Upcoming Area Events

After last month of having events near constantly, we don’t have many coming up so far this month.   GC3YETX – A Mixer at Mermaid & Hornytoad’s November 9, 2012 @ 18:30 – San Angelo, Texas GC3RRY3 – Mixed Up In San Angelo November 10, 2012 @ 09:00 – San Angelo, Texas

Texas State Parks Geocache Challenge

The Texas State Parks have been doing a yearly Geocache Challenge for a few years now. Last year marked the first year they had participating parks in West Texas.This years Challenge started October 1st with the coordinates being released at 08:00 AM. Be sure to check out the Texas State Parks Geocaching page to learn more. It’s a great adventure, I’ve gotten 22 of the Challenge caches in the West Texas area so far this year.

Texas Challenge XI (Mega-Event)

April 5 – 7, 2013 @ Robert Point Park, Port Aransas, Tx

For Eleven years the Texas Geocaching Association has been putting on the annual Texas Challenge Event. Last year this event went Mega, so it is automatically a mega event this year as well!

The event page is up and ready for your “Will Attend” if your interested in competing for the West Texas Team contact SKnight579! Click Here to go to the cache page and click the banner below to learn more about TXGA and what is posted there on Challenge!

Registration is also now open, so make sure you get signed up on the registration site: http://www.txchallengeregistration.com/

To see hotel discounts, and more information on challenge this year, check out: http://www.texasgeocaching.com/texas-challenge/texas-challenge-2013

Logging “Will Attends”

Anyone who has hosted an event knows the importance of “Will Attend” logs, but those that have not hosted their own events may not.  When setting up any event it is very important to know how many people may be attending.  If your hosting on in your area you probably have a pretty good idea of who is coming and who won’t be, but there is always that surprise of additional people.

Will Attends are more important if the event involves food, the host needs to know how much to make / have there for people to eat.  It’s also important if the event will be at a specific location, say a pizza joint.  This past weekend I hosted an event in San Antonio at the Pizza Hut nearby where I stay down there.  A few days prior to the event there were only 3 or 4 Will Attends listed so I didn’t worry about calling the Pizza Hut and letting them know about the group coming in cause we would be two or three tables.  however on the day of the event more than 20 people showed up, the Pizza Hut didn’t have alot of trouble since they had a “back room” that we all filled up, though they did only have one waitress working the area which meant some people got a bit thirsty waiting on drinks and the like.  If more people had posted their “Will Attends” I would have warned the Pizza Hut ahead of time.  All worked out fine in the end and we had a good time.

Will Attends are also important at CITO events, especially the ones we have here in Midland.  I need to know how many vests to take out there, how many gloves, etc… But more important to the attendees, did you know that groundspeak LOVES supporting CITO events?  They will send me free stuff to give out at our CITO’s, but they won’t send anything unless we have at least 10 Will Attend logs about 2 weeks prior to the event itself.

Personally I log a “Will Attend” if I’m pretty sure I’ll make it, if there is a chance I’ll be there I log one, you can always delete it later and post a log “Oh sorry, Blank came up, can’t be there” it makes things much easier for the host knowing what there is to come.  If, however, you do not post a Will Attend, I can’t think of any cacher that would try to turn you away from any event.  If you didn’t think you could, or didn’t know it existed until the last minute you would be able to make it, don’t let not posting a “Will Attend” stop you from attending.

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