August 16, 2012 / Adela B /

August Featured Geocacher of the Month Nominees – Add Your Comments

The August Featured Geocacher of the Month nominees are all about giving back to their communities. Whether it’s through hiding creative caches, organizing events, or glorifying the game, they all inspire other geocachers in their own ways.

guus-3 (2) — De Wijngemachtigde – July 2012 Geocacher of the Month

Now it’s your turn to help select one of them as August’s featured Geocacher of the Month.

Write a comment on this blog post about which of these three geocachers you feel should be crowned.

Last month, Guus, a.k.a. De Wijngemachtigde took the title of July Featured Geocacher of the Month. De Wijngemachtigde was recognized for encouraging a record number of geocachers across the Netherlands to participate in Geocoin races. His creative approach to get the community to put their Trackables in circulation, instead of keeping them at home, allowed the coins to travel across all 415 municipalities of the Netherlands.

Here are your nominees for the August Featured Geocacher of the Month. Some testimonials have been edited for length.

bubbabeernut

Nominated by ZAMEROSKI, Doug, a.k.a. bubbabeernut is “a geocacher who puts a lot of time and artistry into all of his hides. His caches are a joy to find. While many cachers are only concerned about finds, Doug is equally concerned about every one of his hides. He has put a lot of thought and care into each of his 125 caches. Many of them are themed and take days to prepare. It is not surprising that almost all of his hides have a number of Favorite Points. Our community truly appreciates his creative hides.”

whbaisden

SaltyPirate writes, “If you look at what Wendy, a.k.a. whbaisden has done not only since she has started caching in 2010 (over 6800 caches found), but just in the last month putting together the Hatfield and McCoy GeoTrail Event that is scheduled for September 1st. She only expected a few people to come, 30 to 40 at the most, but this event has quickley become an event that could reach MEGA status with over 300 people logging “Will Attend.” Her dedication to making this a great event for everyone should speak for her dedication to the sport of geocaching.”

UglyGoblin

Nominated by viagression, Mike, a.k.a. UglyGoblin, “has worked tirelessly to teach me, and indeed show me and others the glories of caching, including a fairly disabled mother and sister who has been ill. He’s visited the same caches several times to help others with them. He has driven miles upon miles to get together with new geocachers to teach them all about this great hobby. He has sought out buoys, solved ciphers, multis, and puzzle caches in his efforts to assist new geocachers. He is all about helping others.”

Comment below to tell us who you think should be the featured August Geocacher of the Month. A panel of Lackeys will use your comments to help decide which geocacher is awarded the honor. Each featured Geocacher of the Month will receive an exclusive special edition featured Geocacher of the Month Geocoin, along with a Geocacher of the Month hat, a Geocacher of the Month profile icon, and a certificate acknowledging their contributions signed by two of the founders of Geocaching.com. We will be accepting comments for August’s award through Sunday, August 26th.

Those whose nominees were not recognized here are encouraged to submit their nominations again next month.If you know an outstanding geocacher you would like to nominate to be a featured Geocacher of the Month, send an email to geocacherofthemonth@groundspeak.com.

Every nomination must meet the following requirements:

Please include your name, the name of your nominee, their username, at least one picture of the nominee and a description (500 or fewer words) explaining why he or she deserves to be the Geocacher of the Month. Please inform your nominee that you’ve submitted them for the award. Nominations for the September Geocacher of the Month must be received by September 10th.

Once we have received all of the nominations, we will choose the top candidates and post them on the blog. You will then get a chance to champion your favorite. Our goal is to involve the entire geocaching community in this process so we might learn from each other.

August 13, 2012 / Adela B /

Something Sinister … (Staffordshire) – GCNA9Z – GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK – August 13, 2012

Something Sinister I — The old oak tree, chained up

Caution: The Geocache of the Week may be haunted.

Something Sinister … (Staffordshire) (GCNA9Z) is as intriguing as it is scary. Legend has it that a spell was cast on an old oak tree near the cache.

According to locals in the West Midlands, UK, a hungry, homeless woman approached Charles, the Earl of Shrewsbury, as he was returning to his castle one winter’s night in 1821. She asked for some money and the Earl angrily rejected her request. She then cursed him and told him that for every branch on the old oak tree that falls, a member of his family will die. The Earl dismissed the curse and carried on his way.

