Come Out & Play Feedback/Suggestions

Below is the email we’ve sent to all players in the 2011-2012 Come Out & Play Contest . We’re looking for feedback and suggestions on how to improve the contest for the upcoming winter caching season and welcome voices and suggestions from cachers who didn’t play last year.

“It’s that time of the year again, when we start to think about the Come Out & Play contest for this winter. We hope you’ve all been enjoying the beautiful summer we’ve been having and that you’ve been able to get lots of caching in!

We’re looking for some feedback from the 2011-12 contest and suggestions for the 2012-13 contest that may make it even more enjoyable and fun for everyone. To that end, we hope you’ll take a few minutes sometime in the next few days or weeks and let us know what we did right and what we did that could have been better, what you think might improve the game or any suggestions you might have for changes.

Are you happy with the format of tasks for points or would you prefer a different type of game? If yes, what type? Is the length of the contest alright or is it too short/long? Since we try host the BBW Bash in late April when the weather is decent enough to hold the CITO, we do prefer to keep the contest going until the end of March but should we be starting it later, like maybe January? Or is mid to late November okay? Did you like the fact that you could both find and hide caches this year? Can you think of ways to reach more cachers who might not be aware of the contest? What more can we do to get folks from more parts of the province involved?

We were thrilled with, and blown away by, the response to the launch events held in Fredericton, Moncton, Saint John, Bathurst and St. Stephen. We will definitely be hosting launch events again this year! If you’d like to volunteer to host one in your area please let us know.

We are working with the wonderful folks at Cache Up NB again and they are working on ways to make the scoring much easier for us and maybe some new things for you, too.

We look forward to hearing from you and will consider any and all legitimate ideas. Some may be feasible for the contest, others may not but we will look at them all.”

So far, the most common comment has been about the time frame of the contest. Although a couple of people have felt it was too long, most have asked us not to shorten it. For folks with kids it’s sometimes hard to find the time to cache. For folks from the more northern areas who tend to get more snow and sooner it gives them an opportunity to do some before the snow gets too bad. For others who may work shift-work or full time and can only cache on the weekends it gives them a chance to get all their tasks done. For folks who live in areas with few available caches it gives them time to travel to fulfill their tasks. So, we will most likely keep the same approximate time frame for the 2012-13 contest.

Another issue many have mentioned is the way we did the most creative hides. In hindsight, we agree that it was not the best way to do it, nor the most fair, but it was an option worth a try. Now have the big job of trying to figure out an easier, more fair way to judge creative hides. It will never be 100% fair unless we can assure that every cacher can find every creative hide and then vote on them and that just isn’t going to happen. Creative hides in more populated areas are always going to be found more often and will have an advantage over those in less populated areas. So, what do we do? Any ideas? Or do we just go with hides alone and not get into judging the creative ones?

If you have any suggestions or ideas on any way we can improve the contest please let us know!