August Events & Committee Updates

Posted on August 8, 2023 by

Not sure how we got to August already – maybe it was the influx of all the caches and events published in July that has made it wizz passed so fast! But do you think August is really going to slow down for us – with so many great events already published I don’t think it will. Let’s bring on another great month of caching!

Be sure to check out the list of events and see if you can attend a few!

COTY Awards 2022 – Voting is Now Open

It has been great to see the votes starting to come in for the COTY Awards 2022 – If you haven’t already, don’t forget to place your votes. During the voting process, the following criteria applies:

Only caches and logs shortlisted will be open for voting
For all cache categories, it is recommended that you physically find the cache you are voting for.
You can vote for your own cache or log
One vote per category per caching team is allowed.
There will only be one winner per category
If in the event a category results in a tie, the Geocaching Victoria committee will cast the final vote

Voting will close 30th September 2023, with a proposed event announcing the awards scheduled for November (details to follow)

Click here to vote NOW! Good luck to all the finalists.

Geocaching Lists

What type of cacher are you? Are you an organised geocacher that likes to keep track of challenges and projects you are working on by creating various lists or are you more a spontaneous cacher and collect as many as you can? Maybe you don’t know how to create a list?

No matter what type of geocacher you are, we thought we would share a few tips and tricks to inspire you.

Supporting Geocaching Victoria

We are often asked “How can we help” and we are blessed to have so many amazing people in our community that volunteer their time either on a committee, a sub-committee or to support a particular initiative or event.

We are excited to share there is another way you can support Geocaching Victoria. As you are aware, we are a not for profit incoporation that exists solely to create amazing experiences for our community, but we have no ability to create income except through the various fundraising activities, council sponsorship or merchandise sales we undertake.

But after much interest from our community, there is now another way you can support. We have set up a “Support us via Donation” option via our shop. Below are some ways that you can contribute:

$5 – the cost of a coffee to support with our wepage,
$10 – to support a Wiser than Owls cache placement
$20 – to assist in the purchasing of sausages for our next planned fundraiser.
$25 – if you would like to sponsor a cache event
$47 – to donate to the the value of a premium membership
$50 – to sponsor an COTY award / competition

All donations, no matter how small are gratefully received. Thank you.

Farewell Day Gowland

After a jam packed two years of Mega’s our beloved committee member Day Gowland has decided to step down and take a well earned break. We would like to take the opportunity to thank him for all his hard work and creative inspiration he has brought to our community. We wish him well – who knows he might even get some more time to go caching!

With Day’s departure, it does leave a vacancy on our committee.

Committee Vacancy

Are you passionate about geocaching? Do you have a flair for creativity and an eye for detail? Perhaps you have a strength in logistics and organising events or a gift in fundraising? Do you want to become part of the best geocaching team ever to deliver great experiences for our community?

We are looking for someone to join our team and are are willing to jump in and help with the following;

GVI Event organising
Facilitate fundraising activities
Support annual megas and their planning
Contribute to stories, website content and online collateral
Happy to join our monthly meetings and brainstorm together on creative activities for our community
Undertake support admin tasks as needed (we share these)
Be a team player and support the objectives of GVI
Be a representative of our wider Geocaching Community

If you are interested in applying for a committee role, please email Jo Cox at president@geocachingvictoria.com.au and provide an overview of what strengths you can bring to the team. Please feel free to share any past experiences that may support your application.

Mega Lead Vacancy

We are looking for someone with experience and skills in event organisation (large scale). This doesn’t necessarily have to be geocaching events, it can be in other large corporate, workplace, planning conferences or other volunteer events. Mega’s usually attract in excess of 400 geocachers across the country. Other key skills we are looking for is as follows:

Experience in leading a team or committee
Event planning, logistics or coordination experience
Budget and forecasting experience (not mandatory as support will be given)
Great communicator and stakeholder management (Sponsors and Councils play a bit part in Mega Planning)
A can do, fun attitude to ensure we create the best Mega ever for our community.
Willingness to see the Mega Event through (scheduled Nov 2024)

We certainly don’t want to scare you off, so if you are committed and passionate to giving it a go – please do reach out. It’s okay if you haven’t run a Mega before, you will have a Mega committee to support you but also the Geocaching Victoria Committte to also provide support and advice. We are all one big team.

