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 20th February
It seems that all systems are go for this Saturday. My thanks to
all who are contributing to make this day a success – let’s hope
for some kind weather!
Numbers - The numbers attending
have far exceeded my expectations for a winter event - well it is
mid February after all! The pub are able to cope for food, etc. but
it is going to be a squeeze on the car parking front so
please park carefully and leave
space near the building for blue badge holders. On the food
front please bear in mind the pub have to cope with an influx
of probably over 160 of us (yes, I’m finding it hard to
believe as well) on top of their usual numbers which
fluctuate depending on the weather. If it’s fine expect to
have to wait for your food!
Cache Listings - Basic paper
print outs of caches within 1 mile of the event will be available
on the day – please only take one per party or there won’t be
enough given the high numbers now attending. If you are planning to
cache further a field please bring your own print
outs/paperless files.
Travel Bugs/Geocoins - Please
respect the Thursday deadline of 22:00
hours for dropping off trackable items. This will allow Dougal of
Dick Dastardly, Dougal, Scooby and Angelina some slack to produce a
trackable information sheet.
Last, but certainly not least, please don’t forget to
have
fun!
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This event takes place at the The Burrington
Inn in Burrington Combe, a family friendly pub about 12 miles
south of Bristol just off the A38 Bristol to Bridgwater Road, which
offers extremely good and moderately priced meals - see menu. We have exclusive use of the
Conservatory which holds c.60 people - don't worry it's heated. The
event is, of course, open to all cachers without charge, though you
buy your own food and drink!
The pub/restaurant is situated within the Mendip
Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) with many
scenic caches and wonderful walks nearby. Click here to see the totography of the area
in FlashEarth. It is literally a stone's throw from the Rock of Ages and the combe is host to the new
Burrington Coombe Earthcache. The area is
home to one of Britain's great caving areas and the famous
Cheddar Gorge is just over the hill. For those wishing to cache
but not wanting a yomp on the hills there are around 40 caches
within a 6 mile radius of this event, with 8 being marked as
wheelchair or baby buggy accessible, so why not bring the
family?
Workshops
As this will be a winter event we have arranged a programme of
informal workshops throughout the day to give you a chance to take
a break from caching in the cold - the programme is shown below.
You can pick and mix which sessions you wish to join, come to as
many or as few as you wish - use the workshops as an opportunity to
learn from others or to share your own experiences. However, don't
forget to intersperse your chosen workshops with caching in this
lovely area.
The workshops are timetabled in hourly slots. However, not all
will last the hour, though some could. Similarly styles will vary
from workshop to workshop with some being practical, some
presentational with others just informal discussions. Please
remember that all are being run by volunteers. The structured
programme ends at 6:00pm but you can cache and socialise as late as
you like!
| ---PUBLISHED
PROGRAMME--- |
| 10:00 am |
Burrington Inn opens |
| |
Meet and greet – the socialising starts! |
| 11:00 am |
A Cacher’s Guide to HTML - Dick Darstardly & The
Great Redmondo |
| 12:00 am |
Paperless Caching - AdamsHome |
| 1:00 pm |
Caching for Kids by Kids - Corporal Gore-tex -
No adults allowed! |
| 2:00 pm |
What do those expensive GPSr units do? - Captain
Gore-tex |
| 3:00 pm |
Search and Rescue Dogs talk and demonstration -
Berkshire SAR Dogs |
| 4:00 pm |
Making Your Caches Accessible- Dorsetgal &
Geodog |
| 5:00 pm |
End of workshops programme and CITO award to the team
that collected the most litter! |
| |
|
| All day |
Geocoin & Travel Bug table - Dougal |
| All day |
Setting your first cache table - FollowMeChaps |
| All day |
Bits ‘n’ bobs table |
| All day |
Socialising with fellow cachers (on a table if you
want!) |
| All day |
Out and about Geocaching, of
course! |
Geocoins & Travel Bugs
The event will be an opportunity to help Geocoins & Travel Bugs
on their way. If you intend to bring any Coins or TBs, please
“drop” them into this cache page by 22:00 hrs the Thursday
before the event (22nd) with a note of their objectives so that
an information sheet can be produced. If you can help a bug on the
way to its objective please note this also. If you do
place/retrieve a TB at the event, make sure that you log it
promptly, keeping a note of its tracking number, etc. Many thanks
to Dougal of Dick Dastardly, Dougal, Scooby and Angelina for taking
this on and managing the coin/bug table.
New Caches
There should be a few new caches published for the event with one
going live as a consequence of the HTML workshop. 
Thanks also to Captain Gore-tex for his
excellent Earthcache contribution. The Mendip Hills ANOB service have requested that no new
caches be placed on the open moor around Burrington (Burrington
Ham and Black Down) until a permissions agreement has been
reached. Unfortunately this means some of the planned new caches
will not now be operational for the event. They have kindly
agreed that the caches already in place can remain.
Printed sheets will be available on the day showing the
remaining new caches plus a short description of those already in
place within 1 mile of the event. If you wish to cache further a
field, or prefer the full cache page details, please bring your own
listings.
If others are planning to set an event cache (or two) that we
don't know about please inform FollowMeChaps know through his
profile so that we can arrange to print out the new cache sheets
for the event. If you wish to place an event cache you should
consider contacting Deceangi the reviewer once you have chosen
your site. Decangi is keeping tabs on the area and will be able
to advise you whether your planned location has already been
nabbed by someone else! He is extremely helpful (aren't we lucky
for reviewers in the UK?).
It has been decided that there will not be an introduction to
geocaching’ session for passers by as the combe is steep sided with
a very poor GPS signal around the immediate area of the venue
and it will be mid-February after all - burrr!
CITO
Last, but certainly not least, we are planning to practice
“Cache In Trash Out” (CITO) at this event. We are
extremely fortunate that the area does not suffer wholesale
mindless litter so a CITO sweep has not been organised. However,
litter collection bags and disposable gloves will be issued
along with the cache listing sheets and all participants are
encouraged to remove what they see – please bring your own heavy
duty gloves. A prize will be awarded to the team that collects
the most! North Somerset Council have kindly agreed to collect
what we gather – thanks to Berrow Cachers for arranging this.
Let’s leave Burrington a better place as a result of our
visit!
Expressions of Interest
If you are interested in coming to this event then please post a
note on this page saying how many there will be in your party. You
do NOT need to book a meal in advance as the restaurant runs all
day and can cater for our numbers. Don't forget to mention in your
log any workshops that would interest you so we can keep a tab on
numbers. Also, if you would like to help out in any way, by
supplying equipment, assisting a workshop or with one of the many
tasks that crop up on the day please contact FollowMeChaps through
his profile at the top of this page. All offers of help will be
gratefully received.
If you have any questions please feel free to make contact
through the FollowMeChaps profile at the top of this page – we hope
to respond within 24 hours
Once again, many, many thanks to those who have volunteered to
help - isn't the geocaching community just great?
We look forward to seeing all who can make it -
Be there or be
square geographically challenged!
Further Information Links
¤ Click here for a Weather.Com report for
nearby Weston-super-Mare. Use the amber tabs on this link for
other weather options.
¤ Open University Geological
Society in the South West Field Trip Report showing the local geology
¤ Burrington to Cheddar George walk from the
Walk Scene website