Putting Our Best Foot Forward

[Guest navdog]

There are now 4500 caches hidden and if you do a little math, it is only obvious that in a very short time thousands more will be out there. There have been numerous articles in just the last few weeks about this sport which is bringing in many new players and creating a lot of publicity.

 

I thought I would ask everyone what would be some ideas to promote ourselves positively to the public like:

 

-In Oregon we have the S.O.L.V. statewide annual litter cleanups along our beaches. Maybe we could tie in our own cleanup teams of geocachers with this event and other similar events.

 

- A system to track old and unused caches that the owner has no interest in maintaining. How many newcomers are going to get caught up in the excitement of this new sport only to walk away after a few months and do nothing to maintain their caches. If a cache has no activity then the owner would be emailed and asked it they have any further interest in the cache, and if no reply, Jeremy could send out volunteer ? Geocache Bounty Hunters? to remove the cache and receive a small type of bounty for their efforts from a fund created with donations.

 

- Further discussions and guidelines as to where we should not be placing caches other than private property.

[Guest Hard Slate]

At some point and time there will have to be a way to weed out 'dead' caches.There will be a lot of 'burn out' with all the new people joining in.Sad but true, geocaching isn't going to hold everyone's attention that participates.Some may go wild for a while planting cache after cache only to walk away a few months later.

 

Oh,I almost forgot.That is an excellent idea for local geocachers to join in clean-up projects.I think it will be good to generate good publicity before the general public knows what geocaching is all about.