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View Poll Results: Which would you choose for the newsletter?

Voters
12. You may not vote on this poll
  • As Is

    9 75.00%
  • Sound the Stories: emphasis on features

    2 16.67%
  • Elevate the Events: increase number of events listed

    0 0%
  • Mark the Media: emphsis on media coverage

    0 0%
  • Heavy on Hot Topics: increase number of hot topics listed

    1 8.33%
  • Other: please indicate by posting a reply or sending PM

    0 0%
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Thread: Newsletter Contents

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Bangor, ME
    Posts
    6,343

    Default

    The issue with length is due to making it easy to read and to entice those that don't visit often to come and participate.

    Stef, I would assume some of those who are happy with it the way it is didn't comment or vote.
    DNFTT! DNFTT! DNFTT!

    "The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realize it doesn't say anything it's to late to stop reading it..."

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    ME
    Posts
    3,529

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by brdad View Post
    The issue with length is due to making it easy to read and to entice those that don't visit often to come and participate.

    Stef, I would assume some of those who are happy with it the way it is didn't comment or vote.
    Yeah, ok - but I would presume most would read the first part = matter of set up...and the rest would be their choice. Regardless, of length - some won't read it to the end anyway.

    I know with GC.com and I bet the same for you - you pick and choose what your read. I'm ok with however this one goes because I keep up on what matters to me anyway.

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    So. China Maine
    Posts
    1,597

    Default Newsletter

    Like most organizations, this one is about the folks that choose to play this game/sport. Having "played" for less then a year, I find this site seems to be a forum for very few of the actual members. That's fine with me as there are serious cachers who seem less involved in this site as many, and there a lot of folks who contribute often to this site who seem less interested in the actual game itself. So why is that?

    My thought is that is that unless you've been involved for a couple of years, then you're considered a "new comer" regardless of your enthusiasm or you're willingness to be involved. Personally, I don't really feel a part of this group. I have met a few at events I have attended, but milestones seem only important to the "inner" group. I have learned over the years that recognition of volunteers and players is the most important part of keeping an organization alive and viable. In this group, to me, and maybe only me, unless you "know" the principals involved on this site, you could log a thousand caches in a day and nobody would say diddly.

    The point is if the organiation want to keep members, they need to feel involved and not looking much like a tourist visiting Maine once a year.
    After 10 months, that's how Dianne and I feel, like tourists, out of staters, or people that don't belong.

    We really enjoy geocaching and probably have a lot of energy we could contribute so my suggestion is that the newletter reaches out to us "newbies" and maybe makes brief mention to accomplishments of those who have come aboard in a big way. It's amazing how far an occasional "atta-boy" will go.

    I'd spend a fair amount of the newletter about the activities of members,caching and non-caching. That would be of far more interest to Dianne and myself then the usual.
    Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Solon, Maine
    Posts
    5,965

    Question

    Quote Originally Posted by dubord207 View Post
    Like most organizations, this one is about the folks that choose to play this game/sport. Having "played" for less then a year, I find this site seems to be a forum for very few of the actual members. That's fine with me as there are serious cachers who seem less involved in this site as many, and there a lot of folks who contribute often to this site who seem less interested in the actual game itself. So why is that?

    My thought is that is that unless you've been involved for a couple of years, then you're considered a "new comer" regardless of your enthusiasm or you're willingness to be involved. Personally, I don't really feel a part of this group. I have met a few at events I have attended, but milestones seem only important to the "inner" group. I have learned over the years that recognition of volunteers and players is the most important part of keeping an organization alive and viable. In this group, to me, and maybe only me, unless you "know" the principals involved on this site, you could log a thousand caches in a day and nobody would say diddly.

    The point is if the organiation want to keep members, they need to feel involved and not looking much like a tourist visiting Maine once a year.
    After 10 months, that's how Dianne and I feel, like tourists, out of staters, or people that don't belong.

    We really enjoy geocaching and probably have a lot of energy we could contribute so my suggestion is that the newletter reaches out to us "newbies" and maybe makes brief mention to accomplishments of those who have come aboard in a big way. It's amazing how far an occasional "atta-boy" will go.

    I'd spend a fair amount of the newletter about the activities of members,caching and non-caching. That would be of far more interest to Dianne and myself then the usual.
    Sorry, Dan. A lot of this message didn't make any sense to me. From what I've seen, you've been welcomed at events, discussed favorably in this website's forums - including much space about your recent wedding - and received kudos within the last 2 weeks about YOUR 1,000 cache milestone.

