The Best Way To Engage New/Unknown Geocachers

This article was originally published on Cache Up NB. It has been mirrored here for archive purposes only.

As someone who has been geocaching for awhile, it’s pretty apparent that one of the most appealing aspects to the hobby is the social interaction with other geoachers. Now some of this comes out in the form of online interaction on websites such as this, as well as places like Facebook. But the biggest social part of geocaching are the events. Recently, I started to wonder about why we don’t see as many “new” cachers at events as I would like. Then I noticed something on the geocaching “app”.

It looks like by default, the app only shows “traditional” geocaches. This means that anyone using the app may not actually see the events on the map unless they change their settings, or use the online map. Further to that, links to things like Cache Up NB or the local Facebook groups get missed by many if they don’t see things on the actual geocache listings.

It got me to thinking about the best ways to reach out to those new geocachers to let them know about local events, and local organizations. What are the best ways to spread the word of these great places and activities to geocachers who may not even know they are there? We see a ton of names come across the recent logs widget all the time that we don’t recognize. If you look their name up, you find they are relatively new and just starting. So what’s the best option?

What came to mind from me was using the recent logs to compile a list of new cachers, and send them out a friendly email welcoming them to the local geocaching community, and pointing them at some local events and other places they might want to use to connect with other geocachers. I thought it would be a neat way to extend a friendly hand in friendship to some of these folks. However, receiving an unsolicited email from people/someone you don’t know and may never have heard of could be taken as spam. Would you take it as so? Do you think it’s something CUNB could try?

Do you have any other suggestions on how we might engage and inform these new cachers about events and places like CUNB? Let’s get a discussion going and see what we can come up with.