Pup Patrol Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 From the newsletter of 20 May 2016: Find a Geocache on Get Outdoors Day!Get Outdoors Day! Every geocacher has experienced the magic of the great outdoors — diving into a cold alpine lake at the end of an arduous hike or watching the sun disappear over the horizon from a hidden beach. June 11, 2016 is a day to celebrate the great outdoors in the best way possible — by finding a geocache… any geocache or event! You’ll even earn a new souvenir for your profile. Blog post of 11 May 2016: https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2016/05/celebrate-get-outdoors-month-2016/ apparently started out as a souvenir for only the USA. B. Quote Link to comment
+The A-Team Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 apparently started out as a souvenir for only the USA. I saw that, and I'm shocked. Groundspeak has gotten lots of flak for having US-centric things in the past (like most of their promotions/contests), so you'd think they'd have learned by now that their little game has spread far beyond the border. This is a worldwide game (and has been for a long time), so there's no excuse for things to be arbitrarily restricted to the USA. As far as 2016 souvenirs, the only other one that's been announced so far is another CITO one in September. It's possible there will be a souvenir for the GPS Adventures Maze in August (the one last year had one), but I haven't seen that confirmed anywhere yet. There will likely be one for International Geocaching Day in August, maybe one for International EarthCache Day in October, and I'm sure there'll be another summer promotion where we'll have to find various categories of caches to get a handful of souvenirs. We're also closing in on 3,000,000 caches, so we can hope for another batch of country-based souvenirs (hopefully with some more exotic ones, not just the next few that have the most caches). Quote Link to comment
+noncentric Posted May 26, 2016 Share Posted May 26, 2016 apparently started out as a souvenir for only the USA. Maybe it was to make up for not having GPS Adventure Mazes in the USA anymore? I'm kidding!!! Real question. Does anyone know if the 2013 "Geocaching Get Outdoors Day" souvenir was related to the same initiative that this 2016 souvenir is related to? If so, then it would indeed seem odd that they initially made this year's souvenir USA only if the 2013 one was international. Quote Link to comment
+cachepohl Posted May 26, 2016 Share Posted May 26, 2016 Well, on the linked page it reads: I don’t live in the US. Can I still earn the Get Outdoors Day Souvenir! Yes, you can! The Get Outdoors Day souvenir is part of a bigger initiative with the American Recreation Coalition and other US-based outdoor organizations to get more Americans outside during National Get Outdoors Month. Given the interest expressed by geocachers all over the world in participating in Get Outdoors Day, we’ve decided to make the souvenir available to anyone who finds a geocache or attends an event (anywhere in the world!) on June 11, 2016. So definitely not US only. Quote Link to comment
+noncentric Posted May 26, 2016 Share Posted May 26, 2016 Well, on the linked page it reads: I don’t live in the US. Can I still earn the Get Outdoors Day Souvenir! Yes, you can! The Get Outdoors Day souvenir is part of a bigger initiative with the American Recreation Coalition and other US-based outdoor organizations to get more Americans outside during National Get Outdoors Month. Given the interest expressed by geocachers all over the world in participating in Get Outdoors Day, we’ve decided to make the souvenir available to anyone who finds a geocache or attends an event (anywhere in the world!) on June 11, 2016. So definitely not US only. It's now not US only. It was US only when it was first announced, hence the "started out as" part of the OP's post. apparently started out as a souvenir for only the USA. Quote Link to comment
+cerberus1 Posted May 26, 2016 Share Posted May 26, 2016 Glad I saw this. Wondered what the todo was about, thinking it unusual in celebration of World Gin Day. Quote Link to comment
+BlackRose67 Posted May 26, 2016 Share Posted May 26, 2016 Glad I saw this. Wondered what the todo was about, thinking it unusual in celebration of World Gin Day. Now THAT would be worth celebrating. Quote Link to comment
+cerberus1 Posted May 26, 2016 Share Posted May 26, 2016 Glad I saw this. Wondered what the todo was about, thinking it unusual in celebration of World Gin Day. Now THAT would be worth celebrating. Emails from friends saying, "Don't forget to cache on the 11th, another souvi day!", without explaining why. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Glad I saw this. Wondered what the todo was about, thinking it unusual in celebration of World Gin Day. Now THAT would be worth celebrating. Emails from friends saying, "Don't forget to cache on the 11th, another souvi day!", without explaining why. Was World Gin Day on the 10th? Quote Link to comment
+Clarkbowman Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Well, on the linked page it reads: I don’t live in the US. Can I still earn the Get Outdoors Day Souvenir! Yes, you can! The Get Outdoors Day souvenir is part of a bigger initiative with the American Recreation Coalition and other US-based outdoor organizations to get more Americans outside during National Get Outdoors Month. Given the interest expressed by geocachers all over the world in participating in Get Outdoors Day, we’ve decided to make the souvenir available to anyone who finds a geocache or attends an event (anywhere in the world!) on June 11, 2016. So definitely not US only. It's now not US only. It was US only when it was first announced, hence the "started out as" part of the OP's post. apparently started out as a souvenir for only the USA. Unless it was changed with in a hour of it showing up on the blog it has always said it was for all Quote Link to comment
