[OSGeo Africa] GIS Day

[Antony Cooper]

Hi All

As Wilhelm has pointed out, November is a very bad time of year for an event such as GIS Day in the southern hemisphere, because all of the target audience (scholars, students and teachers) are busy with exams.  As with Halloween, GIS Day was scheduled (by ESRI, as you should all be aware) to suite the northern hemisphere calendar.

The result was that GISSA decided to have GIS Week during April/May.  This has been running very successfully in the Western Cape, for example, for many years, catering for many school children and teachers.

So, might I suggest that those of us in the southern hemisphere do the appropriate thing, and schedule events for when they suite conditions in the southern hemisphere, and not for when they suite those in the northern hemisphere?  Obviously, this mailing list covers countries in the northern hemisphere and those that straddle both hemispheres, so your local conditions will be different.

So, if you are in South Africa, contact your provincial GISSA committee and become involved in their GIS Week activities in our autumn - or spur them to have them.  See: http://www.gissa.org.za/

By the way, for those who are not aware of it, Halloween is primarily a post-harvest festival (which is why it is in autumn and features autumnal things), though it has been appropriated as a Christian festival for the eve of All Saints' Day.

Regards
Antony

>>> On 02 November 2012 at 16:24, in message
<031a01cdb905$c73fe1c0$55bfa540$@co.za>, "wherbst" <wherbst at mussels.co.za>
wrote:
>
> Hi All
> 
> I might be totally ill informed here, but....
> 
> In GISSA a decision was made a few year ago to have the SA GIS day on a
> different day for the simple reason that the American GIS day is in the
> middle of our kids end year exams.  Therefore GISSA have a different GIS day
> , which has always been very actively supported by GISSA Western Cape and
> actually runs into a week not only a day.  I suggest that you support that
> effort, since you will struggle to get any students in Nov.
> 
> On the other hand if you want to do something I am sure it can do no harm.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Wilhelm Herbst
> 
> From: africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] 
> On Behalf Of Gavin Fleming
> Sent: 02 November 2012 03:55
> To: africa at lists.osgeo.org 
> Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] GIS Day
> 
> Why not organise something?
> 
> And spread the word through this list...
> 
> On 02/11/2012 14:09, Lore Sereetsi wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> So I had a look at the link... 
> 
> Are there any events in Cape Town or the Western Cape for GIS Day?
> 
> Lore
> 
>   _____  
> 
> From: Chris  <mailto:chris at airphotoafrica.co.za>
> <chris at airphotoafrica.co.za>
> To: Africa local chapter discussions  <mailto:africa at lists.osgeo.org>
> <africa at lists.osgeo.org> 
> Sent: Friday, November 2, 2012 9:13 AM
> Subject: [OSGeo Africa] GIS Day
> 
>     Anybody got anything planned for this ?
> 
>     GIS Day 14th November
> 
>     http://www.gisday.com 
> 
> 
>     CM



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