Right off the bat I would like to personally thank the Motor City Cache Machine, DarrylW4 and Firefly03 for inviting me to participate in Cachercon 2010 Metro Detroit. This was an amazing geocaching teaching event that I had the pleasure of speaking at. It was held at a Holiday Inn in Troy, Michigan. This was an all day event which included presentations on GSAK, Earthcaches, Paperless Geocaching and so much more. I personally did a lecture on Geocaching in the Media.
The atmosphere of the entire event was very relaxed and the geocachers were free to wonder into any session that interested them, lounge in the spacious chat area or venture out into the frozen tundra of Michigan to find nearby geocaches. I witnessed many discussing stories of past finds or even trading pathtags which seems to be quite the collectors item lately. I myself was able to trade a few dozen with others.
The pace of Cachercon was enjoyable to say the very least. Between each set a GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Video was shown and seemed to be quite the talk amongst the viewers. It broke things up and the whole day flew by in one continuous whoosh.
The other really cool aspect was the use of two screens for everyone to watch through the entire event. Of particular interest was a screen saver that showed live Tweets on the screens. Any one that had the word Cachercon was fair game and displayed. It really was mesmerizing to observe.
The very first activity was a LIVE broadcast from the Geocaching Podcast crew. DarrylW4 and XpunkX gave a great performance as usual hitting many of the hot topics in the geocaching world and answering questions from the audience as well. It was a real treat being able to finally meet them after listening to their Geocaching Podcast for so long.
Below are some photos of the rest of the speakers as well:
Rattrak giving a very impressive talk about Earthcaches.
XpunkX giving a presentation about GSAK functionality.
Geoaddict discussed the pros and benefits to paperless geocaching.
South Lyon Trekkers showed how to make custom mappings for some of your Garmin GPS units.
Team Memila showed the possibilities of using Iphones while Geocaching.
Gsix5666 displayed several different types of geocaches then discussed the pros and cons of using different containers while geocaching.
The Conman gave an in depth presentation on how to play a different form of geocaching known as Wherigo.
Then it was time for me (HeadHardHat) to take the stage and talk about Geocaching in the Media. I had a great time with the audience and everybody seemed receptive to this sometimes touchy discussion.
At the end of the session I did a history making announcement that put the crowd into a frenzy. Yes believe it or not in September of 2010 yours truly will have his own geocaching based TV show!
More details to come in another post!!!
Finally two geocaching reviewers (DeRock and Tiki)came up and really had a good time explaining why and how geocaches get authorized and sometimes not. Plus helpful hints on what you need to do to speed up the process.
The day went by way too fast and after reading many of the reviews turned in. This mini-mega event was very much enjoyed and most everybody can't wait for it to come back again next year. Until then...
You can see all my photos here:
http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/
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Twitter me at @headhardhat
Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com/
3 comments:
Yes it was a great day. and it was awesome to meet you too. My son micah can not stop talking about you either! I will let you know when he makes your fire hydrant cache!
Thanks for the kind words. It was a very rewarding event and I really have to thank all the session hosts and volunteers for putting on such a great event. I built the Cachercon as the type of event I'd like to attend, but aside from my session I didn't have the chance to sit down in the session room for more than a few minutes of any other session. That's my number one goal for next year -- attend a few sessions myself. And of course you're certainly welcome back next year, even if only in the Geosnippits episode between sessions (which we had some great comments in the surveys and direct from attendees).
Had a great time at the event and really enjoyed your geocaching in the media presentation. I've found more blogs, Facebook & Twitter friends since Saturday as well as a bunch more places to order great geocaching stuff. Thanks!
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