27 Jul 2012

Facebook vs Forums

Piratemania

It was a flying visit for us this year to Piratemania as we had some work booked in for the weekend. We awoke to glorious sunshine which made a change from all the bad weather we had been having. At least we knew the campers would have a better time.



We arrived on site to be greeted by a sea of tents, vans and flags. Most of our time spent there this time was with catching up with old friends. It was great to see The Imp, who we hadn't seen for far too long, plus a nice long chat with Mollyjak who was coping admirably with the registration. Tagged up and put on the red team, it was time to go for a wander.

The Red Team Wrist Band


Walking around the field we spotted a load of flying TB's. The event just gets bigger every year. We finished by having a long chat with Kathy in the UK Geocachers shop and passing on some more collie TB's which she kindly sells for us.

Unfortunately we weren't able to attend the Geolympix event down in Oxford the following day as we had three bookings on the day for work. From all reports though it was another great, well organised event.

Sunday night gave us time to finally book the campsite for the Mega up in Cumbria. We arrive the evening before the main event but there are plenty of side events going on in the days following to keep us occupied. The boys might be coming to join us as well for a few days so we are going to take the boats up as well and get on to some of the lakes.




Whilst we are up there it is International Geocaching Day 2012 so we will hopefully find a local event to go to then, if not we will be sure to grab a cache or two so that we get this years souvenir.

This Years Souvenir



Facebook

Facebook has certainly changed communication in the last few years, and none more so that the caching community. Whilst there are still some busy forums out there, I can only speak of those that I am a member of, their Facebook equivalents are busier than ever. Some forums seem to be dying a death, with very few people posting on them, whilst Facebook membership continues an upward spiral. One Facebook group that I am a member of has just hit 400 members whilst our own GeM is heading swiftly to 200 members after only 9 months of running. It should certainly have reached that number by the time our first birthday event is held in October.

 Access is so much easier, with more people having the Facebook app on their phones so that posts can be answered immediately, it has certainly made things a lot more open for people to ask questions and get replies when they are out in the field. The groups are a lot more relaxed and friendly as well.

Unless we do a lot of caching in the next couple of weeks to tell you about the next blog won't be until the middle of next month when we get home from Cumbria.

Then there will be a report on the happenings up there and some info on forthcoming events.

In the meantime, keep an eye open for the next edition of the UK Cache Mag, which should be published in the next couple of weeks. I know that Adam has been working hard on getting it all ready to get to you. Talking of Facebook, the mag has a page https://www.facebook.com/ukcachemag


Also, if you haven't listened yet, have a listen to the very entertaining UK Podcache show which is always worth spending a bit of time listening to.
http://thepodcacheshow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/podcache-show-episode-ten.html

Until next time, happy caching.

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