Sponsored Events and Traveling Meet & Eats

Topics of interest to NWOGEO as a group.

Moderator: Steering Committee

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Team_Maltese
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Sponsored Events and Traveling Meet & Eats

Post by Team_Maltese »

Hi gang!
After discussing ways to expand the outreach program of NWOGEO, your Steering Committee is pleased to offer the following two items for discussion:

Item 1 – NWOGEO Sponsored Events

How many cachers have thought about hosting an event but weren’t sure how to get organized or if folks would show up? Would it be helpful if NWOGEO sponsored your event if it meets some basic criteria? You would organize and host the event with NWOGEO acknowledgment. The types of events are nearly endless, and you pick the day, time, and length of the event. One of our goals is to involve fellow cachers that are unable to attend the monthly Maumee or Findlay events due to schedule or distance, so maybe an event on a weekend morning or afternoon or evening would be good for some folks, and maybe a weekday morning or lunchtime event would be better for others.

Where would these events be? You tell us! It's your event, and once again, the thought is to support the social aspect of geocaching and reach those who are unable to attend the Maumee and Findlay events. We don’t really recognize geographical boundaries, so all directions are possible including Michigan, Indiana, and points South and East.

What are the basic criteria? The event topic, venue, and activities should be family friendly. If held inside a restaurant, free WiFi is preferred, as is counter service rather than table service. The thought behind counter service simply acknowledges that the venue will probably lose the use of many tables for a few hours, and the wait staff would have their tips impacted by the lack of customer turn-over. Some establishments with table service can accommodate planned events if they have advanced notice, so it’s always worth a chat with the venue management before skipping over a possible food location.

Item 2 - Traveling Meet & Eats

At this time the monthly Maumee M&E is very well attended. However, the monthly Findlay M&E sometimes has very low attendance, thus prompting the idea of traveling on the third Thursday to reach more of our membership. Maybe every other month the third Thursday could travel to a different geographical area to better serve the cachers who are unable to attend in Maumee or Findlay. Many of the discussion points from Item 1 apply, such as location and basic restaurant criteria, but the time and date would still be the evening of the third Thursday.

If adopted, both of these initiatives should offer area cachers an opportunity to meet in person and exchange stories and ideas and solve puzzles and learn from each other. It would also be a great way to travel to some new areas and maybe grab a few caches.

These ideas are being tossed out for comments and feedback, so feel free to post your replies!
woof-woof from geo-pups Zoe and Daisy
Chaenorrhinum
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Re: Sponsored Events and Traveling Meet & Eats

Post by Chaenorrhinum »

My experience with Sittin' Round Talkin' Cache in northeast Ohio is that we would need to be very clear (preferably in the cache name) where that month's meetup is. I can't tell you how many times cachers came to Café Europa when we were at Panera or vice versa. I'm not opposed to a "Every Xth" traveling meetup, just that we need to make sure the location details are easily gleaned from the cache page.
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Starkacher
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Re: Sponsored Events and Traveling Meet & Eats

Post by Starkacher »

Sounds like some interesting thoughts. I have only made one of the Findlay M&Es and was going to try to attend one in Tiffin a month or two ago, but the plan never came together. We talked about moving the spring fling around and that seems to not be working out, yet. So maybe this plan will work better and help with those that don't live near Toledo or Findlay. It will be interesting to see what comes of this and what that might mean for attendance.
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Chaenorrhinum
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Re: Sponsored Events and Traveling Meet & Eats

Post by Chaenorrhinum »

I think we're still looking at the option of moving Spring Fling, but we're still looking for a location that is on par with Litzenberg. We'd need a place with an enclosed pavilion that we could rent for a reasonable cost, with running water and electricity, and attached to enough real estate to hide 7 or more permanent caches that are large enough to put the sticker sheets in.

That being said, let's keep this thread about monthly meet n eats and if you (the generic you, not just Jim) have a suggestion for Fling locations, post over in that thread.
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