WHY: Throwing out a couple of fun ideas for local Makers...
First, I thought it would be fun to introduce a (yearly?) fun-filled competition for local geocache creators. Every year, I think we should do something along these lines:
► Come up with a group theme (either by vote, or someone just chooses).
► Each of us make an individually listed cache--traditional, puzzle, whatever--that fits in with the theme and maybe works together with the others to get cachers to a final Mystery cache some of us put together or that creates some geo-art that can be seen on the Geocaching Map.
► Set dates to meet, share ideas, build, and publish.
► Have a friendly competition to see which CO gets the most Favs in the series by a certain end date. All losers will pitch in to do something like pay for the Winner's family's Spring Fling costs, or family bill at the Christmas gift exchange, or whatever???
► And while, of course, it would be fun to win such a contest, the ultimate goal would be to give geocachers some consistency in the series and some good stuff to chase after in the area! As Makers, we would commit to sharing our ideas and work in the series with one another; and, we would also make a commitment to one another to help maintain each other's caches in the series throughout the duration of the contest. So, our emphasis is on building relationships and quality of product, not so much on winning.
I think such a competition will keep us sharp and producing our best and, if we get to a point where we don't want to put out a lot of caches, this can be a sole focus for caching while allowing us to explore other hobbies.
SO WHILE NONE OF THIS IS SET IN STONE, I have an inaugural theme I'd like to propose that has received positive vibes from the few folks I've already run it past. I am thinking 13 would be a good number of commit-ees, myself included, for this first foray with contest dates of, say, July 1st - December 1st??? Might I whet your appetite with this:
Second, along this vein, I'd like to discuss the possibility starting a regular, non-competitive meeting of area Makers--called, say, "Davinci's Workshop"--to be scheduled 2x, 4x, 6x a year? The purpose of such meetings would not so much be social as they would be educational and "functional." In other words, we wouldn't be meeting to eat and talk (though some of that may happen), but we'd each have to bring an idea or cache we're working on or a skill we'd like to share. We might find time to discuss what everyone brought, or we might spend all of our time working through one particular Maker's new project.
Or, as I also envision, wouldn't it be cool to get some insight into how to create a puzzle from JamGuys, or build a cache page from CacheSleuth, or how to construct a physical container like kbkwick, or hear about years of container successes and failures from kand? So, we might have teachers/speakers too. Again, the end results are: 1) we build relationships, 2) we become better Makers; and 3) we offer geocachers better caches in the area, the state, and soon the wooooooooooooooooooooooorld! But I digress . . .
Hope to see you there!
Hobbits
(James Hastings)