Thank you to all those that attended, i hope everyone had fun. Special thanks go to our chefs for the day, Ben_D_O and Just Give'r, also to Galloping Gourmet for the awesome fresh buns.

All the pictures from our own camera

Celebrating 10 Years of Geocaching

Our sport of geocaching is 10 years old this weekend. Let's celebrate!

10 years ago geocaching began when the military flipped the switch and increased the accuracy for all of us little folk.

On May 3rd Dave Ulmer went out and hid a 5 gallon bucket in a field in Beaver Creek Oregon and placed the coordinates online and Geocaching was born. Along with a logbook and pencil, he left various prize items including videos, books, software, a can of beans and a slingshot. He shared the waypoint of his "stash" with the online community on sci.geo.satellite-nav, and Geocaching was born.

Groundspeak has a page with more information about the history of geocaching.

Ontario has joined in the "hunt" approximately 2001 with this cache believed to be the first placed and this one believed to be the older active, while the first cache in all of Canada has been placed in Nova Scotia.

The location of the original GPS stash now features a tribute plaque.

This event will be part of world wide celebration of the 10th year of Geocaching happening during this weekend in many places around the world.

This event will be held at the Laurel Creek Conservation Area, at The Dam Shelter starting at 11AM and going until 5PM.

We will provide hotdogs, hamburgers, buns and condiments for lunch, but will need a barbecue, anyone that can bring one please let me know.

If you wish to bring anything for dessert, please feel free, also please bring your own drinks.

We will have prizes to be won for the Trivia, but we will also hold a raffle for additional prizes that will hopefully help us cover the costs of this event, however there is no obligation to participate in the raffle.

As with any conservation area there is an admission fee of:

• $4.50 -- 14 years of age and older
• $2.50 -- 5-14 years of age
• Free -- under 5

However, if we have over 50 people attending the above price per person will be discounted by $1.00.

In addition there is a Group Coin Project, these special coins will be available to purchase at the Event for $10.00. - SOLD OUT

There will only be 50 45 coins available, so reserve yours today by either indicating so on your attend log or emailing me. This is what the coin looks like: front & back, or both sides together.

Bring all your GPS receivers and other GPS gear you think you may need when going geocaching, because you never know what you may need it for...

PLEASE INCLUDE THE NUMBER IN YOUR PARTY so that we can keep track of how many will be attending. You can look at the most recent list of attendants online here.

Family friendly, all are welcome.

The posted coordinates are for the entrance to the conservation area, from there we will have signs posted guiding you to the Dam Shelter.

This page will be updated with more detailed information as the day approaches, either put it on your watchlist or make sure you keep checking back!

Many thanks to our sponsors

IMPORTANT UPDATE - April 24th

As we are only a week away from the big day, there are a few things we would like to announce.

First, I would kindly ask everyone to let me know their choice for lunch: burger or hotdog.
This is something we overlooked on the initial listing, but in an effort to make our shopping easier we would like to collect this information now. You can either send me a message or post a note on here.

We will have water, but we encourage you to bring some extra with you, or any other kind of drinks that you fancy. Note that alcohol is prohibited in the conservation area.

As already mentioned in the cache description, there is an entrance fee to the conservation area ($2.50 for kids aged 6-14, $4.50 for everyone over 14), however with over 80 people signed up, it looks like we well qualify for the $1 per person discount. Therefore, upon entering the conservation area, check in with the person in the booth, they will have a list of who's coming to the event, so they will let you in when you tell them your geocaching name and that you're coming to the event. Once we've reached 50 people, we will start collecting the discounted entrance fees from everybody. Please have exact change with you.

There is quite an ample parking next to the shelter, and we have added a waypoint for the exact location of the Dam Shelter, but the signs along the road are very easy to follow.
We went by the shelter and there seem to be more than enough picnic tables to accommodate everyone, but if you wish feel free to bring lawn chairs

As of now it looks like the weather will be beautiful, with the temperature picking on May 1st to 22C before starting to cool off again, however since the shelter is close to the water, I suggest bringing a sweater or a jacket.

We will have a Trivia, and all I can say is “make sure you brush up on your geocaching knowledge”.

We have great prizes (over 20 different ones, including one of the special multi-event geocoins) for the raffle and for the trivia, and a picture of them is here.

Raffle tickets will be $2 for a single ticket and $1 for each additional ticket (i.e. $3 for 2 tickets, $4 for 3 tickets etc). Again, please bring exact change. Of course it's not mandatory to participate in the raffle.

Regarding the special multi-event geocoins, our co-hoster for Ontario res2100 had a higher demand than us, so we gave 5 of our coins to their event, meaning we have a total of 45 coins to sell. 41 of them have been reserved as of the time of this writing.

Upon qualifying, this event will have a special icon.
One of the requirements from Groundspeak, to qualify for the said icon, is to have a group picture and look festive

• A video or picture must be taken at the event. At least 10 attendees must be in the video/photo along with a legible sign showing the event coordinates and location name
• The people in the video or photo should be festive. Be inventive! But please keep it family friendly.”

We have a stock of geocaching-themed party hats for everyone and will decorate the shelter appropriately, but if you feel like being more festive than that, you're more than welcome to dress up in any way that you can imagine.

Tentative Timetable

• 11:00 – 12:00 Meet & Greet
• 12:00 – 14:00 Lunch
• 14:00 – 14:45 Trivia
• 14:45 – 15:00 Group Picture
• 15:00 – 15:30 Raffle
• 15:30 – END Mix and Mingle