GoSA Grapevine November 2022

This month in the Grapevine: Plans, Merchandise, Warthog Tales and more….

From the Desk of the Chairman

Following the AGM and a committee meeting, hi…it’s me again! I’m delighted to be serving on GoSA’s committee again and keen to make some more tangible contributions to the community. Historically, the task was to promote geocaching in South Africa and as a committee, we struggled with how to measure that. Therefore, this year, I’ve set eight tangible goals for what I’d like to see accomplished in the following 12 months:

An event in every province day

We’re considering targeting Blue Switch Day for this but awaiting the new souvenir lists from HQ for 2023

Have at least 20 CITO events nationally

South Africa has historically been quiet when it comes to the cleaning up aspect of the game and I’d like to encourage more of these

Attend an event in every province

Personal one for me since I haven’t really met cachers in a couple of areas of the country and would like to do so

Have 250 new accounts registered in SA

A primary problem with gauging our success is the issue of people who start, find ten caches, and then drop off. Gauging the number of new accounts is merely a basis point to being measuring our success in terms of marketing.

Get on GCPC

Admittedly an ego stroke for me and wanting to discuss South African geocaching on my favourite geocaching podcast.

Create Slush Fund to front Money for big events

We have some money in the bank and I’m keen to make it go from gathering interest, to developing interest of another kind; that of throwing big events. In this instance, we’d like to set up a fund that cachers may use the money from the fund to set up a big event which they can pay back using the proceeds from the event…or rather sales at the event.

Re-establish Cache of the Month

We used to have a cache of the month feature of the newsletter but that waned. It may have been that the interest from the community dwindled because of the manner in which it was conducted. We’re going to develop a more automated system that is less cumbersome and determine if that works.

Develop Project plan for Personalized GoSA Merch

Lucia will have more on this but in the back of my mind, I’ve always wanted a pair of GoSA sneakers. In all seriousness though, with limited funds and limited numbers of cachers, we’ll need to see where the most interest lies because we’d need to focus on one or two items rather than put out a product line.

Well, there you have it. Those are my ambitions for the year and if you’re keen to help in any way, that would be marvellous. I may even come through to your CITO. Yes, that is certainly a hint!
Thanks for your confidence in our team and I look forward to another great year of making memories, going on adventures and convincing our friends that finding Tupperware in the forest is really exciting!

GoSA 2021/2022 Chairman's Report

2022 saw a return to more normality allowing us to pilot new initiatives. I’m grateful to the committee for their support this year and while I don’t want to isolate anybody in particular, I’ll deeply indebted for their generous donation of time and energy.

While it would have been ideal to push for a mega in 2022, given the 10-year anniversary since the first mega in South Africa, the failed attempts over the last two years gave us an indication that we should rather walk before we should start running again. In that regard, we’re grateful to the KZN community for arranging a wonderful weekend out. While we celebrate that, we should also celebrate our reviewers, two of whom are celebrating 10 years of reviewing this year. Congrats to Grant and Bruce.

We also initiated deeper looks into statistics which many caching teams reaching significant milestones. We’ve admittedly overlooked some and have been reminded of those by members of our community. On the one hand, of course it’s embarrassing when the inevitable milestone isn’t immediately noticed. On the other, it’s delightful to see how the plugged in the community is when we get notified.

Addressing this, I’m grateful for the efforts made by the committee to initiate the mentorship program and the monthly statistics. It’s been helpful in a number of respects but most importantly helped keep ties within the community. I’m also grateful to the KZN community for investing in this year’s big event, In the Shadow of the Dragon. While the KZN caching community are renowned for their inland events, it’s also been exciting to see structured monthly event series being established in the Western Cape and Free State to accompany those monthly events already happening in other parts of the country.

All told, I’ve been delighted with the progress made in 2022 on the strength of the foundations laid by 2021. I wish the community and committee of 2023 everything of the best, inclusive of many yellow smiley faces.

AGM 2022 - Committee

On Saturday 15^th October 2022 we held our AGM at Ponte Tower in JHB as well as online via Google Meet. We had a total of 21 caching team represented – 11 in person and 10 online plus we received apologies from 2. A big thank you to all those that made the effort to attend!

During the AGM we voted in a new committee for the 2022/2023 year. Your committee members are as follows:

Richard Chemaly	Uncle Chem	Free State	Chairman
Lucia Rodrigues	LuciaMPR	Gauteng	Treasurer
Ceinwen Oosthuizen	M²C²D	Kwa-Zulu Natal	Secretary
Bruce Pantland	BruceTP	Gauteng	Member
François Jarvel	Gattomotapi	Gauteng	Member
Andrie Krokos	KrokosZA	Gauteng	Member

The new committee have also co-opted the following member:

Jonker Fourie

FireflyAfrica

Eastern Cape

Member (Co-Opted)

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions, concerns, or would like to make any suggestions. We look forward to serving the caching community well over the next 12 months!

