08 August 2020, 16:30 - 19:00
It's the People - A Community Celebration Event
You are all invited to a weekend of geocaching down in the Hills and Dales of Hillsdale County.
Pavilion #1
Owens Memorial Park, Baw Beese Lake
Hillsdale, Mich
Join us as we gather around to enjoy the fellowship of other cachers for a meal and some fun activities as well. We will be at the lakeside pavilion at Owen's Memorial Park.
- 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Closest to Pin and other Field Games
- 5:15 PM - Poker Run Entries Due
- 5:30 PM - Potluck
- Main Dish & Table Service Provided
- Please Bring a Passing Dish
- 6:30 PM - Group Photo & Prizes Handed Out
Weekend Summary
Friday, August 7th
- 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Kayak Paddle Launch on the St Joseph River (GC Code: TBD)
- Evening: Social Gathering - Location: TBD (GC Code: TBD)
Saturday, August 8th
- 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM - Morning Kick-off and Coffee Gathering (GC Code: TBD)
- 10:00 AM - 04:30 PM - Caching & Poker Run (approx 45 miles)
- Poker Run Location Sheet will be available at Morning Event and at the Evening Event Pavilion shortly after.
- 04:30 PM - 07:00 PM - It's the People Potluck and Gathering [GC8HMNX]
Sunday, August 9th
- Mid-Late Morning CITO - Location: TBD
20 Years! - A Brief History of Geocaching
Development of the Global Positioning System, GPS, was developed by the US Department of Defense starting in 1973. The first satellites launched in 1978 and a full constellation was operational by 1993. This satellite navigation system was intended for military use and therefore the signals were scrambled, limiting accuracy for civilian use to about 100 meters. On May 1, 2000, President Clinton announced that this scrambling, known as Selective Availability, would be turned off. Civilians were then able to enjoy accuracy on the order of 10 meters. The latest generation of satellites and receivers can be accurate up to 1 foot.
On May 3, 2000, Dave Ulmer proposed a way to celebrate the demise of Selective Availability. He hid a bucket of trinkets in the woods outside Portland, Oregon and announced its location in a posting made to a USENET newsgroup. The location of that first "stash" is today marked by a plaque, Original Stash Tribute Plaque. This announcement is remarkable for laying out the essence of the hobby that is still in place today. It's all there. The container. The trinkets. The log book. The rule of take something, leave something, sign the logbook. Dave Ulmer invented geocaching in one fell swoop in that newsgroup posting.
Within a day, the original stash had been found. Within days, more stashes had been hidden in California, Kansas, and Illinois. Within a month, a couple of stashes had been hidden here in Michigan and as far away as Australia. The hobby was fast on its way to being a worldwide phenomenon.
- May 8: Mike Teague announced a web site for collecting the locations of caches.
- May 11: Mingo, the oldest continuously active cache is hidden in Kansas.
- May 15: James Coburn set up a mailing list on eGroups for discussion of geocaching.
- May 30: a new name was coined for the hobby. Michigan's own, Matt Stum, suggested "geocaching" to avoid the negative connotations of the word "stash".
- September 2: Jeremy Irish emailed the gpsstash mailing list that he had registered the domain name geocaching.com and had setup his own Web site. He copied the caches from Mike Teague's database into his own.
- September 6: Mike Teague announced that Jeremy Irish was taking over cache listings
Community Celebration Events - 2020
This Event is part of a limited release of Community Celebration Events to celebrate 20 years of geocaching. Geocachers hosted events between May 2, 2020 and December 31, 2020. Learn more about Community Celebration Events on the Geocaching Blog.