The Old North State Council of the Boy Scouts of America wants to encourage Boy Scouts and Leaders (Scouters) to enjoy the outdoors. What better way to do that than through one of the most widespread, high-tech, outdoor games on the planet: Geocaching!
The Old North State Council, in consultation with the 38th ranked geocacher in the world, will establish and maintain geocaches for scouts and scouters at the council’s two premier summer camps: Cherokee Scout Reservation and Woodfield Scout Preservation. In addition to merit badges and rank advancements, Cubs, Webelos, Scouts and Scouters will be able to spend a few minutes, or several hours, searching out caches placed around the camps. Boys and their leaders will have the opportunity earn one of three specially-designed Old North State Council GeoScouter patches.
Details: Geocaching experts from the Greensboro, NC area, in direction from Tom Kidd (Geocaching name: Night-Hawk, ranked 38th in the world with more than 12,000 finds) will design proper geocache containers, research locations, and place caches throughout the camps in anticipation of the 2010 camping season.
The Old North State Council will secure, through donations from a major GPS provider, enough GPS units for each camp so multiple teams of GeoScouters can be looking at one time. During summer camp, Cubs, Webelos, Scouts and Scouters will check out GPS units, and receive the official Old North State Council GeoScouting ScoreCard for their adventure. The ScoreCard will have coordinates, difficulty level, container size, hints, and a spot for a Discovery Sticker for each of the 12 caches at the camp.
Upon finding each cache, the scout will retrieve a sticker from the cache and place it on the scorecard. After a prescribed number of finds the participants can turn in the ScoreCard for a Old North State Council GeoScouting patch. For example, three finds will earn the scout the Bronze Patch, six will earn the scout the Silver Patch, and nine will earn the Gold Patch.
Participants must check-in the GPS units each day but there is no limit to the number of times Cubs, Webelos, Scouts and Scouters can check-out the units during their week-long stay.
The GeoScouting geocaches, while placed by experienced geocachers, will not be available for the general community. These caches will not be registered with Geocaching.com and only registered summercamp participants will be allowed to have the GeoScouting ScoreCard which contains the necessary information for the find. However, organizers fully expect the GeoScouting experience to prompt participants to join the geocaching community after their exciting introduction at summercamp.
In addition to the summer camp GeoScouting activity, a member of the Old North State Council Board, (Eagle Scout and Geocacher) will place and maintain a geocache near the Council Headquarters in Greensboro. This cache, open to the entire Geocacher community will serve as an ongoing recruiting tool for Boy Scouts and The Old North State Council. The cache will contain scout information and scout prizes for each finder.
