Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

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roundcircle
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Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by roundcircle » 21 February 10 10:18 pm

GCA has been approached by one of the Victorian State Library to help put together a promotional event that celebrates the expedition of Burke and Wills 150 years ago. The developers and the senate believe that this will be a great opportunity to both promote Geocaching and put together a challenge for the existing caching community.

This post is here to invite cachers who are willing to be part of a small group who are willing to develop and manage the promotion.

We're expecting that the promotion will consist of a series of caches of some sort, and will also make use of the resources at GCA. Both C@W and Craigrat are keen to use this opportunity as a driver for the continued development of the GCA site, so it's a great opportunity to do something different.

The promotional group’s primary role will be to help develop and test ideas. Of course we expect this will all lead to some caches going out. Eventually we'll be looking for help with those too, though placing caches is not the primary role of this group. If you are willing to place a cache, but not be part of the promotional group, that's okay. Just let us know and we can contact you at the right time.

If your interested, please contact C@W directly, or post in this thread and we'll contact you. If you'd like some more detail before committing, also contact C@W and we'll give you the full details. (As long as you promise not to tell.) :-)

Whilst we can't commit to accepting everyone that expresses interest, we do need a range of people. So even if your new, perhaps never posted in the forum, please consider being involved. In fact those new to the sport might be able to add the most value, as you can give us good advice on what attracted you, and what you think will attract others who don't know what a muggle is. (Of course if you've been into caching since 2000 then your still welcome.) And don't worry, it won't be to onerous or time consuming.

We're excited about this, and hope to hear from a few others out there who are willing to be part of this project.

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Keeper of Time
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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by Keeper of Time » 21 February 10 10:50 pm

This sounds like a very exiting project and a great chance to promote caching and GCA =D> . We would be happy to give whatever assistance we can and look forward to hearing more about what is likely to be set up and of course the change to hide and find some more quality GCA caches.

Cheers
Keith & Jill

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Richary
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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by Richary » 22 February 10 9:24 pm

Sounds excellent, though I don't know how much I can help from Sydney. If I can though let me know.

mickeydv
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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by mickeydv » 22 February 10 9:34 pm

Will be happy to be involved...if you need someone in WA.

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by caughtatwork » 04 March 10 7:49 pm

Sadly, no one has contacted me directly, so I'll give you some more information.

This year (in August) the Victorian Exploration Expedition (Burke & Wills) celebrates its 150th Anniversary.

The State Library of Victoria has approached GCA (as per the OP) with the "the possibility of creating a "Burke & Wills" themed geocaching trail.".

The B&W geocaching project is secret in that SLV would like to be able to announce (and have published) all of the B&W caches on the same day as the 150th anniversary which I believe to be August 20, 2010.

I met with a representative of the SLV and presented what geocaching was, why we do it, how we do it, etc, etc. Usual type spiel. Specifically the accuracy of a GPS and the burying "rule" in terms of environmental impact. Sally from the SLV was under the initial impression that once you got to 0m, the cache was there. I made it very clear that this was NOT the normal situation and she liked that as it added to the adventure.

Sally was interested in the various types of caches and I need to provide her with a more detailed explanation of the cache types. We discussed virtuals (for remote places), traditionals, multis and mysteries. Mystery caches are probably not within the realm of this project as the SLV are trying to involved the general public in the trail and the concept of a mystery cache may be out of their realm.

Traditional caches are also possibly out of scope. The typical locations that are of interest to the SLV in engendering interest in having people visit are physical markers (cairns, memorials, trees, etc). A traditional cache in some of the locations would not be suitable for potentially heritage listed sites. We also discussed memorials being in cemeteries and that some people might find caching in a cemetery disrespectful although gathering information and then heading out of the cemetery would be seen as much better.

Multi caches seemed to be the best bet for locations that have a physical marker. i.e. Gather some information from the physical marker, do "something", head off to find the cache. This removes the physical container from the immediate site, but still allows people to visit the location of historical significance.

Virtual caches (get to the co-ords, take a picture, prove you were there) was an excellent idea for more rural and remote locations as the issue of maintenance of a physical container in areas prone to flooding, bushfire and where there is no cacher with 100km would be problematical. This still gives people the opportunity to visit points along the route without the pain of maintenance.

Speaking of maintenance, Sally was a little concerned about physical maintenance of caches owned by the SLV as, naturally, over time interest in maintenance would wane and be problematical. I suggested to her that geocaches could / would be hidden by individuals. They would be owned by the individual and maintenance would be by the individual. For caches that the SLV wanted in specific locations for specific reasons could be "community assets" (kind of like trigpoints) if we couldn't find a cacher in the region to maintain it, in that the community would probably be in a position to maintain the caches and if this goes awry, the Geocaching Australia account would have the ability to archive the listing should the cache disappear.

She said that there will be a re-enactment of the route celebrating the 150th anniversry commencing on 20-Aug-2010. The actual route is to be determined, but I think she said it would follow the main roads and wouldn't be the whole route and would possibly end at the Victorian / NSW border. The people enacting the route would also be hiding special caches along the way. I didn't see a problem with that except that we need to provide guidelines as to how a cache should be hidden and how to capture accurate co-ordinates. These caches will be listed on the fly or at the end of the re-enactment, probably by GCA rather than SLV.

