[Talk-GB] English chapter

[David Earl]

I put a proposal on the wiki page
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters/Proposed_Chapters
for a central England OSM local chapter.

Peter disagrees with the (too small) scale of this and wants to discuss 
it here.

I have no huge feelings about this. I just felt that we have a high 
density of mappers in the UK so it deserved more local representation. I 
can't say I'm that interested in running a national scale organisation, 
whereas something more regionally focussed is up my street.

While Scotland, England and Northern Ireland are relatively small in 
population terms, people tend to be protective of their identity 
(rightly so, I think), so I didn't include those. Indeed there's no 
particular reason why our chapters have to divide along nationalistic 
lines, and Ireland might feel something covering the whole island might 
be appropriate. Not for me to say, and no doubt there are some delicate 
sensitivities there.

What I do feel uneasy about is including (greater) London. Because it is 
so big, and has specific metropolitan features, and has a high density 
of people involved, in any sphere it tends to dominate anything to the 
detriment of outside London. I don't wish to cast aspersions on anyone 
in London here, but some Londoners have been known to take a 
London-centric view of the world (I regard "the provinces" as 
pejorative). Typical journalists in the Guardian article used a London 
example - they think and breathe London.

So I do think there is a case for separating London or some greater 
south-east area from the rest.

But if we had the south-east and the rest of England, I'd be quite 
happy. But at the end of the day, I'm not too bothered about the whole 
thing, though I don't really want to put myself forward for something on 
the scale of the whole country, but would happily do so for something 
smaller.

I'm sorry I missed the phone call yesterday. I was expecting someone to 
contact me with the number to call. But if things are changing to not 
include Foundation membership with chapter membership I think that's a 
mistake - it's hard enough to get people to join one organisation, let 
alone two.

David