Charity walk from Gutter Tor Car Park

Hello there,
I was letterboxing in the Ditsworthy area today collecting some word of mouth stamps. I met some people who were returning to their car after doing a charity walk in the area, they were thoroughly fed-up because the entire walk has been stolen.
If you have a walk that starts from Gutter Tor car park I suggest you contact the owner before setting out. All WOM boxes in the area were OK.
Brinnie

Hi Brinnie!

Thanks for the info. That sounds like the Udder Crowds' Portraits walk that we bought at the meet last week.

If it has truly been removed, words fail me

James

PS: Do you think we should contact the walk's owner and let them know?

These people we met said it was a shelter walk. I expect they have contacted the owners already, but you could check if you are going to do it soon, I expect they will replace the stamps so everyone can do it later.

Brinnie wrote:These people we met said it was a shelter walk. I expect they have contacted the owners already, but you could check if you are going to do it soon, I expect they will replace the stamps so everyone can do it later.

It's a "Shelterbox" walk.

we got that one, nik said after the meet box number 5 was missing only hours after going on sale

I am so annoyed that this person or persons are taking CHARITY walks from dedicated walkers. Have they nothing better to do with their time than ruin everyone elses hobbies, what a sad existence they must have.

That definitely confirms it - The Dartmoor letterbox thief was at the meet.

And my views of GPS fixes also seem to run true - it takes you straight to the box therefore making searching time shorter and therefore less likely to be seen.

I maybe tempted to make a very loud comment at the next meet, it maybe a disgruntled letterboxer or someone who just dispises letterboxing on a grand scale.

Alol this person is going to do is make letterboxing what it used to be like - only word of mouth boxes being spread between a few people at a time basically making it go "underground" again.
All organisation will go out the window and the whole thing will probably be outlawed by the DNP in the end because of the complaints

Is there a record of who bought the walk? If so, it'd narrow down the list of suspects massively to those that bought it before Nik found NR 5 missing.

no record of who bought it. think they should take names but at the meet there were loads of people buying walks so it makes it very had to find out who.

it is rottern seing it is a charity

Sadly I cannot see the letterbox thief leaving their name and address, more so a fictitious one if asked. Any box or boxes that need to be made public cannot avoid the possibility of a letterboxing thief stealing them, so this is a chance we all have to take. Maybe as previously discussed reducing the grid references down to six figures might deter them a little bit, because it means more hassle to find the boxes.

So back to our traditional method of searching with a sighting compass.

Dizzy

Hi everyone, have just received an Email from one of the organisers of the Udder Crowd walk from Gutter Tor car park. Apparantly there are 3 boxes left, and they think the main attack on the boxes happened on the Tuesday afternoon after the meet. However, from what KOTM says, an earlier attack happened on the day of the meet.
I remember being told of a story years ago of a boxer who accidently thought that when collecting letterboxes you actually collected the whole box. This person was soon enlightened, and the letterboxes returned.
Nowadays though, our hobby is sharing the moor with geocachers, perhaps there is rivalry. Although I do believe it is blatant vandalism, by one or more people.

Hi Noddy... I remember that incident though it happened just before I started boxing about the guy who collected the boxes....

Though I do believe it is not an individual but a group of people attacking the charity walks. Individual boxes in areas are not done by these idiots of that I am sure.
It is a shame but technically there is nothing much we can do about it. As for the Tuesday I wasn't anywhere near Dartmoor I have an alibi I was in a dentest in Chatham at the time watchng someone else suffer

Letterboxing will not be the same as it used to be (I refer to the boxing of the past 15 years or so) where it used to be fun and not frustrating.
Maybe someone is trying to get their 5000 by collecting the stamps as their proof and is too miserly to buy an ink pad and paper

Hello Trekkernod,
What rivalry between letterboxers and cachers is this then? I have been a letterboxer for 15 years and a cacher for 4 years and I have never heard of any rivalry. There are many letterboxers who do collect caches at the time especially if they live off the moor.
There are a few caches in the Ditsworthy area I was the only visitor in the last few days.
Brinnie

Hi Brinnie,
I was just trying to find reasons for the missing boxes. I did not say there actually WAS a rivalry between the two hobbies.
I have come across a cache once when in the Ingra Tor area and duly took a copy of the stamp without disturbing the other items in the box.

hi all,
living away from Dartmoor we do a little geocaching as a substitute to letterboxing, nowhere near the challenge or as much fun, we have never heard of any rivalry in fact most geocachers have never heard of letterboxing but they also have problems with thieves only they call it being muggled.

trekkernod wrote:
I have come across a cache once when in the Ingra Tor area and duly took a copy of the stamp without disturbing the other items in the box.

I know that one. The geocaching guys refer to those as "hybrids" - letterboxes and caches at the same time. That's quite a nice stamp of the tor, if I remember rightly...

Z.

I have a geocache/letterbox "hybrid" our near vixen tor.
The good thing is that everytime a geochcher finds it, they log the find on the internet and i get an email. this lets me know that the box is ok. its a handy way of knowing when the book is full, the box damaged or (and i hope this never happens) the stamp missing. Prehaps the future for letterboxing is a similar system by which we log our finds on a website, making it easier to know if a box is gone or needs repairs, and also who has been there.

Have to disagree with you there Revitt!

We are of the opinion that the great thing about letterboxing (as opposed to geocaching) is the accessibility of the pastime for all ages: one can (and many do) partake without the need for expensive technology, eg a computer, internet connection and a gps!

Hi Rivitt,
I have got your cache near VT a little while ago. TFTC. It’s a great idea for letterboxers to log a find on a website when they find a box, but I don’t think it is very practical, you just imagine collecting 30 stamps in one day, that would mean 30 “found” logs to make, I think I would soon get fed up with that. Plus box thief’s would know where they are and also people who oppose letterboxing would know how many there are out there!!!
Brinnie

but for someone to have a database of all letterboxes on the moor is a good idea, then when someone finds a box missing they could fill in a form and email it to the person to either update the list or to pass it on to the relevant person, its a good idea in therory.

We have a sort of list done in excel which we tend to pass up the line or leave in the missing boxes post on here.

Hi Monkeys,
This is basically what happens when someone reports a missing box to the 100 club. It is circulated as missing in the updates and if replaced or found on site a correction is made in the next update.
So if you do find any boxes missing I recommend you report it and everyone who receives the updates will know. This is a much larger circulation than this forum can achieve.

we do friend, we send the missing ones, damaged ones we find on the moor and post updates on here as well, just a shame the catalogue is not electronic so you can change the copy with the update.

Hi Monkey's,
I don't know if it helps you but the catalogue is now available on disc. I am not quite sure how it all works but if you save it to your own hard drive I am sure you could amend it as and when you want. I am not sure if this is correct as my computer skills are fairly limited but I'm sure someone on here will put me right sooner or later.

Its disgraceful. Mother and father in law went out to do a WOM walk that I passed onto them, cant remember what it was called a christmas walk starting from 4 winds??? Cornish Bowler put it out anyway they had the same problem, boxes missing and just empty holes!!! very disspointing for them. It seems that the thief is getting worse and looks like he is out and about much more recently????
Kimberley

Hi Revitt

I had seven Letterbox Hybrids put out around our local area as an experiment to see if they got nicked by the local kids, they lasted over 18 months before one went missing and that lasted longer than expected, it was located in the top of an old wooden gate post right next to the road, then someone went and replaced it.

The 76 or so visits that where logged covered all age ranges from children with adults through to a local Scout group who did the walk (and not one pencil between them). I was surprised to see how far people would travel as well a guy from Bournemouth came up to Cheshire to get them. Although we come down to Devon, but its not just for the day!

Yes it is a pity letterboxing can not have the same data base and feedback info, really handy.

I am considering putting a box/cache out next time we are down with a letterbox and a cache in with half of a stamp in each which makes up one stamp. I will then get feedback from the Geocahers on the state of the box!!!!!!

Hi number 70,

Like the 2 halves in 2 boxes idea.

it is quite amasing how far some geocachers will travel for "unusal" caches like letterbox hybrids. but then lots of letterboxers come from far away from dartmoor.

Although im from torquay, im a student at the Royal Vet. College, so in term-time im up in Herts. A while ago looked into letterboxing off dartmoor and then i decided to do a bit of an experiment of my own. i placed two letterboxes in herts, listed both on atlas quest, but only one is listed as a "hybrid" on geocaching. The non-hybid one has never been found. The hybrid one has to date been found 11 times, and has gone down really well with local geocahcers, most of them have never found a letterbox before. BUT last week though the stamp went missing, when i looked at the logbook, someone who has not logged their find on either geocaching or atlasquest was the last visitor. I have made a replacement stamp and hope to put it back today.

Yours bid better than mine lasting 18months, mine had only been out since september 20th!

It is annoying that stamp-theift has followed letterboxing off the moor.

About two years ago the locals around Yellowmead swept the moor from North Hessary right across to Kings Tor and got rid of all stamps they could find - from what I heard at the time only three survived (probably because they were WOM boxes and exceptionally well hidden).

There is a letterbox thief out there and probably well known to the letterboxing community to boot because they seem to have access to a lot of WOM boxes too.
Probably a disgruntled jilted type - who knows they might even be on here

No offense to anybody intended here, but I've heard quite enough of how bad stealing letterboxes is.

What I've yet to hear is a structured plan to address the matter and without such a plan we're lost.

Yellowmead locals? That implies they were organised, which means there'd be an organisation we can approach and try to find out what motivated their actions. With a bit of negotiation there's every chance them and us could walk away happier and more understanding of each other.

The scouts? They're formally organised, so I would imagine a formal letter from the (unofficial) letterbox club might actually be enough to address the issue there.

That'd address only two possible problems and I'm aware neither may actually be the main culprit, but at least it's a start!

Or should we all sit back, moan about it without actually doing anything, and start mistrusting each other?

Around Yellowmead Farm I can understand why - durign the Lambing season last year we had a glorious March/April cold but nice then the irresponsible boxers went out enmasse and disturbed the lambing. If I were a farmer in that same predicament I probably would do the same thing.

I don't believe for one moment it was the scouts - because they make funds for their scout groups by charity walks.

However there is a gang of lads in Torquay who are hell bent on damaging the moor for others - or makling it as unfriendly as possible... the bunch I refer to are the ones who destroyed Hound tor

Do people who do geo caching and letterboxing know what the other does?

Just thinking if a geo cacher comes across a letterbox stamp could they have thought it might be a swap item?

Or a letterboxer thinking a geo box was just litter with no stamp inside?

Just a thought.

Once upon a time (and not very long ago, mind you) it was socially acceptable to tell racist, sexist or homophobic jokes.

Our attitudes were changed by information, or rather a concerted information campaign, orchestrated often at great personal cost by the people that were being discriminated against.

I don't for one moment suggest that the average letterboxer is a Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King, but we don't have to be, either.

However, it wouldn't take much to get the business studies faculty of some local(ish) Uni to do a study on the economic benefits letterboxing brings to the region.

There are TV shows crying out for local interest stories, ditto for various radio stations. Shows like the BBC Devon Late Night Show that highlighted letterboxing is what we need.

If enough GOOD information from respected sources highlights the good done by letterboxing over a period of time we may well change many people's minds.

It may also encourage more people to do letterboxing.

If we can get ALL the charities that place out walks to do a joint publicity campaign, as part of which they get to sell more clue sheets, everybody wins, don't we?

There is a downside to this: if such a campaign encourages an extra 10 000 people to go traipsing all over the moor each year it will show up in increased erosion, litter, more disruption for farmers, etc. so it must be carefully managed. In any such campaign the letterboxing code MUST be highlighted repeatedly.

Additionally, what about trying for a deal with the Park Authority, in terms of which all registered boxes become the property of the Authority, but maintained by the people that placed it out. When removing the box from the moor, upon notifying the Authority, ownership should revert to the person(s) that placed it out.

This will result in a scenario where a letterbox thief will actually be breaking the law by removing or vandalising a box.

Just a few thoughts - what do you think?

We do both - most hybrids have got a note in the box stating that the stamp is not a swap item, most geocaches have a note in explaining what geocaching is and giving a website address.
Saying that both are only relevant I guess if people take time to read the notes!

I have to agree with Nano on this one. I am completely fed up with this topic now. Personally, I feel if we're not able to solve it, let's just find something a bit more cheerful to speak about.

As to your idea about geocachers not knowing about letterboxing, MOM, if they came across a box, geocachers wouldn't steal the stamp anyway, as they also use stamps in their geocache boxes and it is quite clear from geocaches, that they are not rubbish and letterboxers usually have enough intelligence to work it out by reading the visitors boxes.

Let's just put it down to, although a complete nuisance, its always happened, it will probably continue, and we're in danger of letting it spoil our own letterboxing.

Sorry to moan, but I joined the forum for fun, not depression.

Tina