A Guidebook for Establishing a Geocaching Project for a State Surveying Organization In coordination with the NSPS Geocaching Project, 2nd Edition by Ernest Cantu Jr, L.S. KS, March 2007 revised May 2008 Contents WHAT IS GEOCACHING? HISTORY OF THE NSPS GEOCACHING PROJECT 1. Phase I 2. Phase II 3. Phase III 4. THE NSPS GEOCACHING PROJECT BECOMES REALITY 5. FIRST EDITION OF THE GUIDEBOOK 6. GEOCACHING PROHIBITS SOCIAL AGENDAS 7. SECOND EDITION OF THE GUIDEBOOK WHY GEOCACHING? 1. THE NEGATIVES 2. OTHER NSPS PROGRAMS NSPS GEOCACHING PROJECT - Phase I Details • ESTABLISHING THE GEOCACHING PROJECT AT THE STATE LEVEL 1. WHO IS IN CHARGE? PROJECT COORDINATOR WEB MANAGER 2. GEOCACHING PROJECT VOLUNTEERS 3. GET AN ACCOUNT WITH GEOCACHING.COM GUIDANCE ABOUT THE PROPER USE OF THE USERNAME OF THE SURVEYING ORGANIZATION 4. REPORT THE ACCOUNT NAME TO THE NSPS GEOCACHING COORDINATOR 5. THE INTERNET "PROFILE" PAGE 6. A GEOCACHE WEBPAGE • SETTING GEOCACHES 1. GEOCACHE LOCATION 2. GEOCACHE CONSTRUCTION 3. GEOCACHE PLACEMENT 4. SUBMITTING THE GEOCACHE THE SECRET! 5. GEOCACHING TRADITIONS 6. LASTLY IS MAINTENANCE. 7. GEOCACHE EXAMPLE NSPS GEOCACHING PROJECT - Phase III Details 1. EVENTS AND CONTESTS 2. PUBLISHING THE EVENT ON GEOCACHING.COM SUCCESS ABOUT Geocacher Cantuland What is geocaching? Geo-what? What is this geocaching thing all about? Geocaching, pronounced Jee-o-Kash-ing, comes from “geo,” somewhere on the planet, and “cache,” a hiding place that hikers used to stash supplies like food and climbing gear for long term use. Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. People set up hidden treasures (geocaches) all over the world according to established ethics. With latitude and longitude coordinates posted on internet sites like Geocaching.com, GPS users can use the coordinates to find the geocaches. All the geocacher is asked to do is treat the land with respect and trade fairly – if they take something from the geocache, they should leave something in the geocache. There will be a log book in the geocache so they can record their own visit for future finders to read. History of the NSPS Geocaching Project In the year 2006, the NSPS Board of Directors and Governors considered the hobby of geocaching as an excellent opportunity to promote the surveying profession at the national and state levels. The NSPS Board requests that the Board of Directors for each state society formally endorse the NSPS Geocaching Project and request volunteers statewide to assist with program implementation. NSPS declared that it can benefit from this fast-growing sport by participating in the establishment of geocaches that promote the career of surveying. The sport of geocaching is gaining worldwide popularity at all ages and walks of life. Internet sites such as Geocaching.com are already in place providing resources such as off-site web servers, database storage, helpful information for getting started, and internet forums for feedback. NSPS geocaches will be spread across the nation, sponsored by state surveying organizations, and maintained by volunteer surveyors. Each geocache will target local surveying-related attractions and will be part of a nationwide effort to have interest in surveying ride on the growing popularity of the geocaching sport. The following phases describe project details as requested by the Board. Phase I NSPS requests that each state society get individual surveyors to volunteer to establish and maintain geocaches in accordance with program details. All groundwork should be completed by the end of this year [2006]. In early March of 2007, the entire network will be published on a geocaching internet site and will be promoted on state and national levels. Inauguration events will be held in each state. Phase II NSPS will request the National Council of Boy Scouts of America to integrate geocaching into their orienteering program with the assistance of individual surveyors nationwide. Program details will be established at that time. Phase III NSPS will sponsor expanded national geocaching events and contests in cooperation with state societies. ***** The NSPS Geocaching Project becomes reality. The NSPS Geocaching Project became reality on December 25, 2006, with the establishment of the NSPS Geocache in the heart of the Nation. With regard to the Phase I details of publishing the network of geocaches, the NSPS Geocaching Project was presented to the general surveying community on March 12, 2007, at the ACSM-IPLSA- MSPS National Surveyors Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The creation of the Project deviated slightly from the original plans in the Phase I details of publishing the entire network of geocaches. Only a few states were already on-board with the NSPS Geocaching Project at the time of the St. Louis conference, but the existing infrastructure of the Project included a process to easily incorporate more state surveying societies in the future whenever they become ready to join the Project. The "entire