[Board] OSGEO US Chapter

[Suchith Anand]

Hi Randal,


Thank you for sharing this excellent updates. Having OSGeo US Chapter established will be a great boost and accelerator for OSGeo education activities . It will help build more synergies to plan ideas and expand Teacher training programs to more high schools in USA using Open Source GIS and open data in the future. The GeoForAll labs in the USA are ideally placed to be mentor organisations to plan ideas for training events for this. Please make use of FOSS4G NA 2018 to bring together all interested in education.


Thanks to all of you working for establishing OSGeo US chapter.


Best wishes,


Suchith


________________________________
From: Board <board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of Randal Hale <rjhale at northrivergeographic.com>
Sent: 22 April 2018 16:32
To: board at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: [Board] OSGEO US Chapter


Good Morning (or Afternoon) OSGEO Board.

I'm emailing you all per (https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Local_Chapter_Guidelines) to ask is the OSGEO.US Forming chapter could become a formal chapter.

After the Bosston FOSS4G event several of started talking about the need for a National Chapter. There are several smaller chapters that exist within the confines of the Boundaries of the United states - we contacted as many as we could and had positive responses from those that responded. We don't want to change anything they are doing but provide a larger umbrella to help if possible. As of right now the organizers are as follows: Guido Stein, Laura Doty, Josh Rosenthal, Sheeri Cabral, Mike Foster, Randy Hale, Kurt Menke, and Kayla Patel. There have been many more that have emailed me off list and asked to help.



We've developed a mission statement: OSGeo.US will cultivate and support local OSGeo chapters and projects in the United States. OSGeo.US will also support activities and events that build awareness of the OSGeo and create opportunities to grow the OSGeo community.

We've started a website: http://OSGEO.us. We have added ourselves to the OSGEO.org Site and I've put in a trac (https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/2157#ticket) ticket to get an email list going. Which will be nice - as emails have been flying from person to person and it will be good to get them in one location.

I've been picked to be the liason with the board if that is OK.

We've started attempting to fund a few activities in and around the US. Support for FOSS4GNA 2018 Community Day and an upcoming meeting of OSGEO Enthusiasts in East Tennessee.

We don't have a conflict with any existing chapters - all we wish to do is help them continue what they are doing. Linguistics and other issues shouldn't be a problem (but if it does we welcome the diversity and will work with anyone). We feel like we have momentum. We're accepting of members from anywhere - but since we've Focused on the US (and the US territories) that's who we are targeting...BUT - bring us your tired poor and huddled masses yearning for Free and Open Source Software for GIS.

If there's anything else you need to know feel free to email myself (rjhale at northrivergeographic.com<mailto:rjhale at northrivergeographic.com>) or Guido Stein (guido at guidostein.com<mailto:guido at guidostein.com>)

Thanks for your time,

Randy



--
Randal Hale
rjhale at northrivergeographic.com<mailto:rjhale at northrivergeographic.com>
https://www.northrivergeographic.com
(423)653-3611





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