I create a placeholder on my primary calendar when Groundspeak announces some event-related promotion in advance.

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We have a local volunteer who maintains a Google Calendar for events in the region, so I have the advantage of seeing events when I view my personal calendar. But still, they are often a surprise, because often I first see them the day of the event, or maybe the day before. By that time, I've probably scheduled a conflicting commitment.

 

The big event days promoted by Groundspeak are the exception, just because I get advance notice of the date, even if I don't know the specifics at the time.

Often? Really? I remember 2 or 3 recent instances where I didn't receive new event notifications and therefore wasn't able to add entries when the events were published. Given that at least several events are hosted every week lately, I never thought that was "often".
Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound like it's your fault. It really comes down to my own calendar habits. It works better to remind me of upcoming events that I'm already aware of, than to notify me of upcoming events that I might be interested in.

 

As far as I can tell, events are usually listed on the Geocachers Bay Area calendar well in advance. It's just that I don't check my personal calendar far enough in advance. Or when I check my calendar on my phone, it shows my primary calendar, but none of the secondary calendars.

 

When I notice a geocaching event that I want to attend in advance, I copy it to my primary calendar, so I know it will show up. Or I create a placeholder on my primary calendar when Groundspeak announces some event-related promotion in advance.

Okay. I actually thought of that possibility, but thought you wouldn't be "surprised" if that's the case. FWIW, I will not be the one who is going to be maintaining the GBA calendar after the end of this month. I'm done.

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Almost all of my close geocaching buddies have quit the game in the last couple of years, but we have much more events lately in our region.

 

We used to have only a few relatively bigger events (around 150 attendees) yearly. Now we have several smaller ones (10-20 attendees) every week.

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I've just organised an event in my local area and have had the lowest will attend count ever. Five years ago there was a monthly series of events called North West Monthly Meets which were frequented by at least 40 people but they fell by the wayside because the main organisers gave up caching and I couldn't sustain arranging an event every month on my own. So I started going to events further afield and started going to other monthly events about 50 miles from home.

 

I recently got the NWCMM meets going again but no-one in my local area again is interested in organising them and now the NWCMM events are being arranged 50 miles from home so there's an event every two weeks in South Manchester.

 

There's an active facebook group of NW cachers but noone is interested in arranging or going to events in my area anymore. There's naff all new caches published or ftf hunts like there was 5 years ago. Loads of my caches are up for resuscitation.

 

has anyone elsewhere in the world seen this happen before? It feels like I'm on my own in my part of the world now :o

 

That's not strictly true.

 

Years ago the NWCMM events were organised SPONTANEOUSLY by a thriving geocaching community around the CHORLEY area - with the occasional event slightly further North while you were at University in Lancaster. The community didn't need to worry about stepping on anyone's toes.. or booking a slot months in advance.. or waiting their turn.

 

When you, apparently, got them going again - a document was stickied to the top of a Facebook group which has thousands of members, the majority of whom live outside the local area to where the NWCMM's originated and that meant that the NWCMM became another KT event - with the majority of the events being held too far away for most locals. Not only that, there were rules to be adhered to. :o All NWCMM events should only be held mid-week AND we had to be sure to avoid planning it for the same week as the KT event.

 

Last November when a long standing local caching team wanted to hold a NWCMM event for Lancashire Day they weren't allowed to call their event a NWCMM because someone from KT Land had already bagsied that month, months in advance.

 

In my experience Will Attend logs count for little - there will always be some folk who just turn up on the night - not everyone can plan ahead.

 

As far as new caches being published goes - that's a saturation issue. I've been caching for almost 9 years and I still have over 1000 unfound caches within 10 miles of home... and the majority of those are unfound for a reason.

 

FTF hunts are more trouble than they are worth - too many sore losers and too much bitterness.

 

The reason the original NWCMMs fell through is that it wasn't organised, whats the point in having a monthly meet when it doesn't happen every month. I do agree with your point about the current NWCMMS going to Manchester too much and I'm not particularly happy about travelling to every event I attend nowadays, however it has been made clear that noone in Chorley is interested in organising an event and the months have had to be given to KT regulars as noone else wants them. I'd rather have two events than no events. I don't really see the problem in being organised and maintaining a standard format of event and also being courteous and not having two events clashing with each other.

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The reason the original NWCMMs fell through is that it wasn't organised, whats the point in having a monthly meet when it doesn't happen every month. I do agree with your point about the current NWCMMS going to Manchester too much and I'm not particularly happy about travelling to every event I attend nowadays, however it has been made clear that noone in Chorley is interested in organising an event and the months have had to be given to KT regulars as noone else wants them. I'd rather have two events than no events. I don't really see the problem in being organised and maintaining a standard format of event and also being courteous and not having two events clashing with each other.

 

There are a heck of a lot of NW cachers who aren't on Facebook so they aren't members of the NW Group and they don't have access to the document where you need to book your slot or register an interest in hosting an event x months ahead.. but they hear on the grapevine that they might be stepping on toes by organising an event, so they don't bother.

 

When you start dictating when / how often / by whom, you take away the spontaneity and it soon becomes a chore. Not everything needs a structure - variety is the spice of life. It is enough that the guidelines state you need to give at least 14 days notice - expecting folk to give 2, 3, 4 months notice just so they can claim a slot is too much, especially when that slot can only be claimed if you happen to be a member of the NW caching group on Facebook.

 

Besides, those that are on the NW caching group - particularly the newbies - are probably put off by the bickering / incessant accusations of cache theft and being publicly branded as cache police for daring to post a NM or NA on a cache even though it was in dire need.

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whats the point in having a monthly meet when it doesn't happen every month.

 

Is the answer in the question?

 

I don't really see the problem in being organised and maintaining a standard format of event and also being courteous and not having two events clashing with each other.

 

The problem seems to be that you end up disappointed with the low turn-out.

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