[Talk-GB] Agenda and Joining details for Today's OpenStreetMap UK/GB telephone meeting

[SK53]

On 17 December 2015 at 01:27, Rob Nickerson <rob.j.nickerson at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> As noted in previous emails to this list, please find the dial in number
> for the first UK/GB OpenStreetMap group meeting below.
>
> Brian Prangle has kindly volunteered to help facilitate the first meeting
> following on from his Chairmanship of the State of the Map 2013
> (Birmingham) group. The following brief agenda has will be followed in the
> interest of wanting to deal with bite-sized chunks and to get things
> moving, not in wanting to curtail discussion.
>
*..... snip*
>
> Regards,
> *Rob*
>
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-GB mailing list
> Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
>
> .

I wrote something about a year ago which I shared with some people at a
London pub meeting and when we met at Hanbury in January

I append it (after some light editing) to this email, as it may help (or
hinder) discussion tonight.

Note these were my personal thoughts of a year ago, and need to read in
that light. I think I still stand by most of it, so I wont need to say
these things then.

Regards,

Jerry

===== Ideas about a UK-based OSM group (Dec 2014) ========

*Objectives*

The primary objective is to create a strong and vibrant community of OSM
mappers and users
throughout the United Kingdom: 'a mapper in every village and every firm'.

*Activities*

To meet this primary objective it is likely that some or all of the
following activities will be part of
the remit:

• Promotion of OpenStreetMap in Great Britain/England and Wales. (Raise
awareness, facilitate usage, alleviate concerns)
• Organising an annual meeting for interested parties (mappers, data
consumers, data users, open data community, etc.)
• Provide a starting point for a local chapter for (Great Britain/England
and Wales) recognised by OSMF.
• Open Data advocacy, particularly related to geographical data.
• Representing the interests of the British OSM community of contributors
and users (whether members or not).
• Facilitating a programme of events throughout the year and country
(mapping parties, HOT type events, evening meetings, talks).
• Providing data and web server facilities to provide multiple views of OSM
data for Great Britain and other OSM-based utilities (e.g., the replicating
what is done with Irish OSM server is pretty much what I have in mind).
• Providing suitable facilities for members to develop and test programmes,
rendering etc.
• Providing regular communications to the membership.
• Providing a formal accountable structure for grant applications etc.
(e.g., Heritage Lottery funds).

*Initial setup*

In the first instance the organisation will be set up with very limited
member services. Subscriptions will be
set to cover the cost of 3-4 mailings a year (i.e., around £5.00). It is
hoped that an initial on-line
presence will be achieved through one or more pages on an existing UK OSM
site.

Also in the first instance it will focus on these goals:


• *Promotion*. Ensuring that the society is well enough known to be a point
of contact for 3rd
parties, particularly in government & local government.
• *Local Chapter Status*. If this ever really gets off the ground for OSMF,
and if desired by
membership.
• *Acquiring & hosting server*s. Again it is to be hoped that an existing
site may be able to
host a server at little or no cost. The server itself will need to be
acquired, and sysadmins
may need to be found.
• *An E&W/C&L conference event*. (SotM-CLEW). The existing SotM-Scotland
works well and there is no need to try and replicate their excellent work.
My feeling is that an England & Wales event would complement SotMS provided
care is taken to avoid a clash of dates.

There are plenty of E&W specific topics, such as footpaths; just as SotMS
has shown there are lots of Scottish specific ones. I'm hesitant about
trying to organise a fully-fledged conference & in the first instance would
probably favour a flexible un-conference format.

*Why Membership Services & Fees*

I have always found the effective absence of membership services from OSMF
(other than the dubious pleasures of getting osmf-talk emails in one's
in-box; and voting for the board) a real barrier to joining. This is doubly
so for companies. I therefore believe that planning to offer services from
the outset might make membership a more attractive proposition. The planned
membership fee
needs to be set at a level consonant with the services offered.

Ideally any events organised would be free to members; significant events,
such as a
conference would be organised on the basis that the delta in the
registration fee is larger than annual membership.
Corporate membership would be set at 4-5 times individual membership, but
entitle companies, academic organisations, etc. to a pro rata number of
places at events.



*Events*Ideally we would offer an event programme which was:

• Regionally diverse. A minimum of 1 event in each of the following areas:
Northern England,
Yorkshire, North West England, North Wales, South Wales, West Midlands,
East Midlands,
East Anglia, London, South East, South, South Central, South West.
• Good variety of different types of events. Mapping Parties, Seminars,
HOT, Talks, Socials,
Hack Days, evenings, teach-ins etc.
• Events throughout the calendar year
• Focus on collaboration with other groups: libraries, hackerspaces, hiking
groups, local history societies, schools etc.

The major event programme would be planned and announced a year in advance.
It would be hoped
that any existing local groups or nuclei (such as Mappa Mercia, Nottingham,
Bristol, London) could
put on a single event with at least a regional appeal.


*Organisation*It is hoped that we can be organised like many typical
societies in the UK, and unlike OSMF membership of the committee will not
become a position of prestige (and apparent power).

In other words hardy folk will need to be coerced to take on positions. I
imagine we will eventually need a treasurer, a meetings secretary, a
membership secretary, a chairman, and a secretary. I would expect the
secretary to be the person who runs the day-to-day needs of the
organisation & the chairman to do the bulk of public facing work (media
quotes) and gentle coercion of members to fill committee positions.

Ultimately I envisage publicity to be a very important part of the
societies work: both internally and externally. Therefore Publicity Officer
and Newsletter Editor positions may be needed fairly quickly. If servers
are acquired than a committee member needs to hold some basic
responsibility for them.

The financial year will be January 1st to December 31st.


*Starting-up (outdated, but still some potential ideas)*

*Note that this has been superseded by Rob's survey & follow-up conference
call.*
.....

The follow-up would be two-fold:
• Invite people to join.
• Announce a SotM-CLEW, or a launch event. Either way this would be
'conferencey' and probably feature the usual suspects as speakers. Possible
date, mid-May 2015. Ideally would be a 2-day event, but 1-day would be fine
as a launch. Preferably not in London (plenty of OSM stuff happens there),
and accessible from Northern England & both North & South Wales.

The next phase would need to focus on :

• An initial (slim) events programme for 2016.
• Newsletter/communications for membership.
• Initiating promotional & server acquisition activities.



*People*Of course making this happen depends of people being willing to
spend time making it so. I'm aware enough of my own organisational
deficiencies to know that I'm not the right person for many of these tasks.

I am happy to :

   - edit a newsletter;
   - assist with promotional stuff,
   - finding sites for events,
   - coordinating an event programme.

I'm not happy to be :

   - treasurer,
   - membership secretary,
   - secretary
   - organise conference events.

========== ENDS ========================================
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