At 92 people, the 4th annual was our largest ever. We're planning on 120-150 for next year. As a result, we need to start planning for it now. This thread isn't for you to say if you're going (I expect you are), but for you to make suggestions on how we can improve things as this grows into what some are calling the "must-do" event in the Rockies.
The 5th annual event is proposed for Cheyenne Mountain State Park from July 3rd through 6th, 2008.
We've been able to handle things by ourselves and with a few volunteers in the past, but the event is getting larger than just a few of us can handle by ourselves. Therefore, the volunteer "stuff" will need to be better organized so we know that everything is covered ahead of time.
For 2008, July 4th is on Friday. This means most people will get out of work early on Thursday and not need to be back until Monday. Since it is a holiday weekend, the minimum stay in most campgrounds is for 3 nights and you must be present the first night of your reservation. I like having the last day as just cleanup and heading home, so we'll use Thursday evening, all day Friday and all day Saturday for the event. For those that are arriving Friday, they will likely need to reserve their site for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, although they won't get a refund from Reserve America if they leave early (on Sunday).
Thursday evening I would like to have a "volunteers dinner" at my campsite. This way we can all meet each other and go over any last minute details (like making sure we really do have everything covered we said we would). The night cache should be in place for both Thursday and Friday nights. This will help with the logistics of having so many people looking for it by splitting them up in to two nights instead of just one. The night cache will likely follow an existing trail in the park so that the foot traffic does not create a social trail.
We need some activites for Friday. I'm hoping most people will arrive after work on Thursday, and having activites on Friday will give them an incentive to do so. Right now I don't have any ideas for what these activites will be, so I'm open to suggestions. Friday evening is "party night" around the campfire (I think we're allowed to have alcohol at the park, but will need to confirm). This year I'll post something about that on the event page so people that don't want to camp too close to all that noise can choose a site further from event HQ.
Everyone should be at the event on Saturday, so we'll leave the Saturday schedule the same as it was for this year. We will start with a pancake breakfast (advertised start time is 8am rather than 7:30 to give the cooks a little more time to prepare). I will be buying an outfitters stove with 2 griddles so we can make up to 18 pancakes at once rather than the 6-8 we could do on our camp stove. The camp stove will still be available, so that gives us the capacity for roughly 25 pancakes at a time. If we have 120-150 people, it will take 10-12 rotations for everyone to get two pancakes, so we will still need more capacity. If you have a camp stove with a large griddle we can use, that would be great. We will also need capacity for bacon and sausage, so the more cooks and stoves we have the better.
The adults hike will likely be the Talon trail. There are a couple of caches there now and I would expect there to be more by the event. I'll still place the customary cache for the group to find and have it published after the event. After the hike everyone can take a break for lunch and meet back at 1pm for the afternoon's activites.
I'd like the fox hunt and trivia caches to return, but I'd like to get a better schedule going for the fox hunt. This year we tried just having a signup sheet, but I think last year's scheduled 1/2 hour times worked out better. I'm open to ideas on getting this to work out, I just don't want N0WAE to have to stand around camp wondering where the next group is. Let's make a schedule and "encourage" people to stick to it. We may have two groups looking for the fox at the same time next year - I built my own antenna and should have a radio and attenuator ready to go.
Speaking of activities, we should encourage use of the park's existing trail system as much as possible. It is ok to place a cache off of a trail, but you should use the trails to get as close to the cache as possible before venturing off trail. I'd like to see things like the fox hunt and trivia/puzzle cache use the trail system to their advantage rather than having people try to take the shortest route from point to point. I'm sure the park management will agree.
Saturday evening will be the potluck dinner. We will have a signup sheet in place this year so we don't get a bunch of people all bringing the same entree and no one bringing a side dish. After dinner will be the awards ceremony, this year planned for 7:30pm, so we have an hour to get everyone through the food line instead of just a half hour (it took 45 minutes this year, which included time for your host to eat). For the awards, I would like to get an idea of what awards there will be (You don't have to post them publicly, you can send me an email).
One of our ideas for the 5th annual event, since 5 is a more-significant number than any other to date, is to have a geocoin minted for the event. I'm not sure if this will be a personal geocoin (with team GPSaxophone on one side and Sax Man's Campout on the other) or a co-sponsored coin (with the campout on one side and the Cheyenne Mountain State parks logo on the other). I will bring this up with the park manager when I meet with him so see if he is interested. What I'd like to do is to make enough for everyone at the campground to get one (if there is interest, of course). We may also do t-shirts, but so I don't make up extra shirts like I did for the 3rd annual, I will make enough for preorders only.
Another idea for prizes is to have El Diablo make a 5th annual commemorative hiking staff. This would be a prize for someone going on the adults hike (I'll do the drawing again like I did this year). These go for about $120 so it would be worth quite a bit more than the camelbak we gave away this year. If we can get Garmin or Magellan to donate a GPS, that would be even better. The event is about having fun, not about prizes, but I think some people have more fun when they win things.
I know I have more stuff on my list but I have to get back to work. Feel free to comment on these suggestions or add your own.
Sax
Sax Man's Campout (5th Annual)