    What is your complaint?

    You state: "That's fine with me as there are serious cachers who seem less involved in this site as many, and there a lot of folks who contribute often to this site who seem less interested in the actual game itself." Who are you talking about? Do you propose a quota? No messages posted unless you have logged XXX number of caches in the last month? Yeah. so far RULOST2? and I have ONLY logged 114 caches. We logged 441 caches in 2007, and 530 in 2006. Does this mean we are not as dedicated to geocaching as we were in 2006? I attended an event in New Jersey today. Wore my Geocaching Maine shirt. Passed out probably 30 of our signature Maine Geocacher Permits, which prominently mention geocachingmaine.org. Am I "less interested" in the "actual game"? (I'm not sure about right now, but for most of the time, I've posted more messages to this site than anyone...)

    "serious cachers who seem less involved in this site as many" What does this mean? Yes - not every "serious" Maine geocacher likes to speak up in online forums. That's normal. I can think of quite a few Maine geocachers who don't post messages often, but who are as much a part of the "sport" - if not more - than anyone in Maine. How about Beach Comber? Noreasta? Ye Old Prospector? I'll bet you've never met any of them. They don't say much, but to the people who have been geocaching in Maine for more than "less than a year", they're icons of the "sport" in Maine.

    To go back to your basic comment: maybe makes brief mention to accomplishments of those who have come aboard in a big way." I think you've been "mentioned" in this site "in a big way" already. What more do you want???

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Bangor, ME
    Posts
    6,343

    Default Milestones

    When it comes to recognizing milestones, usually those are posted by a friend who was with the person who was with the person when he made the milestone. Other times a cacher may post in his cache log that he made a milestone and someone notices. Other than that, it's hard to tell. So it is easy to be missed. In short, it's hard to know who is at one number unless you watch ever cacher's log.

    Milestones mean less and less to me as the years have passed. I have to look up my own profile to see how many caches I have, where I used to keep track of them in my head. I don't care much how many caches I have, I just want to get out and enjoy the world. I don't care much how many caches you have, I just care that you have a good time caching - and if I have more posts on this site than I do cache finds, that is why. I talk to people at events, here, or in chat, and almost never have a clue if they have more or less than I do, nor would I judge you by that number. As much as I love playing with the stats for the caches we have here, that does not extend into the stats of the cachers.

    dubord207, I thought you had melded into the community quite well and have offered your input and thoughts on several occasions which improves the site as a whole.

    If you can think of a way to keep track of milestones of all Maine cachers, speak up and maybe we can make that happen.

    Regarding the comment "I'd spend a fair amount of the newletter about the activities of members,caching and non-caching. That would be of far more interest to Dianne and myself then the usual.", What are you talking about there, member bios or caching articles or something else? Someone mentioned bios a while back, I cannot remember who, however...
    DNFTT! DNFTT! DNFTT!

    "The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realize it doesn't say anything it's to late to stop reading it..."

  6. #16
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    Bangor, Maine
    Posts
    757

    Red face oh please keep the conversation going

    WhereRWe?, my acquaintence with you leads me to believe that you are a really open guy, wanting to welcome and get to know the whole story, so I hope that's how Dubord recognizes your post: as wanting to learn more about him.

    With that said, Dubord, I do hope the newsletter is inclusive and brings folks to this "inner circle". When you say, "I'd spend a fair amount of the newletter about the activities of members,caching and non-caching. That would be of far more interest to Dianne and myself then the usual", can you give me more: how might I add more about the activities of members? I have focused the feature stories on caching-themed issues. I do appologize for the ubiquitous use of the word "newbie" or "newo-geo". Honestly, it was meant to be inclusive and welcoming, on an understanding level, not as a way to segregate! But I like the thought, I hope others will pipe in, should the features include stories that are non-cache related? What would you like to read about?

