Chuck Walla tells me that there were only 915 Arkansas caches published on Geocaching.com in 2016. Of course, this tally includes a large number of events, not physical caches or Earthcaches. And this total number of caches placed in a year is down from 2015, when 980 AR caches were placed, and 2014, when 1572 AR caches were placed. And those numbers are down from the preceding years.
To turn this around and keep this game fresh and going strong, my challenge to all members of ArkGeo for 2017 is to place at least one new physical cache (not an event or Earthcache) each month, within Arkansas, and have it published on Geocaching.com.
According to the Board minutes, 70 members voted in the last election. I cannot find on the website any data on how many members ArkGeo officially has, but if all the members who voted in the last election met this challenge, then there would be 840 new geocaches in Arkansas by this time next year! Well on the way to exceeding the tally recorded for 2016. And if many of the non-voting members joined in and met the challenge, we would do even better.
So, do you accept my challenge?
If so, commit yourself here, publicly, and hold yourself accountable for meeting it. And post updates here throughout the year to let us all know how you are doing in meeting the challenge.