M3 Geocache Planning.
With the Maritime Mega 3 less than 9 months away I think it is time to start thinking and planning about how we can clean up and prepare a massive amount of new caches so we have plenty of caches to find, both for us locals and for our hundreds of visitors. As part of the Mega planning I have taken on the task of trying to organize the new hides and events that will come out for the Mega. This will include common wording and quality and ensuring that as many people who want to be involved with hiding can be involved. This will keep CacheupNB or anyone else from having to own and maintain too many caches. If we divide and conquer with many hiders owning fewer caches then the quality and variety should be excellent.
Our plan is to have an event or meeting early next year to entice people to take on an area or to come up with plans, teams or any other ideas on how to tackle this project and make it a success. There will be a requirement to contact some cache owners and asking for them to perhaps archive some older caches that need maintenance (with an offer to remove the old cache for them if they want) or are getting no finds anymore. This will allow us, in the greater Moncton area, to increase the cache quality and make way for some new geocaches. I would really like to clean out Centennial Park completely and start with an organised cache series which is within walking distance of the Mega event site. There may be some other places where we can do this and we will most likely be doing some type of coin challenge in the tri-city area and that will require some specific locations to ensure the people traveling to our area get to see some cool and interesting places unique to our cities and town. We are also hoping to have some Lab caches as well but that is something that CacheupNB will have to handle as the event organizers.
If you have any ideas let us know by commenting below, email, attend the planned event or talk to us next time you see us.
A very good idea to have a number of caches in Centennial Park, close to the event site. That will be great for the day of the event.
I am sure that cachers from far away may base their decision to attend on the available caches in the greater Moncton area, in order for the trip to be worthwhile. I am sure many have already looked at a geocaching map of the area. They would certainly be impressed with what they see. They would see that the city is covered in caches. Andd zooming out would show the large number of cache series in Albert County, as well as Petitcodiac, and Salisbury, and Irishtown, and Shediac, and Bouctouche and Port Elgin.
With regard to placing caches, we have prepared a large number of caches of various sizes and will be hiding a new series or two within a short time, in our caching area.
I agree that maintenance is important. Last week I did a maintenance run on our Route 933 series of 40 caches and did the same in August for our entire Cocagne trail series. I will shortly be looking at a couple of problem caches in our Bouctouche series.
A geocoin challenge is mentioned.
I am curious as to how it will function.
If the caches are released before the MEGA, locals will have first crack at the caches and there may not be many coins available for visitors,
If the caches are released on the day of the MEGA, the geocoin hounds may spend the day looking for the caches rather than attending the event.
Good points on both sides. We are still finalizing the details on these but I think the odds are good that they would be released a few days before the event, or possibly maybe just on Friday morning.
Part of it is that we want to have the coins AT the event so you can claim them there so I would suspect the caches would definitely be published a day or two before the mega.
Like I said, specifics need to be worked out, so it could end up being completely different than we expect. We should know more as the new year comes.
Yep I knew it had to be worked out. It sounds good
We plan to go at the M3 mega in Moncton, do you have any recommendation for special caches around Moncton or Fredericton?
https://www.cacheupnb.com/what-are-your-favorite-new-brunswick-caches/