GW XIII - In Maryland

[Snurt]

GeoWoodstock XIII - Maryland, Washington County Agricultural Eduction Center (nr. Hagerstown) - May 23, 2015

[robert]

This is great news! A lot of hard work went into the planning of this - and it's only just begun! Congrats to the MGS GW committee who put a lot of effort into making this happen.

(also - changed to an Announcement topic)

[lpyankeefan]

[cooley1103]

On behalf of Steve (corfmania) and myself, thanks to everyone who helped us get to this point.

Thanks to the work of a great group MGSers, we submitted an amazing bid packet in 2011-2012. We found out at GW X (Sellersburg, IN) that we had been selected. Many of this committee did everything in their power to honor the tradition of GW and not reveal it until the Closing Ceremony today. Many times we lied to you just to keep this special, myself included, so please understand it is nothing against you guys, but more about maintaining the tradition.

The next question is, what can you do to help?
First things first, please be patient. We have a year til we host and there will be opportunities where many of you participate in this process.

Next, we will be publishing some info in the near future of where we stand and where we need help. There may be some areas where you specialties we could use.

So please be patient as we work towards hosting the United States largest event.

[OhMelli]

WHOOO HOOOO! How VERY exciting!!!
This is just... AWESOME!

[Corfmania]

You can follow GWXIII on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/GeoWoodstockXIII

Go give it a like!
To follow up on what Brian said, we're in transition from a bid committee to event host committee, so much more to come. In other news, I have 2 gigantic wooden ammo cans in the back of my truck

[cooley1103]

A big thanks goes to Katherine Tracey (Mrs. Bocco) for the design for GW XIII.

She was so patient with us as we requested changes along the way.

[Snurt]

Extending THANKS to Katherine as well. Excellent offering.

[Calvertcachers]

We are all SO excited that the MGS won the bid for GW XIII
This has been a dream of many MGS members for years. I am thrilled that our day has come, and I know WE will shine.

The beautiful design by Mrs. Bocco certainly captures the spirit of Maryland! Thank you for a job well done

A big THANKS to Brian, Steve, and Dwight who worked feverously in preparing our bid packet and to all of the GW team members for all of your hard work to date. We all know that we are going to have many hours of hard work ahead of us. But as Brian and Steve mentioned, this will be an MGS effort and we will need the help and support of ALL our members to make GW XIII the best ever! So, stay tuned.

[ZombieHNTR]

Awesome! Super excited.

[derektiffany]

Congrats, and well done to those that put together the bid. And a hearty thanks to those who undoubtedly have already put, and will be putting all the work and effort into making this a great event. Looking forward to it. A short hop across the Potomac from NoVA for my first GeoWoodstock. Cool!

[Corfmania]

Initial negotiated hotel rates in Hagerstown can be found HERE.

[cooley1103]

Here is an interesting stat for y'all:

How does OUR GW compare to Missouri's GW, numbers wise?

GW XII (Missouri) - As of 6/24/13
372 Will Attend Logs
236 of them posted Attended logs

GW XIII (Maryland) - As of 6/23/14
527 Will Attend logs

That is a jump 155 Will Attend logs from last year and it will keep growing as the year progresses

See last year's stats

[nandi108]

I will say I am excited about this, and plan on attending!! Thank you for those who got GW to come to MD!!!

[cooley1103]

At the request of the Washington County Ag Expo (Dave Brooks and James Sterling), they are not approving any new cache hides on the Ag Expo grounds until after GeoWoodstock.

Also, when planning hides for next year, please keep the safety and comfort of guests in mind. Caches placed along local highways near the Ag Expo will be highly traveled during the event and we keep our guests safe.

Washington County has a plethora of challenging and exciting caches for our guests to enjoy. Lets let them focus on caches like the Washington County Geotrail that has many caches within a 10 mile radius that should give our guests a great view of the area.

[cooley1103]

Update on how we stack up against GW XII
As of 8/23/14
457 Will Attend Logs
286 of those will attends logged the event

GW XIII
640 Will Attend logs as of 8/24/14

So if you do the math, we have about 114 additional attendees than GW XII, as of today.

[Corfmania]

We're very excited to announce the availability of our "Give-Back" Pathtag back design! Please help support us by choosing this tag back when you order your next Pathtag at http://www.pathtags.com

The design was inspired by "Little Heiskell", a weathervane in the shape of a Hessian soldier. He was designed for Hagerstown's first City Hall in 1769 by a German tinsmith named Heiskell. During the Civil War, a sharpshooter used Little Heiskell as a target and shot him through the heart. Undaunted, Little Heiskell remained atop City Hall until 1935 when he was removed to the Hager House Museum in City Park. A replica can be seen above the current City Hall.

blacknickel_150.png (27.15 KiB) Viewed 16958 times

[Snurt]

Sweet!

[W4OTN]

I am in the OpenStreetMap community and have already started looking at the data in and around GW XIII. Unfortunately most of the existing data is from a rough import of TIGER data from years ago. I'm going to try to enlist the help of other OSM community members to try to improve the maps so that are much more usable during the event.

If there are any specific areas that need to be covered please let me know. I think the Ag center has been fixed, now.

--Eric W4OTN

[Corfmania]

I did a complete overhaul of the AG center grounds back in May, and did a quickly update of some roads right near there. It took about a month to propagate to the groundspeak tile servers. Any and all updates appreciated!