Find a Guru (Mentor)

Post by **caughtatwork** » 17 January 07 12:25 pm

Hi folks.

I have a thought for an enhancement to the geocaching australia website functionality and I would like to run the thoughts by you for your community input.

People who are new to the game of geocaching, people who are interested but don't know how to go about getting started or even people who are interested in finding someone to talk about geocaching to generally have a less than easy time in finding all of the answers.

There's a lot of information out there and it's not always easy to get a simple understanding when there is information that flatly contradicts other information.

There are also people who might enjoy the game but don't want to spend the bucks to get a GPSr without "trying it out" first.

I would like to propose a concept whereby you can indicate your preference to be a Geocaching Guru.

This would allow people to search for their closest Guru and make contact with you to find out more about geocaching. By volunteering to be a Guru you are indicating your acceptance for people to contact you to talk about Geocaching.

You would be willing to help newbies understand how to go about finding and/or hiding caches, be willing to get out in the field and help someone see what's it's all about.

They may not even have a GPSr yet, so you would be willing to help them along by letting them "follow the arrow", "do the circle dance", "get down and dirty". Not proposing your lend your GPSr to go out of your sight, but they may have use your GPSr to find the cache with you in tow.

So being a Guru is a little more than just expecting an email or phone conversation with a newbie. It's also about getting out there with them and getting all physical.

Anyone can be a Guru. There would be no restriction on volunteering to be a Guru. It would be your decision to make.

There would be a couple of restrictions on who would be displayed as a Guru. I'm thinking something like only people who have found or DNF'd a cache in the last month (30 days). This would help keep the displayed Guru's to those who are currently active. I don't think we would want newbies trying to contact someone who nominated as a Guru, but then gave up the game.

Anyone could find their closest guru based on either their home co-ordinates (if they have signed up), a postcode search or an area search (eg. Deer Park, Melbourne, Brisbane, etc).

Your name and number of finds / hides would come up with a distance from where the newbie was searching. Similar to the "Neighbours" search ability ( eg. http://geocaching.com.au/search/?nn=caughtatwork )

I haven't thought about HOW they would contact a Guru yet. We value privacy which means we want to keep information like mobile phone numbers, email addresses as private as possible, so I've got o give this some thought on how it can be achieved.

What do you think about the idea?
Do you have any suggestions?
Can you think of ways to make it easier for newbies to get involved and understand the game?

Thanks in anticipation of your input.

Post by **CraigRat** » 17 January 07 12:38 pm

An excellent idea!

Maybe contact could be established thru a PM using the phpBB system already in place and have the two parties negotiate further contact at their discretion

Maybe also a lower limit should be established (days since 1st find/number of caches) to help filter out some of the noise (if I was starting I'd rather have help from someone with a lot of experience, not someone with only marginally more experience than myself at that point)

Maybe a cacher profile page for each of the gurus with a quick matrix of their areas of guru-ness (ie good with Ozi, GSAK, Hiking, 4x4ing, GPS Skills???)

I honed my caching skills by going caching with a more experienced mentor <waves to Horus> and I learned HEAPS of stuff

Lots of maybes, but I love the idea!

ian-and-penny · Post by **ian-and-penny** » 17 January 07 12:39 pm

I am quite happy to be a Geocaching Guru. (And Penny will be too when I suggest it).

Regarding privacy issues, I suggest that the best way for initial contact could be via a PM.

Cheers

Ian

Post by **caughtatwork** » 17 January 07 12:58 pm

PM is a good idea.

They would need to sign up to make contact.

I think then they need to be "approved" before they can post or PM, so this may be a little bit self defeating, but let me look more.

Gunn Parker · Post by **Gunn Parker** » 17 January 07 1:03 pm

Sounds like a good idea to me and I would be happy to be a guru and help the noobs

Andrew

Cheesy pigs · Post by **Cheesy pigs** » 17 January 07 1:18 pm

Marvellous idea

Although in Tassie we already have 3 unofficial guru's in Horus, Swampy and Snuva. Snuva contacts every person who signs up and welcomes them and offers help. I know she was invaluable to us when we first started, and Horus helped with the more technical side of things. Swampy helped with mapping and hardware.

Then of course, are the Hauntings in Hobart on Monday evenings where all newbies are encouraged to attend - 2 'elder' guru's and many more up and coming gurus in training are available to encourage and assist newbies.

Gee I love Tassie

Post by **CraigRat** » 17 January 07 3:04 pm

Hmmm....

<ponders how to capitalise on his cachegurus.com domain name>

Post by **caughtatwork** » 17 January 07 3:17 pm

CraigRat wrote:Maybe also a lower limit should be established (days since 1st find/number of caches) to help filter out some of the noise (if I was starting I'd rather have help from someone with a lot of experience, not someone with only marginally more experience than myself at that point)

The closest Guru page will display the finds and hides (and maybe other things) or the Guru so the new can determine which of the Guru's to contact.

Part of being Free and Open is that anyone can volunteer and the newbie can choose which Guru is the Guru that Willdo for them.

This is especially pertinent if a newbie is from a relatively cacheless location and the closest Guru is one 50km away who has only found 10 caches.

RedPaw64 · Post by **RedPaw64** » 17 January 07 4:45 pm

Hi there, I think this is a great idea, I am fairly new to the caching but when I started i was actually lucky enough to know someone in it and before i went off to buy a GPS I did a cache, to see if I liked it. I think it would be good to have a mentor, but it would be even better if there could be arranged mentor days in various locations, where some experienced cachers could meet up with the newbies, even if they don;t have a GPS and pick a small area where some caches could be put out. its going to give people a good chance to catch up and also meet the newer cachers that have started recently or want to start. I think a BBQ caching mentor day would be excellent.

Cached · Post by **Cached** » 17 January 07 4:45 pm

Possibly if one nominates to be a guru, two other members of the community should second their nomination to filter out those who really aren't up to it?

But a great idea.

Geof · Post by **Geof** » 17 January 07 5:32 pm

Cache Gurus

Now that would take serious work. Probely best to be able to code some thing in that limits a Guru's following so they don't get burnt out.

Those Hobart monday nights sound like a good idea.

On the GSAK / OZI front wouldn't tips and tricks events be a posable alternative. Seems the Tasweegens and South Aussies have had them but never us in Vic (seriously that is). Im not talking about a turn up and do what ever / talk caching event but a serious event with given speakers on various subjects at specific times not in a pub and not on a friday saturday or sunday. There seem to be many in our midst that are more than qualified speakers.

I think Redpaw64's comments above are good ones

Cached · Post by **Cached** » 17 January 07 5:34 pm

We're likely to have a real beginner one here soon.

setsujoku · Post by **setsujoku** » 17 January 07 6:13 pm

Cached wrote:We're likely to have a real beginner one here soon.

ive got a few new GSAK toys, but i think they would be best left to a more advanced session, might scare them off otherwise.

Would probably be best leaving it until after the release of version 7 of GSAK, as there will be some new built in stuff that requires version 7

Post by **caughtatwork** » 20 January 07 11:02 pm

Well, I've taken the comments on board and made the enhancement for the next release.

Let's let my fellow developers have a go and see if there's anything else we need to consider as a community.

Team Pathfinder · Post by **Team Pathfinder** » 26 January 07 4:01 pm

Great idea. I be in it, especially if it means we can get geocaching going in areas where its been slow to cache on. Like here for example!!

sign me up.