If you are interested in applying for a Mega Lead role, please email Jo Cox at president@geocachingvictoria.com.au and provide an overview of what strengths you can bring to the team. Please feel free to share any past experiences that may support your application.

Jam Packed July

Posted on July 14, 2023 by

It might be middle of winter here in Victoria, but that certainly doesn’t keep geocachers away! July is sizing up to be one very busy month, with a large amount of events being hosted right across the state. Be sure to keep an eye on our web-page to see if there is an event scheduled near you!

COTY Awards 2022 – Voting is Now Open

The voting for the Cache of The Year Awards 2022 is now open. During the voting process, the following criteria applies:

Only caches and logs shortlisted will be open for voting
For all cache categories, it is recommended that you physically find the cache you are voting for.
You can vote for your own cache or log
One vote per category per caching team is allowed.
There will only be one winner per category
If in the event a category results in a tie, the Geocaching Victoria committee will cast the final vote

Voting will close 30th September 2023, with a proposed event announcing the awards scheduled for November (details to follow)

Click here to vote NOW! Good luck to all the finalists.

Magic Makers Made Magic

It was great to see so many inspirational Magic Maker Events hosted at various locations across the state. By all accounts the feedback on them all has been exciting – inspiring others to shake off their creativity and try their own hand at the craft of cache making.

One of those events were hosted by tri Mister Doctor, Washawa and iTEEM and as one of our roving reporters attended, some highlights were captured. We thought we would share the magic to those that may not have been able to attend. Thanks to our Magicians for creating such a memorable event. Check out the video here.

Cachemas in July

Of course we also have our Cachemas in July Bonanza, which will also be sure to delight. Over the 12 Days of Cachemas, new caches will be released by CO’s all over the state celebrating a different type or attribute each day in the style of a well known Cachemas carol.

At the end of the 12 days of Cachemas, join us for a Cachemas family celebration. GCA7WT4 (https://coord.info/GCA7WT4), is now published for you to log your will attends. Tickets are available to purchase via the link in the event and include a roast lunch with a variety of meats, salads, vegetables and scrumptious desserts (vegetarian option available).

21 Years Of Geocaching Events In Victoria!

Posted on June 25, 2023 by RoamingHowie

This weekend we celebrated the 21st Birthday of geocaching events in Victoria.

The first ever Victorian geocaching event, GC5C5D, was held on 23 June 2002 at O’Briens Crossing in the Lerderderg State Park. So what better location to celebrate the 21st birthday than back where it all began. Geocachers came from far and wide to celebrate the day whilst enjoying a bbq, Crack’n’LeeLee’s famous soup, and plenty of party snacks! A huge thank you to Leah and Craig (Crack’n’LeeLee) for initiating the celebrations and for all their hard work hosting.

Geocachers celebrating the 21st birthday of geocaching events in Victoria.

David from team maccamob, who was at the very first event, shared some insights on the inaugural activity. He noted there was a lot less infrastructure at GZ back in 2002, however the weather had not changed with it being just as cold. The difference was, they had a warm fire to cozy up to, something no longer permitted at O’Briens Crossing.

At the time of Victoria’s first event:

Maccamob had just reached their 100 cache find milestone (currently 47,000+).
Brain and some of our other active cachers hadn’t even been born!
The first iphone was still 5 years away from release.
We were up to Edition 30 of the Melways, with extra maps newly added for Queenscliff, Mickleham and Wyndham Vale.
Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” was the number 1 song for the year, which is exactly what many cachers did (and still do).

Since the first event, there have been almost 1,700 amazing events across the state, with plenty more still to come.

In fact looking ahead in July and August alone, Victoria already has 30 events and CITO’s on the calendar with 21 different CO’s contributing to the fun. Excitingly, four of those CO’s are hosting an event for the very first time. To find an event near you, check out the Upcoming Events page on our website.

Be sure to log your will attend on any of these events to join in the fun. If you’d like some help to host your first geocaching event, feel free to reach out to one of the Geocaching Victoria committee members or one of the existing event COs to help get you on your way.

We look forward to seeing you at the next event!

Geocachers attending the first ever geocaching event in Victoria.

Thursday’s Thoughts

Posted on May 25, 2023 by

Before the week comes to a close, we wanted to share a few updates with our amazing community. It was great to see so many of you attend our Award Nomination Event last Sunday, but we are mindful that many were not able to attend and wanted to share the details.

