Geocoin Missions

Geocoin Missions are a group based trade/swap set up through the Geocoin Discussion forum of Groundspeak’s geocaching.com web site and are run along the lines of a Secret Santa. The sorts of missions that get organised are Valentines Day, St. Patricks Day, Easter, Christmas, Pets, Kids and even Chocolate Missions!

If you are new to the forums just sit back and watch one or two missions before you jump in a do one. It use to be a rule of missions that you’d had to have been geocaching for x amount of time and made y posts in the forums so as to prove yourself first before being able to take part in a mission for real. I still think this is a good way to run missions as it means everyone taking part know what they are getting into and what is expected of them.

Someone will announce a mission in the forums and ask for participants to register their interest. Then people will be assigned the name of another participant and you need to get your package together and post so that it arrives with the intended participant by the required date.

Usually the minimum requirement is that you send your recipient one or two unactivated, trackable geocoins – this differs from mission to mission. What else is included depends entirely on the sort of mission and you!

Some people put a great amount of effort into the mission packages they put together, and others put very little or no effort. I’ve experienced it at both ends: All the way from receiving a trackable pin – and nothing else – in a padded mailer, for a mission requiring a trackable geocoin; all the way up to a big box containing 3 trackable geocoins that were on my seeking list, plus chocolate Easter eggs, egg shaped puzzles, lots of other Easter related items and a whole lot of very colourful packaging. That was for a mission requiring 2 trackable geocoins. Which would you be more excited to receive?

Typical Geocoin Mission Timeline

  • 8 weeks out – Someone (the organiser) will announce the mission, usually about 6 to 8 weeks before the mission needs to be completed;
  • 8 weeks out – Geocoiners will sign up to the mission. The sign-up period would usually be about 3 weeks long. Then when the missions is full (mission sign-up usually needs to be by a certain date, but sometimes they are restricted to a certain number of people) no more names will be accepted;
  • 5 weeks out – The organiser will contact people to let them know who their mission recipient will be. Then you usually have until a certain date (a couple of weeks) to get your mission package put together and sent away;
  • 2 weeks out – all missions should be posted by now;
  • 0 weeks out – or the target completion date – hopefully all packages have been delivered to their recipients.

Geocoin Mission Reporting
There is a suggested layout for each participant to report the personal progress of the mission. The layout is as follows:
Sign-up: – the date you sent an email to the Mission Organiser requesting to sign up
Name received: – the date you received the name of your recipient from the Mission Organiser
Package sent: – the date you posted your package off to your recipient
Package received: – the date you received your mission package in the mail
So, a final progress layout might look like this (I’ll use the American Format for dates, ie Month/Day/Year)

Sign-up: 03/01/10
Name received: 03/22/10
Package sent: 03/26/10
Package received: 04/10/10

Packaged arrived today! Wow, what a surprise! Thank you who ever you are – I love the coins (they’re ones I don’t already have) and the cute soft toy is fantastic!

When you receive your mission package in the mail it is very important for you to go back into the forum thread for this particular mission and report back that you have received your package. This lets the sender know that it has arrived safely.

What should be included in the contents of a mission package?
The contents of a mission will always include at least one trackable, unactivated geocoin and usually some other items relating to the mission theme. The ethos is that you should put into the mission what you would expect to get out to it. Some people will be lazy and only send the geocoin/s and nothing else – this is very disappointing as participants are asked to actually put some effort into a mission. Some missions also expect you to include a gift, but this will be stipulated in the rules of the mission.
Be mindful of rules for mailing – what you can and can’t include.

An example of what you could expect to get (or should be putting into) a typical mission (lets say it is a Christmas Mission) would be:

  • unactivated, trackable geocoin/s
  • small, wrapped gift
  • christmas themed items such as decorations, wrapping, confetti… basically anything Christmas!

Some even go to the trouble of decorating the box/bag the mission is posted in!

How do I find out what geocoins/like someone has?
A lot of people have Keeper/Trading/Seeking lists. These are lists of geocoins people have that they are keeping, geocoins they have to trade, and geocoins they are looking for. Usually people note where their lists are located in the signature that appears at the bottom of their forum posts. Here are some sites where you can create you own lists:
Utah Geocachers UTAG GeoCoin Tracker site is a good free place to start. They allow you to compile your own person Seeking/Keeping/Trading lists. Use the See All Trading Lists link.
Geocoin Collection/The Geocoin Archives is a good paid site for your Seeking/Keeping/Trading lists, but is currently unavailable to subscribers while they redevelop the site.
CoinTracking.com is another good paid site.

Common Rules:

Here are links to threads about some Previous Missions:

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