SAGA Rules/Guidelines

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General

  • All caches placed in South Australia between 1st of January and 31 December are eligible for nomination in that year’s awards (e.g. caches placed between 1 January and 31 December 2018 for SAGA 2018).
  • The placed date and location will be officially determined by the cache page at geocaching.com

Nominations

  • The committee make suggestions for some categories in the nomination form to help with collating the data and to reduce errors. These suggestions are based on the number and/or percentage of favourite points to finds these caches have received. Note that these were the only criteria used as the pre-selections were made with the CO name and cache name hidden from view.
  • Geocachers can nominate any cache regardless of whether it was suggested on the form (as long as it meets the criteria for the category)
  • Geocaches can be nominated for several categories (as long as it meets the criteria for each category)

Voting

  • In early March the committee will review the nominations for each category and shortlist caches with the most nominations. The shortlisting process will be conducted with CO name and cache name hidden.
  • Caches nominated by over 10% of respondents will be automatically included in the final voting list.
  • Nominations will be shortlisted to approximately 5-10 caches in each category, though the final number of caches in each category may vary slightly to allow for ties in the nomination process. In other categories there may be a clear group of 6 or 7 and a gap to the 8th most nominated cache in which case we will select all of these 6 or 7 for the final shortlist.
  • During the voting phase, Geocachers can only choose from the shortlisted caches
  • Geocachers must have physically found the caches they vote for.
  • New! Geocachers are no longer allowed to vote for their own caches

Awards

  • Gold, silver and bronze pins will be awarded to winners of each category, except where the cacher has already been awarded that colour pin.
  • The gold, silver and bronze winners of hider of the year will have their name added to the perpetual (ammo can) trophies and can keep the trophy for the year. Early the following year the trophy must be returned to the SAGA committee in preparation for the next SAGA awards.
  • The three highest vote getters in each category will be presented with an award at the SAGA event. There will be no tie breaks so in the event of a tie for first the committee will present 2 golds and a bronze and in the event of a tie for second there will be one gold and 2 silvers. Only when there is a tie for 3rd will there be an additional award.
  • Multiple awards for a single cache – If after voting one cache wins more than 2 awards, a certificate will not be awarded for subsequent categories (however the presenters will acknowledge their achievement). The decision on which category to ‘forfeit’ will be made once votes are counted. A rough hierarchy is gold before silver before bronze before type before size before ‘other’.

Rules specific to each award category

Award category Rule
Best overall cache of the year
Best traditional cache Must be a Traditional cache
Best multi cache Must be a Multi cache
Best unknown/puzzle cache Must be an unknown cache
Best event Must be an event cache (incl. Mega events, CITOs etc).
Best earthcache Must be an Earthcache
Best letterbox hybrid Must be a Letterbox cache
Best wherigo Must be a Wherigo cache
Best regular container Must be a Regular sized cache
Best large container Must be a Large sized cache
Best virtual cache Must be a Virtual cache
Best new cache series Must be a series of caches

Must include at least 5 caches placed in the voting year

Must be a new series (eg. adding 5 new caches to an existing series won’t be eligible)
Best mystery/brain teaser cache Must be a real puzzle

Must have a difficulty rating of at least 3 stars
Most adventurous cache Must have a terrain rating over 3.5 stars
Best cache hider of the year Must have placed 5 or more caches in the voting year

Cachers who have received 100+ Favourite Points in the voting year will automatically qualify
Best newcomer cache of year Cache must have been placed by a newbie to geocaching

A cacher is eligible if they joined geocaching in the 18 months prior to 31 December of the voting year (eg. joined after 30 June 2017 for SAGA 2018).

Newbie cachers can’t have been nominated for a SAGA award previously.