    I know for me, I became more interested in geocaching than initially when I started to discover that other geocachers had other interests that were similar to mine, such as hiking, kayaking, environmental issues, etc. Whether it's off-road sports, water adventures, hiking, technology, scrapbooking or other aspects of geocaching, geocachers are always getting together for other interests. Are these the types of activities you mean and would like to read about?
    "Given a chance, a child will bring the confusion of the world to the woods, wash it in the creek, turn it over to see what lives on the unseen side of that confusion." --Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods

  7. #17
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    So. China Maine
    Posts
    1,597

    Default Newsletter

    Let me try this again. Having attended a few events I have met some of you but really don't know that much about the background of the folks who play this game. We all share a love of this game, for sure, but my guess is that there are players among us who have very interesting life stories that to me that could be of interest to the group as a whole. This is a volunteer organization, although I'm still not sure exactly how it's organized, but to keep members, the members need to be involved at some level. There was some discussion a while back about money and that thread just petered out. I suggested some member "incentives" to raise funds but the topic just "went away." To me that topic was an important issue that perhaps a committee could review and then make recommendations

    My point is that there probably are some resources among the membership that are being untapped. Maybe an occassional bio is the answer, not to recognize Geo-milestones, but to add some informational background to the cachers statistics. I don't have the time to attend all the events so some of you are just faces to me when in reality you're real people with real careers and lifestyles. The bio's in our individual listings offer little so my impressions are based largely on the logs, some which are very helpful, some which are funny, and a lot that are more or less personal chit chat between cachers.

    So my suggestion is to look at our players and spend a little time each month with bio info. By way of example, gob-ler, our caching king here in Maine is not only a techo wizard but a minister, hunter and who knows what else, but certainly an interesting character to whom I think both new and existing members would enjoy learning more about.

    Lastly, aside from the money issue I have seen little in the way of requests for help. Personally, I would like my recognition in anything I do to come from contributing "to the cause" not from any particular number. Maybe the legal structure of this organization could be reviewed, improved, whatever. I'm not the only attorney playing so if asked I could do this for the organization and THEN I would feel "involved."

    Hope this clarifies where I'm coming from.
    Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.

  8. #18
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Bangor, ME
    Posts
    6,343

    Default

    I for one have always tried to get the members involved in this site. The organizational structure is loose so that the members can contribute as they want.
    As with many forums, there will be a high number who just read and never contribute to any conversations.

    I would love to see more people contribute to the site, both in the forms of posting to these threads, and posting articles to the site. Also, if they thought up a project to help generate a few bucks for the site that is great too.

    A perfect example is the coin. I for one have little interest in the coin itself, but I think it's a great form of promotion for our site. And I know we have members who love the coins. And yet, do a search to see who had to start a thread asking if we wanted a coin this year - you'll find it was me. And when the time came to find someone to ask for ideas, get people motivated, and handle a schedule to see it through, where are all the coin lovers? All it would take is just one interested cacher next time to work out a time frame and to organize the design and manufacture of a promotional product. The board and other forum members are always there to help work out any details if need be.

    I agree, dubord. There are very diverse backgrounds and much talent in the membership here. If we could convince them to step up and write tutorials, caching stories, or other useful information or fun stuff, it would make the site that much better. But how do we convince the membership to contribute, or if nothing else, join in?
    DNFTT! DNFTT! DNFTT!

    "The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realize it doesn't say anything it's to late to stop reading it..."

  9. #19
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Unity, Maine
    Posts
    3,874

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by brdad View Post
    . . . But how do we convince the membership to contribute, or if nothing else, join in?
    We are the Geocaching Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

    http://www.geocachingmaine.org/galle...a/507/Borg.jpg
    "Courage is not the absence of fear, but the realization that there is something more important than fear."

    "Death is only one of many ways to die."

  10. #20
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    So. China Maine
    Posts
    1,597

    Default Being involved

    As far as money, it seemed from the prior discussions that there is very little agreement. Before asking for money, I think the members would like to know that is needed, how much was spent the prior year, all the sort of things an organization does when it puts a budget together. I know that there are folks like Rick that put in a huge amount of time keeping this up and running. Are there things he needs? What does it cost to run this site at its present capacity? If money is not an issue then say so and we can move on to other more fun topics but I sensed some undertones about the money questions from the prior discussions. Somebody asked if the organization was a 501 (c) (3)? Unlikely, but again with lawyers and accountants playing this game, we can volunteer our skills in these areas to provide direction.

    As far as topics, I would like the veterans to kick it up a notch and lay out some tutorials that new cachers can wrap their arms around. Like GSAK 101. When I finally got the help I needed to get this going (translated: when Dianne figured it out) my caching production increased immensely. While Clyde has an on line tutorial, I have found comments from Bruce, Dick, Jason, brdad and others to be far more helpful.

    And to take us back to full circle, I still feel the members on this site do just an "ok" job of recognizing the accomplishments of other players. A couple of keystrokes from more of us and a person with whatever listed milestone will feel more like a part of this fine group and more likely to be an active participant. I hope this is taken in a positive light and not the ramblings of a gin-crazed lawyer!
    Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.

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