Getting Permission.

1.

Do your research, often areas that you can walk in or gain access to are managed for the land owners by another agency.

2.

Check the list on the GAGB web site of areas and organisations who have granted permission, you may not be the first to ask!

3.

Do a search on the geocaching.com web site from the centre of the area you want to place the cache in, there may be some approved or even unapproved caches already in the area. You need to know about these as the first port of call when they receive your letter is usually the geocaching.com web site and they may ask about these other caches!

4.

When you have found out who manages / looks after the area (they will contact the owners if they need to) try to establish a name, you are looking for the people or person who actively manages the area. There are rules and guidelines for most public places and woodland etc. with regards to felling storm damaged trees over paths (widow makers), removing fly tipped rubbish etc. and these people will be the most interested. They are out there in the area actively looking after it and are the people who will be eventually asked to approve your cache. If you can get the this person to agree rather than an office based person

5.

OK you’ve got the name you’ve got the address what now? Write to them use something like the letter below

Dear ?

I am seeking permission to place a geocache within area _________. I have attached a document which describes in more depth the subject of geocaching and its potential benefits to an organisation such as yours.

The obvious gain is from Cache in Trash out as the impact of this can readily be seen. This is something I try to do whenever we go caching. Other more intangible benefits include regular reports on the areas the caches have been placed.

These reports are automatically emailed whenever someone visits a site that is being watched.

The cache owner also has an obligation to maintain their cache and has a vested interest in making sure the area remains a good caching spot.

Rules and regulations have been set up to control caching in the UK the guidelines for which are in the attached document, one of these being to seek permission from the land owner before placing a cache.

The area I have in mind as an initial trial is ________________ along the road name and location, if this trial could be conducted and the results monitored I would then like to set up an agreed procedure for all your reserves with regards to setting up geocache's. This would probably involve contacting a defined person and mutually agreeing on site the position for the geocache.

I hope you find this of interest and can see the obvious benefits of allowing an “officially approved” geocache on your land (as the Forestry Commission have) and instigating control and approved procedures for the placing of future geocache’s.

Regards

As you can see this refers to an attached booklet. You can download this from here . I get these comb binded so they can be handed around at any meetings. I also enclose some of the tri-fold brochure so everyone can read and understand about geocaching.

Typical questions you will get back will be

“Does everyone CITO?”

“How many more people will this attract?”

“What do you put in the cache?”

6.

At this point they will be in direct contact with yourself and this part of the negotiations is up to you, be polite, try to agree to any special conditions but if you are unsure don’t do it!

7.

When you get official permission (get this in writing!) post the details on the GAGB forum dedicated to these permissions to save other people the hard work next time.

8.

Other good tips here are to forward the logs you recieve to the land owners so they can read for themselves about visitors to thier sites.

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