[OSM-talk] Contacting governments & the press for help

[Russ (Justec)]

Apologies to anyone on the talk-GB list. I originally sent this to there,
then realised that the general talk list was probably a better place to
send it.

Hi,

I've started to map the Falkland Islands, using a combination of Landsat
and Yahoo aerial imagery (via Potlatch). It occurred to me that the island
government might be interested in helping us, but I have no idea how to go
about contacting them. I know that OSM has contacted governments before,
so I thought I'd ask for advice.

Can I ask for help on behalf of OSM, or do I need to get permission to do
that? If so, who from, and how?
How have others gone about contacting governments and other large
organisations to ask for data?

I'm also going to see if I can find some way of contacting the locals to
ask for GPS traces. One possibility might be to find the local newspaper
and ask them if they'd run a story. Does anyone have any advice on how to
do that?

I've never done anything like this before, and I don't want to give the
project a bad name by messing it up.

Russ