Representing UK Geocaching

[+Richard & Beth]

quote:

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Originally posted by MCL:

 

It seems to me there are two issues and I can't see why they have become entangled.

 

One is the issue of T&J as part of the new GAGB. one can agree or disagree with its existence, and I might understand why they would see some of the things written on here and think it was time to give up. (I happen to disagree with the notion they should give it up, but I could imagine why they might come to that decision)

 

The second is the issue if T&J as moderators on here. For the life of me I can't find any good reason why they should resign from that position, since there seems to be generally no problem with their handling of the forum and the other bits of GC.COM admin they do. Yeah OK occasionally someone takes a pot shot at the admin, but it is not persoanl and is not even usually anything serious either.

 

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To our minds the two issues are linked.

 

Up until our resignations, whatever people say about not wanting to be represented, they were represented by the UK admins, to the owners of Geocaching.com - Grounded inc. Latterly we were responsible for all UK cache approvals, and as Tim and June have previously highlighted we negotiated a number variations of the approval rules tailored to UK specific caching.

 

Geocaching in the UK is now getting large enough to register on the radar of many land owners and land managers, as in the New Forest. Tim and June, as discussed elsewhere on the forums negotiated over access to Hapshire land. As the countryside manager who posted to the forum has said, they would prefer to talk to an organisation who can negotiate guidelines, [not hundreds of individual cachers, each wanting to individually negotiate over cache placement]. In essence they were not disagreeing with our current guidelines, just saying that they wanted assurance that these would be followed by having a UK organisation that they could talk to face-to-face, rather than by having to deal with multiple cachers, or a small US based company over the phone.

 

GAGB was an attempt to meet those requirements, hence why it was important that Grounded recognised the organisation. Grounded 'knew' the UK admins who were setting up the organisation, and were already happy to accept the UK specific approval rules, and UK landowners would have someone they were happy to negotiate with, and knew that caches on their lands would be approved to the guidelines they negotiated.

 

With all the postings about not wanting to be represented by an 'imposed' organisation, we felt that since we were doing that already (neither Moss Trooper, or myself and Beth were elected by UK cachers, and even Tim and June were appointed based on the recommendation of a small part of the UK geocaching community) we really had no mandate to continue. We have no wish to have people feel we were imposing ourselves or our opinions on anyone. Therefore we resigned.

 

Regretably we are now in a situation where the UK has NO representation. Grounded will approve caches according to the US guidelines, not the UK variations, and major landowners and managers are left with limited guarentees that their wishes will be met, and the problems of individual negotiations.

 

Whilst many geocachers will I'm sure continue to successfully negotiate on a local level, we are sure there will be many repeats of the situation with the Forestry Commision and the New Forest where caching is banned, or caches removed.

 

I am also quite sure that even with a UK organisation caching would have been banned by some areas, but by having a UK organisation we hoped that many more would be confident in the positive attitudes to the country of geocachers and allow caching on their lands.

 

Richard

[L8 Ed]

Why resign the right to approve caches?

I did not see one complaint of the way this was carried out.

Clair Short resigned from the cabinet but not the Labour Party.

How about continuing one of the positions say Admin. Lets get someone else to be a moderator.

Lets keep the jobs separate. A moderator cannot be seen as impartial if they are also working in admin and setting up an association. So therefore you could not moderate on the issue when it became inflamed.

[L8 Ed]

Or continue as a moderator. There were no complaints about this.

On this forum there is a need for Moderators, because as it grows something other than bad feeling will be posted.

[Ben Pid]

I agree with L8 Ed totally. Your jobs as Moderators were seperate and in my opinion were done to a great level and there is no reason to stop doing that.

 

You have now put caching in the uk at jepardy....the thing you want to do as much as every one else! if we fold because of it ossry to say but I think its your fault more than the caching community as a whole.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

I'm Bad, I'm Bad you know it you know!

 

www.buckscaching.co.uk

[+Brenin Tegeingl]

Sory Ben but we're all at fault! We've had the 'mod ant' and food in caches debacles. Now this, is it any wonder geocaching in the uk could be at future risk, when you have a small minority who are very voluable against geocaching evolving in the UK! Is it going to take one of the geocaching community being taken to court, for braking a bye law when placing a cache without permission of the land owner/manager. To make wake up to the fact that this game either evolves or goes underground!

If you look at GAGB as a game of football, the founders actions fit in as follows. Cachers-the two teams, the future GAGB committee- the referee. The founders actions in setting up GAGB- THE KICK OFF. Even football has committees at local, National, International level, controling the game! And FINALY A QUOTE FROM THE HOME PAGE OF GAGB 'This is a temporary website which has been established pending formal appointment of officers and representatives.'It appears the detractors against our former admin claiming they had their own personal aggendas, must not have even bothered to read the above or tried to understand it.But just jumped in with both feet!

 

I burn to cache!

[+Richard & Beth]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ben Pid:

I agree with L8 Ed totally. Your jobs as Moderators were seperate and in my opinion were done to a great level and there is no reason to stop doing that.

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I'm sorry, but I seem to remember that the impartiality of both ourselves, T + J and Moss T was called into question over our handling of GAGB threads. By virtue of the fact that we all strongly pushed something that proved so controversial I don't see how we can be seen to be fair and impartial.

