[hzoi]

I know new souvenirs aren't at the top of some folks' wish lists, but for those who are interested, it looks like 2012 is bringing a new crop.

On this week's "Groundspeak Weekly Newsletter," there were 330-odd photos linked/attached, and in addition to existing souvenirs, plus a bunch of photos from events, I saw what looks like souvenir art for the following places:

Kenya? (not labeled)
Japan
New Zealand
Australia (8 in all, one for each state and territory)
South Africa
Wales
Scotland
England
Switzerland
Sweden
Spain
Norway
Netherlands
Luxemburg
Latvia
Iceland
Hungary
France
Finland
Denmark
Bulgaria
Austria

When these will be active, I won't hazard to guess, but they've been drawn, so I would assume they're in the hopper for release at some point.

[knowschad]

Oh, yeah... souvenirs! I had forgotten all about those silly little things!

[Thrak]

I still don't understand why they made one for GW VIII but not for any of the previous GW events. I wouldn't mind showing one for GW VI since my local group co-hosted the event.

[The A-Team]

 hzoi, on 05 January 2012 - 04:39 AM, said:

On this week's "Groundspeak Weekly Newsletter," there were 330-odd photos linked/attached, and in addition to existing souvenirs, plus a bunch of photos from events, I saw what looks like souvenir art for the following places:

I've never seen any photos "linked/attached" to the newsletter, and I just looked at the most recent one again to confirm. Where are you seeing these? The only sections I have in the newsletter are:
Upcoming Mega-Events
In The News
This Week
Upcoming Events
Recent Geocaches

[hzoi]

I'd never seen it until this newsletter, either; there were two scrolling bars at the very bottom of the email, one with 336 photo thumbnails, one with a number of video thumbnails.

I say "attached," but I'm generalizing. I suspect they were coded into the HTML, not an actual attachment.

It doesn't show up when I check my email from work on IE v.8, it did this morning when I checked from home on Firefox v.whatver. Or maybe we weren't supposed to see...

[WRASTRO]

Nothing that I can see in my version of the newsletter.

[knowschad]

 hzoi, on 05 January 2012 - 12:52 PM, said:

I'd never seen it until this newsletter, either; there were two scrolling bars at the very bottom of the email, one with 336 photo thumbnails, one with a number of video thumbnails.

I say "attached," but I'm generalizing. I suspect they were coded into the HTML, not an actual attachment.

It doesn't show up when I check my email from work on IE v.8, it did this morning when I checked from home on Firefox v.whatver. Or maybe we weren't supposed to see...

Nothing like that in mine. I have it open here right next to me. I guess you're special.

[The A-Team]

 knowschad, on 05 January 2012 - 01:01 PM, said:

 hzoi, on 05 January 2012 - 12:52 PM, said:

I'd never seen it until this newsletter, either; there were two scrolling bars at the very bottom of the email, one with 336 photo thumbnails, one with a number of video thumbnails.

I say "attached," but I'm generalizing. I suspect they were coded into the HTML, not an actual attachment.

It doesn't show up when I check my email from work on IE v.8, it did this morning when I checked from home on Firefox v.whatver. Or maybe we weren't supposed to see...

Nothing like that in mine. I have it open here right next to me. I guess you're special.

Nothing like that here, either. I even tried viewing the newsletter on my Gmail account through Firefox, but still nothing. Where can I sign up for this super-fancy version of the newsletter?
Can you post a screenshot so we can see what you're seeing?

[hzoi]

I'll take a look when I get home, get some screen shots (if it's still there), and post.