network" is a continually growing system. At this time, May 2008, sporadic interest has been expressed to use geocaching with a BSA merit badge program, but Phase II has not yet been officially implemented. Geocaching events for Phase III have already been introduced into the NSPS Geocaching Project using the method provided by the Geocaching.com website, which is the same process for submitting new geocaches. Therefore, Phase III has successfully commenced and will continue to grow alongside Phase I. The First Edition of the Guidebook In March of 2007, the first edition of this guidebook was published and made available for free from the NSPS website. It was called A Guidebook to Setting Geocaches for a Surveying Organization. It detailed how to promote the career of surveying by setting geocaches. The first edition explained how to set geocaches where the geocache webpages focused on three topics - the first topic being the details about the geocache, details typical of any other geocache; the second topic, a description of the site chosen where the geocache was placed; and the final topic, promoting the career of surveying. It was this third topic that included various internet links on how to contact a surveying organization. The third topic was included with the hopes that anyone with an interest in surveying would have easy access to appropriate internet links to educate and fuel that interest...hopes that the interest would eventually culminate into a license to practice surveying. Unfortunately, it was this third topic that qualified as a "social agenda" on the Geocaching.com website and led to a temporary stalling of the NSPS Geocaching Project. Geocaching.com prohibits "social agendas". In May of 2008, the NSPS Geocaching Project evolved to become a better program. Conflicts were identified, confronted and resolved. Progress with the Project had slowed to a trickle. State surveying organizations reported that geocache submittals were not getting published. Geocaches were not meeting approval due to the inclusion of the third topic of promoting the career of surveying. The NSPS Geocaching Coordinator contacted leading authorities with Geocaching.com to see how to resolve the conflict. Although the presence of NSPS on Geocaching.com was deliberately of a non-commercial nature by design, promoting the career of surveying on the geocache webpages constituted a "social agenda". The Geocaching.com website does not express favor nor disfavor of a specific social agenda, but, since Geocaching.com policies prohibit social agendas from geocache webpages, inclusion of the third topic on geocache webpages put a halt to any new publishings. NSPS and Geocaching.com worked together and came up with a solution that would lead to the continuation of the NSPS Geocaching Project that complied with Geocaching.com guidelines. The Second Edition of the Guidebook The solution to the "social agenda" conflict was to remove text from geocache pages that promoted surveying and to place that text in another area of the Geocaching.com website, known as a profile page, which would still be accessible through the internet. Since the promotion of the career of surveying on a geocache webpage was a heavy topic of the first edition of this guidebook, the guidebook had to be rewritten to express the agreements reached between NSPS and Geocaching.com. The resulting guidebook is this second edition, now entitled A Guidebook for Establishing a Geocaching Project for a State Surveying Organization, In coordination with the NSPS Geocaching Project, 2nd Edition. After the NSPS Geocaching Project had been active for a year, other issues had come up that needed to be addressed to make for better understanding of how to best use this program. This second addition adds to the first to present guidelines for the whole Geocaching Project from start to finish, rather than just setting geocaches. This edition answers questions such as why to have a Project, how to structure the Project at the state level so that it continues to grow, and how to go about implementing the Phase III details of holding events that bring together geocaching and surveying. Why geocaching??? The purpose of the NSPS Geocaching Project is to promote the career of surveying as a viable career choice. This project directs its efforts to people who use GPS for recreational activities. Geocachers already know about using location-based technology. These people, geocachers, are running around the outdoors with hand held GPS receivers and tracking down coordinates to find something hidden there. Once in the area of the coordinates, they transition from using a GPS receiver to using evidence on the ground to help discover the whereabouts of what they are looking for. Tracking down coordinates will lead them to the most unusual places that the typical person never sees. They get to see wildlife in native habitat. Exploring some coordinates may take them to land marks that they otherwise would not have visited.