Cross post from new-boxers on seeking permission

From: aintnorock19 (cdf19@comcast.net) | Date: 2005-08-22 17:54:51 UTC

Hi All-

Okay, I'm a newbie. I've read a lot of posts on the lbna and lbma
lists as well as this one, but I haven't seen a lot about this
subject, and I'd like to get everyone's opinion:

Should you get permission from the landowner (i.e., government owned
public lands) prior to placing a box?

Or should you have a don't ask, don't tell philosophy.

My gut feel says to ALWAYS get permission to do something like this -
without trying to be self-righteous about it, it just seems like
the right thing to do. But the other half of my brain says why
bother - you're not going to hurt anything, you're going to take
care of the box, and only boxers are likely to find it, so what
difference does it make whether some county commissioner or park
superintendent knows and approves of what I'm doing.

I live in Pennsylvania. The state Dept of Natural Resources has a
policy ( http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/geocaching.aspx ) and my County
Parks also approve ( Chester County Permission for Boxes.doc in lbna
files list). But here in PA, we have townships, county roads,
boroughs, cities, and who knows who else is interested. My wife and
I want to place some boxes around the county on public property and
know that they would be properly maintained, but feel responsible
enough to ask first. I spent all afternoon yesterday preparing
letters to officials seeking their policies: a township park, a
privately owned, but publicaly accessible nature preserve, and to a
county commissioner asking just who should I ask to place a box
around a covered bridge - don't know who's responsible for it, but
the commissioner's name is on the plaque. These three are GREAT
places for boxes, but I'm concerned that I'm not going to get
permission. THEN what do I do? I don't just want to place boxes in
some of the same places others in my county have done, but I'm
unsure whether they bothered to get permission or not.

Hopefully, this will generate some debate. And if it's been debated
in length before, please don't flame me, I just haven't decided
completely yet.

thanks,

aintnorock & angelsweetie.

Re: [LbNA] Cross post from new-boxers on seeking permission

From: Susan Randall Davis (davisarc@DavisVermont.com) | Date: 2005-08-22 15:22:16 UTC-04:00

Hello,

You have raised a worthy topic and one that has been re-visited many times since the inception of LbNA in 1998. The most direct way to answer your question is to ask you, and everyone, to go to the main page of www.letterboxing.org and click on the Terms of Use. You will see that by placing clues on the LbNA site you warrant that permission has been obtained.

In the early days of boxing things were much more loose and many subscribed to the concept of secrecy; that concept created significant negative feedback from natural area managers. We ask you to obtain permission, to respect historical and natural areas and participate WITH land managers. When this happens, we gain more advocates for our past-time.

Thank for bringing this up - it is a timely post.

Regards,
Susan
one of several webmasters

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [LbNA] Cross post from new-boxers on seeking permission

From: aintnorock19 (cdf19@comcast.net) | Date: 2005-08-23 00:04:01 UTC

Susan-

Thanks for your post. I thought I had read everything on the LBNA
site- apparently I missed that Terms of Use. I'm usually pretty
thorough - perhaps it should be someplace else as well, like under
the FAQ or Rules or something? Just a thought.

Thanks for replying.

aintnorock

--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "Susan Randall Davis"
wrote:
> Hello,
>
> You have raised a worthy topic and one that has been re-visited
many times since the inception of LbNA in 1998. The most direct way
to answer your question is to ask you, and everyone, to go to the
main page of www.letterboxing.org and click on the Terms of Use.
You will see that by placing clues on the LbNA site you warrant that
permission has been obtained.
>
> In the early days of boxing things were much more loose and many
subscribed to the concept of secrecy; that concept created
significant negative feedback from natural area managers. We ask
you to obtain permission, to respect historical and natural areas
and participate WITH land managers. When this happens, we gain more
advocates for our past-time.
>
> Thank for bringing this up - it is a timely post.
>
> Regards,
> Susan
> one of several webmasters
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]