Membership Cards?

[LondonCacher]

Hey folks, new to the forums (but not to caching)

I was just wondering if the GAGB folks had ever considered membership cards? I used to run an orienteering-type group in the US, and we'd occasionally get stopped by police in the parks who were wondering why a group of 15 guys and girls were running around with various bits of electronic kit.

We got an online card-making place to print us off some photo IDs which had our names, membership details etc on there, and on the back was a "in partnership with..." and then listed all the parks/schools/police forces we had agreements with.

Something similar might be useful for us, and wouldn't be too expensive (our cost about £5 per card).

Just a thought. And in the immortal words of that Fantastic 4 superhero:

Flame on.

[Bear and Ragged]

Easier, and cheaper, to carry a couple of print-outs explaining Geocaching that you can hand to whoever asks what you are doing.

(The few times I have been stopped whilst caching, I never mentioned "Geocaching" in response!)

[DrDick&Vick]

I always carry some laminated copies of the Stash card in case I need to leave one in a cache and would just show one of them if stopped but have never been stopped yet.

[The Hornet]

Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? In the same way that I would refuse a Government ID card, I would most certainly not want to think I would have to "prove" my innocence to some jumped up jobsworth by showing him a home made version. If it were a policeman demanding to see my papers, I don't think one of these self made cards would be very persuasive.

As you can guess, I'm not too keen on the idea but please don't take this as "flaming" you, it's just my personal opinion.

[agentmancuso]

Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? In the same way that I would refuse a Government ID card, I would most certainly not want to think I would have to "prove" my innocence to some jumped up jobsworth by showing him a home made version. If it were a policeman demanding to see my papers, I don't think one of these self made cards would be very persuasive.

As you can guess, I'm not too keen on the idea but please don't take this as "flaming" you, it's just my personal opinion.

I'm with you on this one.

[sTeamTraen]

I don't think such a card would do much good to prove your identity, but if I'm asked what I'm doing by the police or other "person who can make my life difficult", I always say "geocaching", and then it's handy to be able to give them something which explains what it is. So when I can be bothered to remember, I carry some handouts which you can print out from the French site. They're also handy to give to bored-looking kids who are straggling a couple of metres behind their parents who've dragged them out for a "lovely walk in the forest".