The Moving Cache Race for 2010/2011

[stringy]

I'd like to thanks all the movers of my gnome for distance it went (much more than last race)

and thankyou to C@W for all the work in going into this race.

[caughtatwork]

I'd like to thanks all the movers of my gnome for distance it went (much more than last race)

That wouldn't have been too hard

thankyou to C@W for all the work in going into this race.

You're welcome. Keep you eye out on the mail

[juc_cacher]

There are another half dozen prizes to be awarded and I'll work those out shortly.

Hopefully my hilarious photos with the GeGnome Analyser win me one of those !

[Bundyrumandcoke]

So do I own the only gnome who legitimately did not travel anywhere during the race? 0km.

[caughtatwork]

Yes, yes you did.
Well, any that had a decent chance of being moved.
The two in The Netherlands really didn't stand a chance.

[caughtatwork]

Some 200 pathtags are in envelopes to go into the mail in the morning.
My god! I've been stuffing envelopes for the last 3 hours.

mr_roo, firesafe and rogerw3 prizes for most moves, longest overall and longest distance are also in the mail.

I'll be looking and thinking about the remaining prizes over the next couple of days. I simply didn't expect the volume of great photos and stories so I need to go through them and see what tickles my fancy.

[caughtatwork]

I think this years GeGnome Project was a complete success.



The total finds on moveable caches went from 3,107 at the end of November to 7,775 at the end of January. A total of 4,668 finds. Granted not 100% of them were GeGnomes, but I'd bet move than 99% were.

From the supporters of Geocaching Australia, all of you who find and hides cache on our little site as well as the Senators and the site developers and administrators, a big, hearty thank you to everyone who saw the opportunity to have fun during the GeGnome Project.

We hope that if this was your first experience at hiding or finding a cache listed on Geocaching Australia that you'll hang around, enjoy the warm community we have and of course, hide a few and find a few caches listed here.

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!

[juc_cacher]

Yep, for me it was my introduction to GCA caches and I thoroughly enjoyed the racing aspects, but am even more pleased to have "discovered" GCA caches !

Thanks to C@W for the organisation and to the gnome owners whose gnomes visited with us !

[tronador]

I too would like to thank C@W for all the effort put into GCA in general and for devising these fun games, on the caching games website.
Thank you as well for the shiny that arrived in the mail yesterday. A 100 GCA finds pathtag!! Dedicated to the gnomes.

[Zalgariath]

Yes, yes you did.
Well, any that had a decent chance of being moved.
The two in The Netherlands really didn't stand a chance.

Not during the race... but they are on my radar to come at least to the UK later in the year. And home to Oz eventually if they are small enough

[Yurt]

Well compared with the previous race it smashed all records! What was the secret to the increased interest this summer?
The promise of shiny things?


(and I'm puzzled that everyone who attended the Xmas party in Sydney didn't get involved (most did I think), but each to their own I guess)

[caughtatwork]

Increased interest? I'd guess a couple of things.

Critical mass of people now playing at Geocaching Australia.
http://geocaching.com.au/stats/cachers/ ... th_started
You can see that more people found their first GCA cache in this years game, compared to last year. So we have two larger points of interest. Last years people who enjoyed the game and new people who joined this year.

Opportunities that other sites don't offer.
http://geocaching.com.au/stats/graphs/g ... cumulative
This is a perfect example of what GCA offers that some other listing sites don't.
September 2009 offered all Australians the opportunity to find TrigPoints. You can see in the ACT, until September 2009, the find rate was very low. With the introduction of TrigPoints, the interest of a number of geocachers who are interested in more than a box under a bush was pricked. The TP's generated an interest in finding and logging caches at GCA. That then spilled over into the MCR for last year and the GeGnome Project this year.
The MCR in the ACT caused a find increase of around 360.
The GeGnome Project in the ACT caused a find increase of just under 2,000.
This is consistent across most states, but the ACT stats show it much more clearly.
http://geocaching.com.au/stats/graphs/g ... tage_finds
In December / January 1 in 6 finds in the ACT was a GCA cache. I will fully accept that the interest will die off over the coming months, but I doubt it will die off completely.
The ACT cachers seem to be extremely competitive so the opportunity to play in the GCA space seems to be triggering the competition and fun that geocachers enjoy.

