Local Chapters Congress
During State of the Map 2019, the Local Chapters Congress was on the official schedule for the first time. We had a very high participation: there were people from 22 different countries, with people from 6+1 official Local Chapters.
The informal organisation, combined with so many people, made for a somewhat chaotic meeting. Some of the notes we took during the meeting are below
Why Local Chapters?
These are things participants said about the value of having a Local Chapter:
- make sure there are no local hi-jackers of the brand
- broaden the visibility of OSM(F)
- Give a counter weight on the OSMF advisory board to corporate members
- Local point of contact for Organisations/Governments in reference to open data. Organisations prefer to talk to organisations.
- Communicate what is happening in the OSM universe to the local mappers
- Be the organiser of meetups, seminars and country SOTMs
- Be a contact point/coordination point for bulk uploads
* Profit V not-for-profit (note: scratched out because I don't know what it means)
Criteria for LC
The Board started a conversation about the minimum criteria for Local Chapters not long before SotM. We chatted about this too.
- We made it clear that it does not have to be limited by international or ethnic boundaries
- The organization should be bigger than its people. This means that we should expect Local Chapters to be more permanent than the people running them at this time.
- But the current high threshold makes for a percieved need to have some status for "User Groups" - whether or not those would need to have Board approval is an open question
Mutual help / common issues
Local Chapters operate in a diversity of national legal frameworks and cultural contexts. Still there are recurring issues, which means we can learn from each other. This is part of the reason for the re-launch of the LCWG as the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG). There are of course other ways too, to keep the communication channels open. Sepcific topics were:
- finding a fitting structure for the chapter
- Guidance on subgroups reporting to the LC
- complying with trademark regulations
- Child protection policy, or policy guideline from OSMF (since each chapter will have different national laws)
Raw notes below
Present
- Wikimedia Italia (LC)
- OSM-US
- OSM-Japan
- OSM-UK (LC)
- OSM Belgium (LC)
- Brasil
- FLOSS Kosovo
- OSM DRC
- OSM Spain
- OSM Ireland (applied to LC)
- Turkey
- OSGEO Oceania
- FOSSGIS (LC)
- OSM Uganda / OSM Africa
- Philippines
- OSM Mali
- OSM France (LC)
- Croatia
- OSM Indonesia
- China
- Swiss OpenStreetMap Association (LC)
- Canada
22!
What is new since last year?
- renewed interest
- relaunch of LCWG as Local chapters & Communities Working Group
- Local Chapters Congress in the official SotM program
Why Local Chapters?
- make sure there are no local hi-jackers of the brand
- Broaden the visibility of OSM(F)
- Give a counter weight on the OSMF advisory board to corporate members
- Local point of contact for Organisations/Governments in reference to open data
- Communicate what is happening in the OSM universe
- Be the organiser of meetups, seminars and country SOTMs
- Be a contact point/coordination point for bulk uploads
- Profit V not-for-profit
Pending applications
Role of LC in the OSMF?
Criteria for LC
- Does not have to be limited by international or ethnic boundaries, clearer idea of a community being diverse
- The organization should be bigger than its people
- but maybe we need a LC-light status?
- New status "User Group"
Mutual help / common issues
- keep communication channels open
- finding a fitting structure for the chapter
- Guidance on subgroups reporting to the LC
- complying with trademark regulations
- Child protection policy, or policy guideline from OSMF (since each chapter will have different national laws)