 

quote:

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You have now put caching in the uk at jepardy....the thing you want to do as much as every one else! if we fold because of it ossry to say but I think its your fault more than the caching community as a whole.

 

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A bit of an exageration - the position of UK admin has no real effect on people going out hiding and finding boxes. The US approvers are perfectly capable of approving caches, and cachers are still perfectly capabale of going and finding them.

 

If you seriously think that the lack of UK based admins puts UK geocaching in jeporady then I am sure that Grounded would welcome you or anybody else if you put your money where your mouth is and volunteered.

 

We can't speak for T+J and Moss T, but we have no desire to step back into the job after the events of the last week, and are really looking forward to having more time to actually play the game. If the events of the last week have proved anything, it is that we are not in tune with the feelings of UK cachers, so really we have no place doing the job.

 

Richard

[MCL]

..well I would say that OK, you weren't in tune with a small, yet vocal minority of UK cachers, but then, thats not as bad as it sounds. You *were*, from all the conversations that I had had with you, pretty much in tune with the majority. And the evidence for that is the large number of people on here to support you.

 

We need UK based cache approval back. Now, can anyone think of anyone *better* to do that, than those who have done it so far and made a dadgum good job of it? Anyone else would have to spend time learning the ropes, all those little exceptions that we in teh UK have wangled ourselves. And to do that "training", the experienced approvers would need to be onhand anyway.

 

May I suggest some of you come back, even temporarily, to train up a couple of new people, to introduce those to the people at GC.COM, to effect a smooth transition, to hand over the relay baton. Then perhaps fade into obscurity.

 

No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

[+Omally]

Like the mice who wanted to put a bell 'round the cats neck so they could hear him coning from a safe distance: good plan but who will string the bell?

The obvious stress generated by the tending of idiotic, self-centred, self-serving dissenters makes the position of moderator a task envied by no-one.

[+Teasel]

quote:

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Originally posted by Omally:

The obvious stress generated by the tending of idiotic, self-centred, self-serving dissenters makes the position of moderator a task envied by no-one.

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Quite! I'd happily approve new caches (though I think the poll currently running in another thread safely makes that one a non-starter!), but there's no way I'd want to be a forum moderator!

 

GeocacheUK - resources for the UK Geocaching community.

[MCL]

I'm really only talking about the cache approval part to come back. There is no reason why the two tasks of moderating and cache approval *need* to be done by the same group of people is there?

 

Or am I missing something?

 

No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced....

[+welch]

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard & Beth:

Geocaching in the UK is now getting large enough to register on the radar of many land owners and land managers, as in the New Forest. Tim and June, as discussed elsewhere on the forums negotiated over access to Hapshire land. As the countryside manager who posted to the forum has said, they would prefer to talk to anorganisation who can negotiate guidelines, [not hundreds of individual cachers, each wanting to individually negotiate over cache placement]. In essence they were not disagreeing with our current guidelines, just saying that they wanted assurance that these would be followed by having a _UK_ organisation that they could talk to face-to-face, rather than by having to deal with multiple cachers, or a small US based company over the phone.

 

GAGB was an attempt to meet those requirements, hence why it was important that Grounded recognised the organisation. Grounded 'knew' the UK admins who were setting up the organisation, and were already happy to accept the UK specific approval rules, and UK landowners would have someone they were happy to negotiate with, and knew that caches on their lands would be approved to the guidelines they negotiated.

Richard

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I have not read all of the other GAGB/etc threads, so If has been explained already I'm sorry for bringing it up again.(And let me explain that I do not want to fan the flames, but rather, trying to grasp the situation)

 

How is it that GAGB was going to assure the landowners of "that caches on their lands would be approved to the guidelines they negotiated"??

 

Was GAGB going to become a listing service? Or since they would (I assume) have had good relations with the UK approvers, used that to insure that at least the gc.com caches conformed? Or something else??

 

[+Richard & Beth]

quote:

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Originally posted by welch:

 

Was GAGB going to become a listing service? Or since they would (I assume) have had good relations with the UK approvers, used that to insure that at least the gc.com caches conformed? Or something else??

 

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No, we specifically said at the outset that we weren't going to be a listing service. The only way the idea would work is if the UK approvers were on board, and GC.Com/Groundspeak were willing to allow UK caches to be approved according to the agreed guidelines.

 

It has to be said that UK caches were already being approved to a UK variation of the guidelines (see elsewhere for details), following negotiation by the UK admins.

 

Moving on to us helping out new admins and moderators, we certainly will do everything we can to help out anyone who puts their name forward, and I am sure that Tim and June and Moss Trooper will do the same. However at the moment, for obvious reasons people don't seem to be falling over themselves to volunteer.

 

Richard

[+paul.blitz]

quote:

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However at the moment, for obvious reasons people don't seem to be falling over themselves to volunteer.

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Yesterday, I sent an email to geocaching.com admin, offering to help out any of the admins if they have any (technical-type) problems with new caches in England.... but was VERY quick to point out that I was NOT interested in becoming an admin!!!!

 

So you can all rest happy!!!!!

 

Paul