[OTT_OSGEO] Mission Statement

[Sampson, David]

Frank,

Thanks for hammering out the mission statement a bit. I propose we start
with this statement as a working mission statement and then once our
membership grows a bit and meetings and activities are regular fare we
re-visit the mission statement and tweak it as the time goes on.

Shall we keep it posted, and have open dicussion until our next meeting.
Then open the table to a discussion and approval process at our next
meeting.

Is there a sample "movement to the board" that we can use for our
proposed chapter to the OSGEO board?


Thanks for the input.



-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Warmerdam [mailto:warmerdam at pobox.com] 
Sent: July 29, 2006 15:14
To: users at ottawa.osgeo.org
Subject: [OTT_OSGEO] Mission Statement

Folks,

I don't want to do too much navel gazing with regard to the mission
statements and the such.  But I have prepared a draft mission statement
for wider review.  Let me know if you have concerns.  Note the mission
statement is deliberately not detailed.

"""
  Mission

The OSGeo Ottawa Chapter exists to provide support for local users of
Open Source Geospatial software, and to promote the goals and projects
of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. The Chapter is focused on the
National Capital Region around Ottawa with face to face meetings
providing networking, support and educational opportunities to the local
members.
"""

Some noteworthy implications:
  o I have tried to stress the role of the local chapter in helping it's
    members by explicitly listing "support for local users" and by
indicating
    the local meetings are for "networking, support and educational
    opportunities"
  o It also notes that the local chapter exists to promote the goals and
    projects of the foundation.  We can chose to interprete this
somewhat
    liberally to include projects not formally part of the foundation
(like
    PostGIS, etc), and to emphasize the goals for which there is local
    interest.
  o I have included the whole national capital region, but specifically
avoided
    trying to imply a broader mandate.  Basically, I'm suggesting a
focus
    around face to face meetings rather than this being a provincial or
    national group.  Of course we may take on a few broader items but
that
    isn't our focus.

Dave has prepared a bunch of more specific objectives which I have
augmented a bit.  These are currently:

"""
  Objectives
     * Monthly face to face meetings
           o Networking
           o Presentations
           o Workshops and Tutorials
           o User to user support
           o Job Opportunities
           o HowTo's
     * Colaborative Projects
           o Documentation
           o Local Data Sets
           o Supporting OSGEO projects at large
     * Regional Events
           o Conference
           o Demonstrations
     * Communication
           o Active mailing List
           o Content Rich Wiki
           o Outreach to local Geo community
           o Documented Activities
"""

I added "Networking", "User to user support" and "Job Opportunities"
because I think these are especially achievable at the local level.
To a large extent participation in broad OSGeo projects can be done by
folks without a local chapter, though discussing and working on some of
them as a local group may prove helpful.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------
---------------------------------------+------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF,
http://osgeo.org


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