Pup Patrol Posted May 27, 2016 Author Share Posted May 27, 2016 Now I'm sorry I posted this. If y'all will read the comments on the blog post, you will find out that it definitely started out as a souvenir for USA cachers only. Then, yeah, duh, it got changed at some point. It's all tied in with some USA "recreational" promotion, all other parts of that promotion are USA only. Geez, try to post something nice in this forum. B. Quote Link to comment
Pup Patrol Posted May 27, 2016 Author Share Posted May 27, 2016 Cache On Wheels Geocaching • 14 days ago I understand you are doing this as part of an initiative in US, however, you have members worldwide and a lot who are premium members, who pay more than US members like us in UK. I really urge you to rethink this please Groundspeak. This is totally unfair and not in keeping with the Geocaching ethos of bringing people together. As others say, making this for those who cache in the US on that day only is not going to affect how many Americans get outdoors. And you did a souvenir for everyone for this last year. Is this the route you intend to start going down? Cache on Wheels, Dorset, UK --------------------------------------------------------- Sandra Grauschopf • 3 days ago Thanks for changing the souvenir to be available to everyone! ---------------------------------------------------------- Sandra Grauschopf • 14 days ago I hate the idea of country-specific events. Why? Geocaching brings people together across the world, why do you want to create division? Making this souvenir available only to the US won't get more Americans outdoors than making it available worldwide would. ------------------------------------------------- Sydney Sawyer • 15 days ago You're going to get A LOOOOTTTT of heat for this being only in the US... -------------------------------------------------- joy • 15 days ago Why does one have to be in the US to get this souvenir? We'll be abroad that week but we'll still be outdoors a lot... --------------------------------------------------- B. Quote Link to comment
+noncentric Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 It's now not US only. It was US only when it was first announced, hence the "started out as" part of the OP's post. Unless it was changed with in a hour of it showing up on the blog it has always said it was for all See Pup Patrol's post above. Reading through the comments section of the blog makes it apparent that the souvenir started out as being US-only. Quote Link to comment
+The A-Team Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 It's now not US only. It was US only when it was first announced, hence the "started out as" part of the OP's post. Unless it was changed with in a hour of it showing up on the blog it has always said it was for all See Pup Patrol's post above. Reading through the comments section of the blog makes it apparent that the souvenir started out as being US-only. Fortuitously, the Wayback Machine grabbed a copy of the blog post before it was updated. ... 1. Earn the Get Outdoors Day souvenir! To do so, find any geocache or attend any geocaching event located in the USA on Saturday, June 11, 2016. ... I don’t live in the US. Why can’t I earn the Get Outdoors Day souvenir? The Get Outdoors Day souvenir is part of an initiative with the American Recreation Coalition and other US-based outdoor organizations to get more Americans outside. This is our first step in testing one-off country or region specific souvenirs — something we hope to expand on in the future. Do you know of any geocaching traditions in your country that happen at a specific time each year? Please let us know by submitting this form. The very disappointing part is where they say they hope to have more "one-off country or region specific souvenirs". Hopefully they learned their lesson from this snafu and will scrap that plan, because that's just an all-around bad idea. Quote Link to comment
+noncentric Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 The very disappointing part is where they say they hope to have more "one-off country or region specific souvenirs". Hopefully they learned their lesson from this snafu and will scrap that plan, because that's just an all-around bad idea. Seems like maybe it will be a very short 'test' if this is the reaction from their "first step in testing one-off country or region specific souvenirs". I can see the logic behind the idea, but apparently the global community's negative reaction wasn't anticipated. It might've been better received if they had announced several "country or region specific" souvenirs in the same announcement, because then cachers in other countries/regions would've seen that they'd be getting an 'exclusive' souvenir as well and wouldn't have felt so left out? I don't know. Just loaded up my GPSr and heading out for a long weekend for a US-only holiday. Have fun in the forums this weekend. Quote Link to comment
+The A-Team Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Just loaded up my GPSr and heading out for a long weekend for a US-only holiday. That's okay, we had our own Canadian-only holiday last weekend. Quote Link to comment
+MartyBartfast Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Just loaded up my GPSr and heading out for a long weekend for a US-only holiday. Nope, you need to get out more. Quote Link to comment
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