Please join us for our 8th Annual Geocaching Seminar on Saturday March 19th 9:00 am – 12:30 pm at Independent Bible Church (IBC) just 2 miles west of I-81 in Martinsburg.
We try to have something for every level of geocacher, from the beginner to the experienced cacher. Last year we had nearly 250 geocachers in attendance.
Doors open at 8:00 am. PLEASE COME EARLY and enjoy some free coffee and donuts provided by our host Independent Bible Church. There will be informational tables about local geotrails, travel bugs, and local geocaching organizations. Coming early will give you time to browse.
Seminar will start promptly at 9 am. The seminar topics and leaders are still being firmed up, but be assured the "experts" of the geocaching world will bring you some great info.
There will be two breakout sessions, each nearly an hour long.
The FIRST Breakout session:
"New to Geocaching - A session for those of you new to our sport. If you have less than a 100 finds, this session is for you" - Zekester & Simion
"Puzzles 101: Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puzzle Solvers" - Hixon
"GSAK" - Fishercacher
"How to plan a route and other Premium Member Features" - GR8Caches
SECOND Breakout Session
"Geocaching for beginners, a second hour for those new to our sport" - Zekester & Simion
"Puzzles 201 : Because These Things are Seriously Hard" - Hixon - We will further explore the principles covered in the 101 lecture and apply them to some tougher Hixon puzzles, pulling back the curtain on caches like Games - Scrabble (GC4FFNJ), Horcrux #3 - The Locket (GC3CQE5), and FTP 3.5 (GC46T54). - Hixon
"Project GC" - GR8Caches
"Hints on placing and building creative geocaches" - WVTim
Each attendee will have the choice of 2 breakout sessions and the seminar will end this year with a Q&A panel, and announcements about upcoming major events like CAM, Berkeley County Visitor's Bureau newest Geotrail and a video greeting from Germany from my teammate on the latest trail.
Bring those friends and neighbors wanting to know what geocaching is all about. We have a 2 hour session designed for the new cachers. We hope to have lots of visitors who want to understand the hobby we all enjoy.
A display of geocoins will be on hand, so bring your TB's and geocoins to show off or pass on. At the geocoin table geocoins and TB's can be checked in and out safely.
Examples of geocaching paraphernalia, future geocaches, geopacks and more will be available for the new cacher to examine before and after the seminar.
Several door prizes will be given away including a prize for a new geocacher, as well as a prize for a cacher who brought a brand new cacher (less than 25 finds), a geocoin for the cacher who came the farthest and much more.
Please log a will attend to let us know if you're coming and how many you'll be bringing so we'll know how many donuts to pickup. Children are welcome but there will be no child care.
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The Martinsburg-Berkeley County Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) and WVTim are partnering again this year to place our 3rd Geotrail together. This new trail will be – Smart Caches of Berkeley County (SCBC), BUT it will NOT be fully activated until June 4th. There will be several new caches on the SCBC geotrail activated before the seminar to give you a head start on this new trail. There are plenty of great caches nearby to keep you busy the entire weekend. To read more about this new "smart" trail, watch for "SCBC 1- Test your smarts" to be released later this month.
Passports to record your codes will be given out at the seminar, or can be picked up at the I-81 rest stops or at the Visitors Center downtown (126 E. Race St, Martinsburg). A beautiful trackable geocoin will be available for those completing the trail. Each cacher will be required to stop by the CVB, to verify their finds and turn in their code words. Like the last trails, coins will not be mailed out. Only one coin per household.
We hope you plan on coming back to visit this new trail. Geocachers have awarded the caches in Berkeley County over 17000 favorite points making Berkeley County one of the best cache destinations in the United States.
Place this cache on your watchlist to see additional information about the seminar as it is firmed up.