That evening a violent storm broke out and a branch fell from the tree. Later the same night a member of the family became ill and mysteriously died. The Earl ordered his servants to chain up the tree so that no more branches would fall. The tree remains chained up to this day.

Something Sinister IV — A young geocacher visits the spooky tree

The difficulty 2, terrain 2.5 traditional cache was placed near the tree by MarcB in 2005 and adopted by The Bolas Heathens and Dibbler. The cache and the tree have attracted nearly 400 curious geocachers over the last 7 years.

It was the number of Favorite Points that brought the cache to Spanner15‘s attention. After a visit to the spooky location, she awarded it a favorite point and decided to nominate it for the Geocache of the Week.

She writes, “Walking through the woods was pretty creepy. As we got closer, you could hear screams, from the tree maybe? When we arrived it was very thrilling and a sight to see. A HUGE tree, draped in chains. Sadly, we left our camera in the car, so we only had a rubbish photo from our phone. However, the memory has remained in my head ever since. The cache was pretty cool – my first ammo can!!! Definitely a favourite point!”

Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.

If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache, and the GC code to pr@groundspeak.com

Something Sinister V — The cache container next to the haunted tree

August 12, 2012 / Eric Schudiske

Geocaching.com Spoiler Alert: Schrader’s Ode to Dayspring

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Watch this Geocaching.com Spoiler Alert video for cache hiding inspiration. The video was shot with cache owner permission. ‘Schrader’s Ode to Dayspring‘ (GC3NREC) requires a TOTT (tool of the trade). The cache owner, “Herr Potter” was inspired by another geocacher’s creative hides. The cache is an Ode to Dayspring’s Totally Tubular series. The geocache is located along a bike trail in Washington State, USA.

Subscribe to the Official Geocaching.com YouTube channel for the latest tips and tricks in geocaching. Watch the more than 50 videos produced by Geocaching.com on our video page.

August 10, 2012 / Adela B /

GPS Awards: Highlighting Quality Caches in Portugal

Portuguese GPS Awards (2) — Awards Medals

Peter!, the Website Administrator and Video Producer at GeoPT.org, said of the Portuguese GPS Awards, “Just like the Oscars, this is to recognize the quality of geocachers’ work.”

What better way to highlight quality caches than to encourage the community to discover and vote for their favorites? In this case, that community includes geocachers across all 20 regions of Portugal.

“We decided to organize the event to improve the quality of geocaching in Portugal and to reward the owners of the best caches,” explains prodrive, another GeoPT.org Website Administrator and Event Organizer.

Portugal experienced a geocaching boom in 2011. On average, over 500 geocaches were published each month, accumulating to more than 6,000 caches that year.

Peter! says, “We have around 18,000 active geocaches in Portugal, but not all take you to a place with an incredible view or put a smile on your face because they took you on a real adventure.”

GeoPT.org, a geocaching discussion portal in Portugal, initiated and organized the GPS awards to highlight quality caches across the country.

Portuguese GPS Awards III — Geocachers at the Awards Ceremony

The organizers selected 365 of the Portuguese caches published in 2011 based on the following criteria:

Favorite Points
GCVotes
Average length of logs
Number of photos in the gallery
Terrain rating

They then encouraged geocachers to go out and discover as many of these caches as they could between February 17 and June 4, 2012. Geocachers who found at least 40 of the caches could vote for up to 20 of their favorites. An incredible 600 votes were submitted.

Voting closed on June 4 at midnight. Five caches in each district were selected as finalists. The awards ceremony took place on June 16, where the winner of each region and a national winner were announced. Over 150 geocachers attended the awards ceremony and crammed into a theater-style hall to recognize the finalists.

The 365 nominees received a bronze icon for their cache page. The 100 finalists received an additional silver icon, and the 20 regional winners received a gold icon for their cache page along with a medal.

You can view videos of the 20 regional and national awards winners here. The big winner of the night was “A casa mistério” (GC34FCJ), created by helderjust.

One geocacher who attended the awards ceremony says, “Our first participation! We like! Not only because we stood on stage but for everything we experienced that night. We liked to see all those fantastic [cache] owners take the stage. Some more than once and without a doubt very well deserved. We kept adding more and more caches to our “to do ASAP” list. A great and fantastically organized event. Many congratulations to the organization that made it all possible.”

With the success of the GPS awards, another awards show, honoring 2012’s best regional and a national cache, is expected to take place in fall of 2013.

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