GAGB CITO Week 2024

Since 2013, the GAGB has encouraged the organisation of Cache In Trash Out (CITO) events every year. This initially began as a CITO Weekend to celebrate the GAGB's tenth anniversary, and eventually evolved into a full week of CITO events from September 2019. More than 80 events have been held over the years, amassing over 1,000 'Attended' logs. You can read more about past GAGB CITO events here.

In 2024 the GAGB will be running two CITO Weeks: Saturday 25th May 2024 to Friday 31st May 2024 and Saturday 26th October 2024 to Friday 1st November 2024. We invite all our members to organise a CITO within one of these weeks.

This year, two GAGB profile badges are up for grabs - one for organisers, and another for attendees. In addition, our CITO Weeks falls within Geocaching.com's own CITO souvenir season, which runs between 1st March - 31st May and 1st September - 30th November. So, by organising your GAGB CITO between May 25th - May 31st or October 26th - November 1st, you and your attendees will gain a souvenir for your profiles, as well as giving something back to the environment and being part of what we hope will be the biggest GAGB CITO promotion so far.

It is best to start organising your GAGB CITO event as early as possible. Please name your event as follows:
GAGB 2024: {pick a name for your event}.

It is not as difficult or challenging as you may think to organise a CITO event. Check out this article for advice. If you need any help whatsoever, just contact the GAGB committee - we're more than happy to help. More information will follow in our News Articles and on social media nearer the time (#GAGB2024).

How to Organise a CITO

Here are some tips to help you organise your own CITO Event.

If you want to work out who owns or manages the land where you want to hold a CITO, you can:

• Try to find a rangers name by looking at the website for the area you are interested in hosting a CITO in - a phone number or email address might be provided
• Check out our Geocaching Landowner Agreements Database (GLAD) to see if we have an agreement for the area
• Look at the caches placed there to see if the cache owner (CO) has thanked anybody for permission
• Go to the area and look for some notice boards for a contact name or phone number
• Ask some locals if they know who maintains the land

Here is a sample letter to send to rangers or organisations to help get you started - see section further below):

Copy
Hi {Name if possible}, I am a geocacher and a member of the Geocaching Association of Great Britain (GAGB) (https://www.gagb.org.uk). The GAGB are holding several CITO events between May 25th and May 31st - it's known as a 'CITO Week' - Cache In Trash Out - and geocachers 'earn' a special online badge if they take part. These events can go beyond simple litter picking - we have helped with dredging, weeding, removing invasive plants, tree lopping, bramble pruning - whatever park rangers and land managers want help with. I would like to explore the option of holding such an event in the {name of the area} area on {date}. Do you have a location that would benefit from something like this in May? The event will be organised by myself and people register an intent to attend online. We can ask them to state a preference for tasks from a list, but they are all unpaid volunteers having fun, so a lot depends on the day. We tend to get about 40% families, 30% retried folk, and the rest is a mixture of outdoors-type people. Please can you canvas your various departments, rangers, etc, and let me know if there's anyone who is interested in helping me make this happen this year? Whatever help you think you need and we can handle! Kind Regards, {Your Name} {Your Email} {Your Phone Number} {Your Address}

Creating the GAGB CITO Event Page

Please refer to the GAGB Logo Usage Policy before adding the code to your cache pages.

Instructions:

Please create your event as follows (remember that the dates are subject to change).

1. Log in and select 'Hide a geocache' then 'Create a new Event Cache'
2. Select 'Cache In Trash Out Event' then enter and confirm your coordinates
3. In the 'Event Name' box enter GAGB 2024: {pick a name for your event}
4. Enter your 'Event Date', 'Start Time' and 'End Time' in the boxes
5. Select your 'Location'
6. Scroll to the 'Event Description' text box
7. 'Select' the button to say that the 'description is in HTML'
8. From the samples below, press the 'Copy' button to copy the code.
   The HTML code below can be copied and pasted into the 'Event Description' box. The system will automatically render the text properly and clicking the link will take people to the GAGB website. Make sure that you select 'Source'
9. Then 'Paste' the code into the text box.
   Tip: hold down the <CTRL> key and press <V> on your keyboard to paste the text.
10. Remember to put your location date, time, address and description over the {} text
11. Click 'Save & preview' button at the bottom.
12. Now check to see that your CITO geocache page looks OK.

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Copy this code into the Event Description: Copy

<h3 style="text-align:center">GAGB 2024 CITO Week</h3> <br> <p>This is just one of the many events to be be held across the UK, Ireland, Isle of Man and Channel Islands as part of the GAGB CITO Week.</p> <hr> <div style="text-align:center"> <h2><p><a href="https://www.gagb.org.uk/" target="_blank">The Geocaching Association of Great Britain</a></p></h2> <h3>Saturday 25th May until Friday 31st May {START TIME to END TIME}</h3> <h3>{EVENT LOCATION} <br>{EVENT ADDRESS} <br>{EVENT ADDRESS}</h3> </div> <p>{DESCRIBE YOUR CITO EVENT}</p> <hr /> <table> <tr> <td><p style="font-size:14px;">The Geocaching Association of Great Britain (GAGB). The Association was established in 2003 to provide a national geocaching organisation and serve as a UK point of contact for geocachers, landowners, the media and others with an interest in geocaching.</p> <p style="font-size:14px;">As part of its 10th anniversary, it was decided to hold a CITO weekend in May which has now became an annual event. This later evolved into a full CITO Week, with the first one being held in September 2019. It would be great to see more of these icons pop up across the country and for other members to hold their own events where it is not feasible to attend one that a committee member has organised.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><p style="font-size:14px;">There is a lot more information about what we do, including the landowner database, comprehensive event listings and Seeker e-magazine at <a href="https://www.gagb.org.uk/" target="_blank">www.gagb.org.uk</a>.<strong> If you would like to get involved follow the link and find our contact details.</strong></p> <p style="font-size:14px;">The GAGB are encouraging everyone to organise <a href="https://www.gagb.org.uk/events.php#25052024" target="_blank">CITO events</a> this week, in part to pay-back for what we hope will have been a great summer of caching, and also to make things more pleasant for future cachers. If this CITO is the nearest one to you, please come along!</p> </td> </tr> </table> <p>More information could well be announced, so either keep watch on the listing or log your <strong>'Will Attend'</strong> to make sure you receive the announcement logs.</p>

You will see: