We have just returned from an amazing few days at the Best of the Bad Mega Event (WestCan1) held in Three Hills, AB. Chris and I have now assisted with (in some capacity) and/or attended 9 Mega Events in 3 countries and they each had key strengths. This event ranks as one of the best ever as far as variety of satellite events, ‘day of’ event schedule, finite detail pre-planning and coordinated execution.

The community participation in Three Hills and surrounding communities was second to none. We were greeted with heartfelt enthusiasm as if our visit was a long awaited event. The tremendous variety of caches hidden as theme trails to help visitors explore the best of the Badlands were outstanding in their creativity, seldom visited locations and historical spots.

The Hutterite Colony Tour Event was certainly a highlight for many attendees as was the East Coulee School Museum- Atlas Mine Event and the Floating Through the Badlands Event. A creative satellite at Best of the BAD was the Geocaching Has Gone to the Dogs Event. All the GeoDogs and their owners were welcomed by the organizers and Three Hills community. Apart from one friendly dog with an over-active libido they all seemed quite happy to socialize and mingle with others. It sure makes it easier to travel to events when the Tieka the Canine Landshark and all the rest of the geodogs in our caching community are welcomed. There were so many choices of events on Friday – we chose the Hutterite Colony over the Provincial Park because we had visited and hiked the trails last fall. We didn’t make it to Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park Event, but heard great things about the geology, ecosystem and fossil themed event that the park hosted.

In the evening after the Best of the BAD Mega Event, Tethys C and C-side Girl hosted a BAD Night Geocoin Event. There were amazing raffle prizes, coin displays that were outstanding and trading galore. Although we’d been up since 6am we still managed to attend and had a great time!

Our volunteer role…
Being asked to take part in the GeoTrust for this event was an incredible honour. This group was made up of some amazing Alberta and Saskatchewan cachers who knew how to work hard as a team to get the job done and also take time to have fun along the way. We’ve known a few of them personally for years and others we are happy to gradually add to our circle of friends over the past year. I know we will make a point of connecting with many of them again in the future if it looks like our paths could cross.

Communication…
The team was led by Kevin Edwards, a visionary who became a geocacher to bring this event to his community. Kevin was an amazing leader and we were truly blessed to have him at the helm, keeping us all on track, meeting deadlines and making sure that nobody worked harder than he did. Thanks Kevin! Being from the west coast of BC did have some logistics issues, but Skype and email kept us in touch, along with the GeoTrust specific discussion forums and an initial F2F meeting last fall.

What did we bring home… other than a great list of new friends for vacation dial-a-hint!? For the Island Spirit 2012 Mega Event (WestCan2) we have new twists on great ideas for theme satellite events, cache trails, additional event promotion skills, an established social media network, ‘day-of’ execution skills and most of all…a great network of talented folk to mentor us.

Once again our visit to the Badlands left us wanting to return for more.