SA Geocaching Stats
By Adventure_T and Danie Viljoen

Because sometimes, for some people, it is about the numbers… Here is a summary of South African Geocaching activity for September:

979 Cachers found a total of 4,453 caches during September (33.5% fewer than in August).
30 Cachers placed 49 new caches during September.
The number of Cachers who found at least 1 SA cache in the previous 12 months is 8,090.
The number of Cachers who placed at least 1 SA cache in the previous 12 months is 195.
The total number of active South African caches at the end of September is 16,334.

Top Dogs

Note: All the above statistics include all South African caches on the geocaching.com database, which doesn’t include Adventure Labs.

A Warthog's Tale

By Orosman

The Background, IngetjieZA and I had opted for the luxury of comfort over the long weekend caching spree and thus decided to tow the house along with us. This meant that for the trip I had raised the air pressure from my normal 2 Bar (29Psi) to 2.4 Bar (34Psi).

Knowing the main reserve roads would all be hard pack sand I didn’t think much of the fact that my tyres were hard and since we would be going slowly between each cache, I wasn’t too worried about this and wanted to deflate my tyres the next morning when we went to the “4x4 only” tracks.

This would be my downfall and first lesson learnt for the day.

Somewhere between GC7K8G3 (B22 - 04 Halfweg) and GC7K8GE (B22 - 05 Where has all the power gone?) we came across some mud on the trail and knowing I had ample ground clearance I stopped and switched to 4 Low a few meters ahead of the mud, enough to build up some speed and keep the momentum going.

There was a distinctive “This is a bad idea” chirp from the peanut gallery and having not yet been let down by the Warthog yet I quickly brushed this off and started off towards what I thought would be an easy drive through….
Now let’s be honest, all Warthogs love mud, mine is no different and as soon as the cold wet mud touched the belly of this hog it decided to stay a little longer and enjoy itself. It was at this point I also realised that we were properly stuck. After a quick assessment we decided to try the digging and packing trick, but this didn’t help as the slush just rushed back into the holes and even with rocks the Warthog just kept wallowing, a quick call to the home base and we had a response from the reserve that, “We know where they are we’ll send the tractor”.

A short while later we saw a little white dot and thought our saviours where here, lo and behold it was just the home base coming to jest at our unfortune and offer a lift to anyone not wanting to hang around back to camp.
The geocachers decided to trek the 100 meters to the cache GC7K8GE and sign it as our “Ezemvelo Tribe” group name while we waited for our real saviours to arrive on their trusty (or rusty) blue steed.

Once the tractor arrived, I realised how dire my situation was, they came with a chain and one d-Shackle. To anyone who has done offroad recovery this is like bringing a chainsaw to a kid’s party, a serious disaster waiting to happen.

Without many options I let them hook up to me and try to pull me out, due to the ground being so soft the tractor started to dig in and we had to think of something else, before we did anything I had to try to make things a little safer and I grabbed the 4ton tow strap and soft shackles, which I carry with me all the time, out. This proved to be a fruitless exercise as one pull popped the stitching on the tow strap, which again left us with the chain and nowhere to go.

The rangers decided to head back to their workshop and fetch a longer cable… yes cable, to allow them to get far enough out of the mud to give some traction and speed to the attempt to pull the Warthog out of its mud bath.

We asked for everyone not needed to get far enough away from everything going on to only have two people involved in whatever was to come. Thankfully, our fears were not realized and this time everything worked to our favour. The Warthog came free and leaped forward, like its namesake being frightened by a predator.

A quick cheer and check of the situation we watched the rangers disappear back into the bush with the cable and chain in tow, we felt the events of the day were a little too much and it was time to head back to camp on the hard pack trails to watch the Rugby and have a beer before planning for the next day.

Lessons Learnt:

Let your tyres down before going to play
Momentum carries you forward, keep it going
Ensure the appropriate gear for recovery is always on you
When in doubt back out, there were many other roads to take to get to the caches
Disregard the above and go on an adventure

KrokosZA also did a YouTube short of the weekend fun.

It’s QUIZ TIME!
By Panthera03

Congratulations to the winners of the October 2022 Quiz from Capri Cache Store! If you don't enter, you don't have a chance. If you have entered and have not been lucky as yet, keep trying! You can enter every month, as long as you only submit one entry for the month AND you are subscribed to the GoSA monthly Newsletter.
Each month, 3 lucky winners will be drawn from the hat. Hint: Read the questions carefully ;-).

19 entrants were entered into the October Quiz, with 7 new quizzers - whoop whoop! One entry was found in my "Promotions" folder when I was searching for something else. Although they entered in September, I have included them into this draw, because it was not their fault that I missed their entry for September. Please chat to your geo friends and encourage them to enter this Quiz. It costs nothing to enter and it is fun too!

