# 2021 11 30: Official OSM BE members meeting

###### tags: `meeting`

## Participants (12/25)

1. Jonathan Beliën
1. Joost Schouppe
1. Thierry Jimenez
1. Tim Couwelier
1. Seppe Santens
1. Pierre Parmentier
1. Pieter Fiers
1. Pieter Vandecasteele
1. Julien Minet
1. Kevin Baker
1. Pieter Vander Vennet
1. Thibault Molleman

## Location

[Open Knowledge Belgium BigBlueButton](https://meet.openknowledge.be/user/jon-nz1-ypu-jce)

## Agenda

DEADLINE: October 31st

### Summary of the last year

#### [2020 yearly report](https://github.com/osmbe/working-group-bylaws/blob/master/annual-report/2020.md)

#### 2021

The Board presented the following topics that they worked on over the past year. Some member comments are added to this document.

- support of the Welcome Tool: start local, scale global
Live at <https://welcome.osm.be/>
Jonathan built the new tool with the support of the [Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG)](https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Local_Chapters_and_Communities_Working_Group). By now, over 30 regions/countries have signed up.

- Rode Kruis Vlaanderen: official relationship, not a Corporate Member though
- they have put us in their *samenwerkingsprogramma* 2022-2026 with a total budget of EUR 2500
- Idea is to have a fixed "price" for our support, equivalent to the max volunteer-payment prices times three + 15% overhead (10% osm, 5% okbe)
- OSM lead volunteers get the max volunteer payment cost (should cover transport costs + food etc). There is no need for receipts

- OSMBE board elections December 2021: call for candidates. Thierry is interested in running. Jonathan and Joost will run again, with Ben stepping down. The Board will send an election link with the three candidates in bulk.

- Corporate Membership status

*Proposal*: lower non-SME charge to 2500 eur (after Mapbox refusal & Toerisme Vlaanderen offer) : ✅ **accepted by the members present unanimously** (website [updated](https://github.com/osmbe/website/commit/a4d95a35ca9d254a6af12fc559fd0598df59788e
))

- members: [GEO-6](https://geo6.be/), [Anyways](https://www.anyways.eu/), [Champs-Libres](https://www.champs-libres.coop/)
- active discussion: Toerisme Vlaanderen, RouteYou
- asked: Fietsersbond
- declined: Mapbox (asked again now that we lowered the cost), Trage Wegen
- suggestions: Rode Kruis Vlaanderen, MSF, bpost, Natuurpunt, Natuur & Bos, be-mobile, Westtoer

Current probable budget: EUR 4.750 by December (+800 from previous income)

- After member comment: there is no "procedure" to have access to [e-mail] - could be simply: "ask the board" (see [#153](https://github.com/osmbe/website/issues/153))

### Deciding what to spend money on

See https://github.com/osmbe/working-group-bylaws/blob/master/financial/2021.md

What osm.be says we will be doing:
* Systematically refund transport costs for volunteers at events
* Give hi-viz vests to volunteer mappers
* Create promotional materials
* Give a volunteer fee to mappers who organize activities or join meetings with partners
* Larger donations will help us fund one or more of our projects and help us professionalize our organization, for example to apply for subsidies and get more administrative and communication support.

Ideas and suggestions from the meeting
* buy external hard disks or other sorts of space to store pictures uploaded to Mapillary (via OSM BE members) (Thierry)
* buy extra GoPro's (doesn't have to be that brand), 360° camera's to make pictures (Thierry)
* GoPro Max seems reasonable
* On the 360° camera: these two accounts use the GoPro Max:
https://www.mapillary.com/app/user/nverstraete
https://www.mapillary.com/app/user/bbase
* Joost: "GoPro + ram mount. Very happy with it. For navigation, I'm very happy with "sp connect" "
* stickers with a QR-code and text like 'this bench is mapped on and thanks to OSM ;-)' (Thierry)
* flyers (Pierre)
* Give local microgrant(s) (if the funds are sufficient)
* Organize a (yearly?) OSM Belgium gathering (when the Corona measures allow it). Like an extended hangout, could include a mapping party / mapathon. (focused on Belgium, see also EqualStreetNames)
* Make good video material to welcome existing mappers and help them with their first steps. We could link to the videos via the welcoming tool; This gives the community a face and is probably more inviting than a long explanation or some links to the wiki pages. (Seppe, Julien, Thierry)
* OSM Camp (together with Germany)
* Communication trainee (managed through Champs-Libres?)
* Preparation of a project with schools / students
* hard to do right (Pieter VDVN)
* Kevin's wife at Artvelde might be a great link: students can develop schooling material as a thesis
* peer-checking might help (Pieter F)
* Espace Numerique is a good location to get people on board
* GR route monitoring / mapping (Pierre, s8evq, Pieter VDVN) with both Flemish and Wallonia organization
* maybe support mapping this topic with volunteer fees (Julien)
* monitoring software is in development, Marc from Knoopuntnet.nl (s8evq). We may want to support the development of this anyway!
* Tim did a post-meeting suggestion to look into funding someone to take care of monthly updates and "boring maintanance work"
* Board post-meeting addition: we need to save some money for pizza when we meet up with fellow mappers.

General remarks:
* invest in getting more people on board: extend and diversify the community "further" than the current core (Seppe)
* don't go too many ways at once, communication in general would be a good common theme (Julien)
* maybe do recurrent meetings on some of these topics

### Paid mapping through OSMBE/OKBE

- We will do "paid mapping" for Fietssnelwegen.be **Confirmed 30/11/2021! ;-)**
One thing still to be clarified: by principle only in Flanders, but on term the "cycle highways" in Brussels might also get involved in this project
- We had quite a bit of work with job students working for Oost-Vlaanderen & Fietssnelwegen
- Two systems:
- Talent Pool. People who contact OpenStreetMap Belgium with an interest in paid work could ask the pool for help. OSMbe just throws the idea at the group, members can contact the external party directly. Anyone can join the Talent Pool, but we do encourage donations from people who actually get the work
- OKBE-OSMbe consultancy. Sometimes OSMbe should be an official go-between. A typical case would be: “we want X to be mapped correctly in Belgium by date Y”. Then we can say: we can try for free, or you can fund if you want a guarantee. In those cases, we will in fact ask for a surcharge to be able to fund the extra organizing work (+10% for OKBE, +5% for OSMBE). This includes helping OSMbe people to be able to work for a fee (which is not that hard!)
- Paid mapping for some collaborations going on but suffering from little support from the community? Eg. for maintaining the GRSentiers in OSM.

### Any other business

- MapComplete
- several OSOC projects
- several paid projects with provinces
- a large paid project with Toerisme Vlaanderen (almost a Corporate member!)
- a trial with a large commercial POI collecting company
- themes being made around the world
- What is the role OSMbe can and wants to play in this project? [See also MapComplete futures](https://hackmd.io/xu6gb3-xRJSgYC-SJdDMOQ?view). Separate discussion? With whom?
- It became clear during the dicussion that MapComplete wants to be its own independent project for now.

- hiking.osm.be
- still going on... 23 high quality maps so far...