[hzoi]

Well, they're still there. Apparently off of a Flickr feed. Linking them up:

 hzoi, on 05 January 2012 - 04:39 AM, said:

Kenya? (not labeled)
Japan
New Zealand
Australia (8 in all, one for each state and territory):
-Western Australia
-Victoria
-Capital (sic?) Terr.
-Tasmania
-South Australia
-Queensland
-Northern Territory
-New South Wales
South Africa
Wales
Scotland
England
Switzerland
Sweden
Spain
Norway
Netherlands
Luxemburg
Latvia
Iceland
Hungary
France
Finland
Denmark
Bulgaria
Austria

[The A-Team]

 hzoi, on 06 January 2012 - 05:04 AM, said:

Well, they're still there. Apparently off of a Flickr feed. Linking them up:

 hzoi, on 05 January 2012 - 04:39 AM, said:

Kenya? (not labeled)
Japan
New Zealand
Australia (8 in all, one for each state and territory):
-Western Australia
-Victoria
-Capital (sic?) Terr.
-Tasmania
-South Australia
-Queensland
-Northern Territory
-New South Wales
South Africa
Wales
Scotland
England
Switzerland
Sweden
Spain
Norway
Netherlands
Luxemburg
Latvia
Iceland
Hungary
France
Finland
Denmark
Bulgaria
Austria

Ohhhh, those!
I'm still not seeing them in the newsletter, but at least we now know where they're coming from. Those souvenir images were posted to the Flickr feed back in September, so they aren't new. A lot of people got excited when these showed up, but AFAIK Groundspeak still has the souvenir program on hold.
BTW, as a side note, the spelling of "capital" is correct for the Australian territory, as the "capital" of the country is there. The word "capitol" refers to a building, and seems to be used most often in the US (though it is used in a few other places).

[NYPaddleCacher]

 hzoi, on 06 January 2012 - 05:04 AM, said:

Well, they're still there. Apparently off of a Flickr feed. Linking them up:

 hzoi, on 05 January 2012 - 04:39 AM, said:

Kenya? (not labeled)

...

Those have been up for quite awhile without any real explanation about when they'll be used. I haven't seen anything from Groundspeak which indicates that they intend releasing souvenirs for any of that artwork soon.

The one that you've indicated as Kenya is actually Ethiopia. The artwork for that one as well as the one for South Africa is quite nice. Here is the complete list of souvenir artwork they've uploaded (it's listed other a "Geocaching.com" flickr account (not to be confused with the Geocaching flickr group).

http://www.flickr.co...geocaching_com/

And this URL will show just the souvenir photos:

http://www.flickr.co...tags/souvenirs/

This post has been edited by NYPaddleCacher: 06 January 2012 - 12:20 PM

[hzoi]

Well, there you have it.

Since we're qualified for all of the new ones except Ethiopia, Australia, New Aealand, and Latvia, it was neat seeing 'em. Maybe we'll actually get 'em on our profile at some point. But there's only so many programmers at the lily pad, and there are plenty of other features I'd like to see implemented first, so I'm fine with waiting.

[pattes]

I'm ready to create for the switzerland some souvenirs

I would like to add a souvenir to this cache : GC385XX How to make it ? I've added the picture...

[NYPaddleCacher]

 hzoi, on 06 January 2012 - 12:55 PM, said:

Well, there you have it.

Since we're qualified for all of the new ones except Ethiopia, Australia, New Aealand, and Latvia, it was neat seeing 'em. Maybe we'll actually get 'em on our profile at some point. But there's only so many programmers at the lily pad, and there are plenty of other features I'd like to see implemented first, so I'm fine with waiting.

There really wouldn't actually be any new programming involved. The code has already been written for awarding souvenirs when a Found it log or event attended log is posted for an existing souvenir region as well as the code for the process that retroactively awards souvenirs. It would be mostly be a matter of configuration chances so that the regions for the souvenirs are recognized as "released" souvenirs and launching the process which retroactively awards them.

I also qualify for about a dozen or so souvenirs from the list of images on that flickr page and have been in both Kenya and Ethiopia (but wasn't able to look for caches while I was there).

[NYPaddleCacher]

 pattes, on 06 January 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

I'm ready to create for the switzerland some souvenirs

I would like to add a souvenir to this cache : GC385XX How to make it ? I've added the picture...

That's not how souvenirs work (or, "worked" actually, Groundspeak is not currently releasing new souvenirs). Only Groundspeak can create souvenirs and the have (had?) a small group of graphic designers that create the artwork. Someone from GS suggested at one point that they were considering creating a process that would all users to create souvenir artwork but that's probably pretty low on their list of priorities now.

