I'd like to invite everyone to gather for fellowship amid social distancing guidlines in a facility with plenty of room. Whether you've ever thought about geocaching or found thousands, this event is for you. One thing we will be doing is talking about Wickham Park saturation and preparing for a refresh ahead of next year's SCGA Picnic in the Park. So if you have a cache hidden in Wickham Park, would like to hide a cache in Wickham Park, or don't only want to find caches in Wickham Park, come join us. That should pretty much cover everyone!
We'll meet Sunday evening at Get Fired Up!, our annual GIFF location in Melbourne, from 6 - 8 pm.
Every year, a few months prior to the annual SCGA Picnic in the Park event (GC8Z75A for 2021), Geocachers refresh the majority of Wickham Park caches. This way everyone has new caches to find during the picnic. A recent poll on the SCGA Facebook page told us that the oldest caches should be preserved and the majority replaced.
Currently there are around 70 caches of all types hidden in the park. Close to 60 have been replaced annually for the past decade. Because of the saturation of caches, there hasn't been much flexibility for placement. This has resulted in going to the same tree every year to find a new container. Kinda takes the fun out of caching. We thought about laying a grid out to maximize the number of caches in the Park. It would've allowed a shift for new locations, but would've only added a few more spots and left us with the same issue the following year - same tree, new container.
Several of the current hiders have expressed an interest in archiving and NOT replacing their caches. This would allow new hides by new cachers. This is a good thing, because I actually have a waiting list of folks that want to place a cache in the park.
So this event is a chance to talk about the refresh and possibly coordinate archiving caches in the next few weeks to give others a chance to hide caches. It would also be an opportunity to share the placement ground rules established by the Park Ranger in coordination with our Groundspeak Volunteer Reviewers.