Our membership is growing and that is a good thing, because we can have an influence on geocaching in Saskatchewan. You will note the good work that Parker has done with the National and Provincial parks in getting agreements and policies for geocaching. If he (we) had not been involved, as were many other geocaching associations across Canada, likely the parks would have just said no to geocaching.

In one of our forums it was brought up that unsuitable trade items were starting to appear (lighters, knives, condoms, etc) in caches. It is inevitable that when something gains popularity, there will no doubt be some things done that aren't acceptable and do harm to geocaching. It could be that the cacher just didn't know better or it could be done on purpose.

As keepers of the geocaching faith, which all our members are, we need to be vigilent to this type of problem as well as caches being vandalized, and other unsavoury practices. I know most of you already know this, but here's s a few things we can do to make sure that geocaching stays safe and alive in the province:

1. Always make sure you get permission to place a cache on private property
2. Do not place anything in a cache that you wouldn't want an 8 year old to find
3. Take out anything you find in a cache that you wouldn't want an 8 year old to find (and let the cache owner know, by private email, that you found it)
4. Let a cache owner know that you found his/her cache vandalized.
5. Make sure all caches are identified, especially those that may be mistaken for something that would cause a public emergency response (this has happened in a number of locations)

Lets make sure that 2008 is the safest geocaching year ever.