There are essentially three types of souvenirs. There are some that were created for attending a short list of events (all of them are "mega" events). There is a list of "Special" souvenirs for things like visiting Groundspeak HQ, the original stash plaque (the only two *current* souvenirs associated with visiting a specific cache...there is also one for the now-archived APE cache). All of the "Special" souvenirs except the 10/10/10 event and the International Geocaching Day souvenirs are only available by visiting locations in the Pacific Northwest. The majority of souvenirs available are based on "regions" such as U.S. States, Canadian provinces, and a handful of countries.

In order for an "official" region souvenir to appear in the Souvenirs tab of your profile (or in a section in the official geocaching apps for the iPhone, Android, and Windows mobile versions) a few things have to happen. First, two images are created for each souvenir. One is a "thumbnail" image which links to the full artwork image (the site I posted the links for above shows the full artwork. Then the souvenir needs to be "released". The souvenir region (i.e. the bounding coordinates for a state, country, etc) have to be configured into the system, essentially enabling the souvenir to be awarded. Next, someone at Groundspeak needs to launch a process which iterates through the entire user database, determines if a user has previously posted a found it or attended event log on a cache within the boundary of the region for the new souvenir (in the past they've enabled 6-7 new regions at a time), and awards the souvenir to that user if there is a match. There's already a process that runs when someone posts a found it or attended event log that checks if the cache is within an existing souvenir region, and if so, awards the appropriate souvenir.

Basically, at this point you can't create your own official souvenir for a country or a specific cache. You could, however, create your own artwork, print it on some card stock and and include it in your own cache as sort of an unofficial sovuenir or signature item. For example, when I was approaching my 1000th find a local cache placed a gold painted ammo can (a somewhat common practice) in recognition of my achievement. Included in it were dozens of gold painted wood paddles (sort of like a tongue depressor shaped like a canoe paddle).

[t4e]

why does Netherlands have every imaginable flower but not one single tulip?

[Tequila]

 t4e, on 06 January 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

why does Netherlands have every imaginable flower but not one single tulip?

Time for you to get new glasses.

I count four vases of tulips. AND the stand has a tulip pattern. LOL



.

[Tequila]

 Tequila, on 07 January 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

 t4e, on 06 January 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

why does Netherlands have every imaginable flower but not one single tulip?

Time for you to get new glasses.

I count four vases of tulips. AND the stand has a tulip pattern. LOL



.

Actually five vases of tulips.



.

[NYPaddleCacher]

 Tequila, on 07 January 2012 - 08:24 AM, said:

 Tequila, on 07 January 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

 t4e, on 06 January 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

why does Netherlands have every imaginable flower but not one single tulip?

Time for you to get new glasses.

I count four vases of tulips. AND the stand has a tulip pattern. LOL
.

Actually five vases of tulips.
.

And the rest of the flowerss looked like daffodils and Hyacinth. However, that can't be a picture in the Netherlands. Where are the bicycles?

[releasethedogs]

In addition, because I did not see the photo of it on Flickr, here is the souvenir for South Korea.
This is the original art I won at a "mega" event.
Well not mega as GS defines it but as "Mega" as Korea will ever have.

This post has been edited by releasethedogs: 07 January 2012 - 03:55 PM

[t4e]

 Tequila, on 07 January 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

 t4e, on 06 January 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

why does Netherlands have every imaginable flower but not one single tulip?

Time for you to get new glasses.

I count four vases of tulips. AND the stand has a tulip pattern. LOL



.

wanna pitch in?

they look more like rose buds

 Tequila, on 07 January 2012 - 08:24 AM, said:

 Tequila, on 07 January 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

 t4e, on 06 January 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

why does Netherlands have every imaginable flower but not one single tulip?

Time for you to get new glasses.

I count four vases of tulips. AND the stand has a tulip pattern. LOL



.

Actually five vases of tulips.



.

you do know you can edit your own posts right?

This post has been edited by t4e: 07 January 2012 - 04:03 PM