We received over 500 nominations from across the Victoria; from the Murray to the City and from the Little Desert to Gippsland Lakes and with so many worthy entries the shortlisting process took some time. But we were happy to announce that there are 78 caches and 17 logs that have been added to the finalised list.

Sometimes we get asked how we come up with our award categories, particularly as there can be some changes from year to year and the simple answer is that we like to find ways to celebrate all caches as best as we can and we are open to experimenting a little. Sometimes however, there are not the numbers for a standalone cache award category, such as EarthCaches, which only saw 11 published in the year 2022, which is a vast difference to the 737 new traditional caches in the same year and so in some cases it makes more sense to have an ‘other category’ and group a few together.

We do like to try new things too, last year we tried the “best photo” category but we learnt that that can be really hard to capture and nominate. With the explosion of AdLabs in our community in recent years, we decided this year to try a new category in our awards this year and it was great to see so many nominated.

To see a full list of our finalists by award category, please check out our website. Be sure too to save the geocaching.com list to your account so that you can start to go and find them all!

Voting will likely open end of June with a view of announcing winners at a future event later this year. We will share details once they are finalised.

Final Winners from Rutherglen

There were some final annoucements pending on award winners from our Rutherglen Mega and so we wanted to share those. Congratulations to the following winners of the Rutherglen Unobtaniums:

CITO attendee – McLookers
Maze Attendee – 6Hinemoa2
Car Rally – RoamingHowie & OzHockeyChick
Volunteer – Byker152

Congratulations to the winners of this limited edition coin – a great one to have in your collection.

Another Legend in our Game – Muzza

Murray aka “Muzza” to us has been part of Geocaching in Victoria for over 21 years and recently celebrated his 20,000 find this month – a massive achievement that many of us only dream of. We thought that we would take the opportunity to send a big congrat’s to Muzza, but also share an interview that day1976 did with Muzza some time ago. We hope you enjoy the recording (subtitles / closed captions are included.)

Cachemas in July

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Cachemas!!!

Cachemas in July is a 2 week caching bonanza in late July culminating in a Cachemas celebration at the Kensington Town Hall.

Over the 12 Days of Cachemas, new caches will be released by CO’s all over the state celebrating a different type or attribute each day in the style of a well known Cachemas carol.

So visit GCA7WT4 to log your will attend and secure your lunch tickets!

What do weeding, nominations and a sausage sizzle all have in common?

Posted on April 27, 2023 by RoamingHowie

Answer – They are all part of the Geocaching Victoria events being held on 21 May 2023 at Edwardes Lake Park in Reservoir.

GCA69WH – Edwardes Lake Park CITO – 11:30 – 12:30
GCA69WK – Cache of the Year Award Nominations & Volunteer Week BBQ – 1:00 – 2:30

Come and join the activities and log your will attend for either or both events. See below for more details:

Edwardes Lake Park – Lakeside weeding – CITO – GCA69WH – 11:30am

Come and help the Friends of Edwardes Lake at this CITO. Working to preserve, restore and care for the ecosystem of Edwardes Lake and surrounds, we will be joining their team to help weed and maintain an area of the park that is being restored. It is also the first CITO in the Darebin LGA for 5 years. You might even get a chance to say hello to Kevin and Mabel, the resident lake swans.

National Volunteer Week Sausage Sizzle – GCA69WK – 1:00pm

National Volunteer Week is a chance to celebrate and recognise the vital work of volunteers. Geocaching Victoria and all of its events and activities are only possible thanks to the many, many volunteers who donate their time and energy in support of the geocaching community.

Whether it be helping to run a Mega, working on the GPS Adventure Maze, contributing to a GeoTour, selling sausages at a Bunnings BBQ or helping out at many other activities, volunteers are the lifeblood of all that we do.

As part of Volunteer Week we will be hosting a free sausage sizzle and get together. Be sure to log your will attend and include the number of people in your team so that we can be sure to cater for you.

2022 Cache of the Year Award Nomination Announcements – GCA69WK – 1:30pm

There is less than a week left to nominate your favourite Victorian cache in the 2022 awards. We are looking forward to tallying the results and announcing all of the amazing nominees at this event.

If you are still yet to nominate, you can submit your favourite 2022 cache nomination HERE.

Finding some of the nominee caches will also help with the May HQ souvenir challenge!

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday 21 May at the CITO and Volunteer/Nomination events.