MnGCA

JJnTJ · Geocacher Joined: 23 Aug 2010 Posts: 218

My wife and I decided to hide our first cache in a park near our home in Rogers. Before doing it, I decided to contact the Rogers Parks department.

Turns out they're still a little gunshy since the bomb scare incident three years ago. I have been in contact with the Recreation and Facilities manager, who has said that

Pear Head · Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 12:40 pm Post subject:

I cannot encourage you strongly enough to pass your contact's information to the MnGCA board. The board has a lot of experience on working with park districts and can turn a poor or even decent policy into a win win for both sides.
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Hmm...

Pear Head · Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 12:50 pm Post subject:

Also, FWIW, the Ramsey policy is horrible on multiple levels, mostly that it's a registration policy and has a HALF MILE limit between caches. It's about as out of date as they come.
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Hmm...

JJnTJ · Geocacher Joined: 23 Aug 2010 Posts: 218

Thanks, Pear Head. I forwarded the email chain to board@mngca.org.

I'm grateful to have skilled advocates. If there's anything I can do to help out, please let me know.

JJnTJ · Geocacher Joined: 23 Aug 2010 Posts: 218

The Park board has sent me some draft proposals, and they seem much better. It looks like they're allowing a .1 mile radius, and none of the other restrictions seem too onerous.

There's a meeting of the park board on November 16 at 5:15pm at the Rogers Activity Center (near the high school). I'm going to try to make that if I can get free from work in time.

Pear Head · Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 12:04 pm Post subject:

Can you post the draft here?
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Hmm...

JJnTJ · Geocacher Joined: 23 Aug 2010 Posts: 218

Here's the draft policy (I also forwarded copies to the MnGCA board):

Pear Head · Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 1:46 pm Post subject:

Here's my take, short and sweet.

#1 says specific parks but the policy doesn't highlight which parks those are (other than to exclude some with #11). IMHO #1 is redundant and could be removed - the policy says the same things without it.

I still don't understand why parks want to go through a application/permit system and increase their workload...

#3 is hard to do on small and micros, nor am I sure of its value - if you stumble across a cache you're likely to know which one it is simply by looking up its coordinates. If they want to be able to identify it as a geocache then just require the word geocache (like the state forests do). I'd start though by wondering why the requirement is there in the first place.

The policy overall looks decent - I'm never fond of registration policies so I'm curious what they are looking for by requiring registration - often those needs can be met without requiring registration.

I'm also curious what a magnetic identification dot is...
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Hmm...

bflentje · Geocacher Joined: 29 May 2006 Posts: 3649

Rats, I was going to bury a new geocache in Rogers and now I can't.

Mrs. Mizzou · MnGCA President Joined: 31 Oct 2007 Posts: 500

I'm available to attend the meeting on Tuesday, but am unable to get the actual Agenda off their website. Let me know if you need me.

EPMinnesota · Past MnGCA Board Joined: 13 Apr 2006 Posts: 1897

When we were drafting the Eden Prairie Parks policy they had been going through a lot of renovation in the parks. One of the concerns was that if someone had a cache placed and they were going to work in that area, they could contact the cache owner so they could remove it until the work was completed. I have no problem with not having a cache destroyed due to construction! The permit process leaves much to be desired although our Park guy has gotten much better lately. We had permits approved for the fall event caches in record time!

JJnTJ · Geocacher Joined: 23 Aug 2010 Posts: 218

I didn't understand the magnetic ID dot thing either; maybe they read an article about the Garmin Chirps. Confused

The labeling and registration are probably so that the bomb squad incident doesn't happen again. The Lloyd family's cache was registered with the city but the police never checked with the Parks department before blowing it up. It'll be difficult to put a label on the blinky I was indending to place, but it's hard to imagine people getting all excited about it.

There is nothing that says registration must occur before the cache can be placed, which gives me hope it won't be a hindrance.

Mrs. Mizzou, I would be delighted to have anyone attend that can provide any sort of advocacy. My communication skills aren't great, so more experienced and eloquent voices can only help.

Pear Head · Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 9:29 am Post subject:

Nitro_R/T · Geocacher Joined: 17 Aug 2008 Posts: 22 Location: Rogers

What ever came of the meeting? Do I need to go and get a permit to keep my one cache active? If so, where do you get the permits?

JJnTJ · Geocacher Joined: 23 Aug 2010 Posts: 218

Nothing is decided yet.

MrsMizzou did a fine presentation in front of the board, and someone from the MnGCA had already contacted them (thank you!). The board seemed receptive and grateful for the extra information, and had a lot of questions. They weren't very invested in the registration idea to begin with, and MrsMizzou helped discourage them further.

The board did not give a date for when they'll make their decision. They mentioned wanting to talk it over with the Rogers PD.

My communication with them has been very good; they return emails pretty quickly and tend to get back to me when they say they'll get back to me. If I don't hear anything in the next couple of weeks, I'll probably poke them.