Sally asked about educational opportunities. i.e. involvement of schools. As we can't control who attempts finds on our caches, we can't stop schools from heading out and finding caches. The difference here is that SLV have engaged a teacher to be involved in the overall anniversary and so there will be a specific focus on educational opportunities. I highlighted to Sally the "troubles" that can occur when a large group attacks a cache site, especially when some of the attackers are not yet socially mature. i.e. They revisit with other friends and nick the cool container. There was no real resolution to this, but she is open to additional discussion as to how he geocaching aspect could be incorporated into the educational opportunity, both in terms of the B&W 150th as well as the technological opportunities in using a GPS, etc. I suggested that maybe there could be "special" educational caches using a start point, compass, distance, etc set up to a smaller cache so that if it went missing it wouldn't be as dramatic as an ammo go missing every couple of weeks. There was also discussion on how many schools could afford a GPS, so a cache using other (non-GPS) technologies might be more useful.

Speaking of GPS receivers we spoke of handhelds, phones and car systems.
Best: Handheld units
2nd best: Phone
Last: car units

Nothing surprising to y'all. Handheld, accuracy under trees, EPE, ec, etc. Phones with A-GPS are likely to be wonky in rural and remote. Car unit and "lock to road". In terms of what the SLV stick on their website we might need to provide a spiel so people don't head out 500m up a hill into the bush with the TomTom and can't find the cache, etc, etc.

The SLV will be setting up their own site for the 150th. We discussed the detail SLV would like from us on their site. While not a full replication of the caches, they would like to be able to map them and track / present the logs on the caches. I advised that the GPX files would provide the solution perfectly. They can pull them once a day, parse it up and stick it on their site. We would probably need to explain to their webdevs the format and rules if they can't work it out from the schema.

I suggested that the cache could be marked as a special type of cache (rather the, T, M, V, etc). i.e. Like an earthcache or project ape type catchall. That way we can give them whatever happens with any of these caches. This would also mean that people can JUST find these caches using a my query restricted to a particular type. The description would indicate whether it's virtual, multi, traditional, etc.

For virtuals and specific caches, SLV would also likely provide text for the cache page so we don't run foul of copyright laws in "stealing" content. I will also ask the guy who put together the KMZ file if we can steal the content with attribution. This is a KMZ file of the Burke & Wills trail. http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.p ... ar2007.kmz We would also like to see "In conjunction with the State Library of Victoria" (or something) to recognise the SLV (and poke Parks Victoria) as a contributor to the caches.

Wow, long post.

How do we engage the GCA community to get these caches out there?
Second question ... thoughts, discussions, ideas, please.

I can't do all this myself so I am really looking for help.

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by CraigRat » 04 March 10 8:08 pm

How to get people to help hide caches?

Bribery with shiny things, attribution of their efforts somehow, the usual!

I can only join c@w to urge cachers in Vic/Sa/NT to help us promote geocaching and important parts of our history to the general public. This is a perfect opportunity to meld different ideas together to make something special, and we want everyone to become part of the end product!

(c@w, as mentioned off forum a few times, I will help in whatever manner I can.)

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by blossom* » 04 March 10 8:15 pm

I assume the cache trail will go from Melbourne, north to the NSW border then? I guess you need to list the various towns along the way so cachers know what might be near them.

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by blossom* » 04 March 10 8:16 pm

oh yeah, I can't read a kmz file

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by caughtatwork » 04 March 10 8:18 pm

The SLV r-enacted expedition will go from Melbourne to the border (and maybe a little beyond).

The B&W geocaching project will follow the whole trail from start to finish.
This KMZ file (which will open in Google Earth) will show you a number of significant points along the expedition trail. http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.p ... ar2007.kmz

If you have Google Earth installed that is.

For locations we cannot arrange for a physical cache, we would place a virtual cache with a "take a photo of your GPS at thes co-ords" to claim.

We are looking for people who would be willing to find a location along the trail and place a cache.

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by PrincessDiala » 04 March 10 9:14 pm

blossom* wrote:oh yeah, I can't read a kmz file
Do you have google earth? Open it up using that. Worked for me.


This is a really awesome idea!.. however I have no idea how I can help.

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by caughtatwork » 04 March 10 9:30 pm

Say you want to help. Then when the times comes to go secret so no-one else knows what exactly what we're doing, then you can join the secret club and we'll all be secret ... and clever :-)

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by PrincessDiala » 04 March 10 9:46 pm

Ok, I'll be a secret helper (in any way that I am able)!

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by Black Bunny » 05 March 10 7:53 am

The mad Bunny's will help with this. i will send you an email Peter to see what we can do.

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by Black Bunny » 05 March 10 8:27 am

The "insane" Bunnies will be glad to help out.
Give us a task, and we'll get it done - somehow!

Mrs. Bunny

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Re: Burke and Wills GCA Anniversary Project

Post by caughtatwork » 05 April 10 9:46 pm

For anyone who is interested, participation is a little lack lustre at the moment, so we would welcome people who are interested in this special project to shoot me a PM or reply here.

Nothing too arduous, from the list of Burke and Wills Expedition locations, pick one or two, hide a cache, list it on GCA. A unique opportunity to get in on the ground level of this project and get a special cache type that only a very few people are going to ever get.

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