Find a Guru (Mentor)
- caughtatwork
- Posts: 17025
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Find a Guru (Mentor)
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.
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.
- CraigRat
- 850 or more found!!!
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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!
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!
Last edited by CraigRat on 17 January 07 12:44 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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- 10000 or more caches found
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- caughtatwork
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- Cheesy pigs
- 3000 or more caches found
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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![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
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
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
- CraigRat
- 850 or more found!!!
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- caughtatwork
- Posts: 17025
- Joined: 17 May 04 12:11 pm
- Location: Melbourne
- Contact:
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.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)
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
- 450 or more roots tripped over
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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. ![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
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![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
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.
![Idea :idea:](./images/smilies/icon_idea.gif)
I think Redpaw64's comments above are good ones
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Last edited by Geof on 17 January 07 5:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
- setsujoku
- 3500 or more caches found
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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.Cached wrote:We're likely to have a real beginner one here soon.
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
- caughtatwork
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- Team Pathfinder
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