Please note: The November Quiz will be the 2nd last Quiz for the year. The final Quiz will be in the December issue of the GoSA Newsletter. The closing date for last Quiz will be 24th December instead of the usual 20th of the month. Winners for the last quiz will be published in the January 2023 issue of the GoSA Newsletter.

The winners for October, are as follows:

First Draw:         waydom – Wayne & Dominque Smythe
Second Draw:    iPajreo – Norman & Deanna Bowman
Third Draw:        Urban Campers – Bert Peake

Capri Cache Store will be in touch with each of you to get your prize delivered. Look out for next month's Quiz and try your luck!

Answers to October’s Quiz
1.What is the minimum distance in meters allowed between geocaches? 161m
2.What was Groundspeak originally called, back in late 2000? Grounded Inc
3.True or False - There is a Webcam cache in Antarctica. True
4.In which year was the word "geocache" added to the Scrabble dictionary? 2014
5.What other name is the Geocaching Headquarters known as? The Lily Pad

QUIZ TIME – NOVEMBER 2022
1. How many countries in the world have geocaches (reported in 2021)?
2. What is the name of the Largest Geocaching GeoArt according to the Guinness World Records, hidden in 2020?
3. Which team is the Top Hider of all time in South Africa?
4. Where was the physical meeting place of the 2022 GoSA AGM?
5. In May 2013, the World's Most Found/Logged Geocache was what? (GC Code please).

We look forward to receiving your entries for the November Quiz! Please follow all the steps below to participate and please encourage any of your geocaching friends who are not on the GoSA Grapevine mailing list to sign up so that they too can enter the competition.

Please use the following link to subscribe: https://www.geocachingsa.com/index.php/newsletter/subscribe You will need to leave both boxes (General Geocachers of SA and Mega Event News) ticked, in order for the subscription to be valid. Please also check your spam folder for the verification email. Good Luck!

New Souvenir: Signals Labyrinth #4 - Hedge Maze

A quick summary of how this souvenir series works:

A total of twelve souvenirs over 6 labyrinths are up for grabs from 4 April 2022 – 3 April 2023.
Earn leader board points over a two-month period to qualify for two new souvenirs per two-month period.
Escape all 6 labyrinths, earn all twelve souvenirs and you will also earn a meta souvenir.
Earn 50 points for the first souvenir and 500 points for the second souvenir in each labyrinth.
There will be a mystery item in each labyrinth that if found will earn you bonus points.

In Labyrinth 4 we need to help Signal escape the Hedge Maze. Keep a lookout for the friendly, grazing goats as you navigate through the maze as they are our mystery item and will award you extra points. We have from 3 October to 4 December to make our way toward the light and out of the maze.

GoSA Merchandise

GoSA is looking to provide a selection of merchandise through its store for our geocaching enthusiasts. Of course, such a venture needs to be based on our community's interest. What sort of items would you be interested in? Branded T-Shirts, Lanyards, Mugs, Emergency Bracelets? Do click on this link and complete the online form so we can gauge the appetite for such items.

Current Souvenirs

Souvenirs are virtual pieces of art that you can earn, discover, and display on your profile page. They are associated with a particular location, task, find or event and may also be bound by time.

The souvenirs that are currently up for grabs are listed and pictured below

Community Celebration – 2 May 2020 to 31 December 2022
GC8NEAT, Locationless Cache – 6 February to 31 December 2022 (special cache type)
Perserverance Rover on Mars TB – no end date announced
The Hider – 1 March 2022 to 31 December 2022
GC9FAVE, Locationless Cache – 17 August 2022 to 31 December 2023 (special cache type)
Signal’s Labyrinth #4: Hedge Maze – 3 October 2022 to 4 December 2022
CITO Season 2 – 1 September to 30 November 2022

They are your local go-to people, so keep their details for future reference

Eastern Cape	FireflyAfrica (Jonker Fourie)	082 889 2459
Free State	Uncle Chem (Richard Chemaly)	072 431 7131
Gauteng	Leon St (Leon Stoop)	071 330 8435
KwaZulu-Natal	M²C²D (Mark & Ceinwen Oosthuizen)	M 083 324 6176 C 083 324 2167
Limpopo	Boats007 (Willem Botha)	082 463 3700
Mpumalanga	Bouts777 (Gerhard Botha)	082 876 3572
North-West	Team Tip Top (Hansie & Zaneta Van Huyssteen)	H 082 753 8082 Z 083 258 5926
Western & Northern Cape	SKATTIE@1 (Elize Louw)	074 138 6360

Found an awesome cache? Have some tips to share? Been on a cool geocaching adventure lately? Exciting events happening in your geocaching community? Taken a great photo? We would love to hear all about it!

Please email our newsletter editor at

We are always on the lookout for photos from events or cool caches, as well as any fun, interesting, unusual or exciting geocaching stories to share with the geocaching community. If you want to share yours, send it to us by emailing it to our newsletter writers.