Shinies?
Well, there were the prizes offered last year but they were generic GCA pathtags. This year we offered a specially minted pathtag. However, until the rewards email went out on Monday night, no-one knew that every cache entrant would get a shiny. I doubt that the offer of prizes was a critical factor.

Gnomes.
I think that the name and theme of the game "GeGnome Project" was a key part. The concept of having a couple of under gnomes racing around the country and the world interested people more than I anticipated. The stories of gnomes being kidnapped or travelling around, outside of geocaching has always captured the imagination of people and in some cases the media / news. While we didn't make the news I think people were very much tempted by the idea of racing gnomes around the place. They're also fun to make, find and hide. I think the evidence of the massive numbers of pictures and videos is a testament to how much fun people think gnomes can be.

Locations.
With GCA having relatively few caches around the country (excepting trigpoints), a GCA cache is not always within reach of a lot of geocachers. Having moving caches travel around means that a lot more opportunities existed for people to find a GCA cache in their local territory. Sure they moved on, but next week there were likely a new bunch of caches that could be found and so the interest was retained. I hope that this game encourages people to hide a GCA cache in their local area for others to find and enjoy.

I haven't had time to analyse everything and I think there are a number of other factors involved. I would love to hear from other geocachers, those who had never found a GCA before this game and those who are regular GCA geocachers as to why the game was so much fun for them. Their feedback can help us to grown the site into more of what they like into the future.

[Happy Chappies]

I didn't get heavily involved in the race, but did move a few gnomes when they were nearby and enjoyed the experience - And even from my little dabbling in the race I could see it did a great job at promoting the work of GCA in the broader world of geocaching... More than once I bumped into other cachers near a cache and mentioned gnome hunting and got them interested. In one instance our finding of a gnome prompted a GC cacher to come and find it with us and log their first GCA find, and I recall recently chatting with a couple of cachers at a FTF hunt and mentioning gnomes, and seeing the non-GCA members show interest and become informed.

So from an 'evangelistic' purpose in regards to GCA, even though that was not the point of the race, it's done a good job...

What I especially loved about the race is the ability to take cachers "where no cache has been before" - ie. people's frontyards, odd locations, etc. Simply because knowing that the cache won't be there for more than a day or two in most instances, and does not need to survive long, opened up so many opportunities...

[rogerw3]

Thanks for the details C@W, in my case I have only been a GCA finder since Oct 18, 2009 and indeed my first 5 finds were Trig Points something I found then and still now very interesting. My first Traditional GCA cache was not until Jan 2010, by which time that year's race was almost over.
What got me started with GCA was the 10th Anniversary celebrations, I really got into the spirit of that and enjoyed it immensely, in fact without that I doubt I would have started hiding caches for GCA.
But with the Gnome moveable race it proved to be an irresistible force and I certainly travelled long distances (by public transport) to find Gnomes and on occasions not to find Gnomes!
It was great fun and something to remember specially the other cachers I met during the race. This event has been an amazing success with almost 3500 moves and many more logged finds only.
The promise of shiny things at the end was not (at least for me) a factor in taking part, not that I will knock them back, I do love this Pathtag affliction started by none other than C@W. I only wanted to show my support for GCA by using the shop and well the rest is history!
A great big THANK YOU to C@W for all his hard work in the great Gnome race.

[Hunter-Finder]

To C&W and all staff involved in the GeGnome Project race.
A hearty thank you for organising such a great race. Not only for the interest in finding and moving those sometime elusive blighters but for increasing interest in GCA period. For a while, you would see the same old names in the logs then suddenly there were new names which equated to "New" cachers.
My wife is glad this is all over and I'm not racing out after work or in the morning muttering "I must find this one".
Like others, I'll be glad of the rest and look forward to next years game.

I'm not sure of my stats but my Gnome is somewhere in Sth Australia where I hope he will have a good time before returning to Sydney.
Again, many thanks for the Great Race.