[GeoStL] Re: Saint charles county issues
- From: "TKLNHL" <sydstyr@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 09:23:35 -0500
First off, just because I've only been doing this goecache thing for 4 months
or so and am solidly stuck at 45 caches -- DOESN'T mean I don't have an opinion
LOL.
My first thought is -- what's wrong with a few rules? Everyone admits that this
sport is in it's infancy. OK. So, why NOT establish guidelines now and set few
protocols BEFORE 5000 people start placing caches, opening new websites and ALL
parks look like some public land at deer season.
Ok.. so ONE person had a chat with someone and wound up opening up the can of
worms. Well, it's open so hopefully it can be dealt with and a set of rules can
be put in place. It's going to happen. As a matter of fact *we* (meaning my
husband and I) almost did it to SLAGA at a family function.
Turns out an not-so-often seen cousin is the manger of one of the St. Louis
County Parks. His current park as a two part cache in it. He had been manager
at apark near our home that has no caches in it. I was asking him about cache
placement and he had NO CLUE what I was talking about. NONE. At ALL. OH CR^P.
He was fairly put-out that something "like this" was going on in "his park" and
he knew nothing about it. This is a man who has been in the Park system for at
least 20 years and here "we" knew something about "his" park that he did not
know. I can't say he was happy about this.
What I did was to contact a couple of people here OFF-LIST to clarify for my
own understanding what the St. Louis County Park regulations are and more
importantly -- how they work! I did give the cousin the geostl and geocaching
websites. We (my husband and I) were supposed to email him information about
how *we* thought cache placement in parks worked based on the geostl website so
that he could follow up on it. After some discussion at home and a couple of
off-list emails we let it drop as far as the cosuin is concerned. We felt that
this is the kind of person who might just raise a high enough stink that St.
Louis County Parks would show up on the radar as an "issue." And, as newcomers
we certainly did not want to be "the ones".
So. I HAVE a point: Eventually it's going to happen. SOmeone, somehow will put
geocaching out there and someone WILL notice and suddenly wonder, "Is it really
a good idea to ahve people wandering through the woods in our parks?" Heck, WE
have had that thought a couple of times ourselves wandering through the woods
of some parks. The thing is, as more people become invovled and are less into
the understanding of geocaching, it's quite possible that they will have a
false sense of security and will believe that EVERY placed cache IS sanctioned
by the area it's placed in. Why not be willing to fill out a piece of paper to
cover your OWN butt? That's how Iook at it. It can also be a sense (if false)
of security for the cache placer to know, for sure, that it is OK to do this.
Part of the cache placement log includes a bold red statement: In addition, if
you need to ask permission to place a cache in this area, I am trusting you
have already done so. What will happen the first time someone DOES ask
permission and, like we did, find out that the people supposedly in charge are
in the dark? What if that peson has the power to make things unfavorable?
I hate to see hard feelings, even between people I don't know. So now St.
Charles County Parks has, for whatever reason, become "an issue". Perhaps the
best thing now would be for everyone involved deal with it off-list, with
updates to list, until it's been resolved. I admire openess, but also think
that being too open can do more harm than good in a young organization such as
this. You simply cannot please everyone. I'm not promoting a coverup, this
isn't Arnold on a movie set, but at times it might be best to work behind the
scenes, do some editing an dthen come out with the final production.
Good luck to everyone in in seeing this through to a positive and beneficial
end.
Nancy
I'll go back to homeschooling my kid now ..
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