Foundation/Local Chapters/United States/Minutes-2013-11-20

Present

• Martijn van Exel
• Melelani Sax-Barnett
• Ian Dees
• Kathleen Danielson
• Alex Barth

Notes

Supporting OSM communities

• What is the OSM US community?
• Meetup group funding
  • Investigate sponsorship through Meetup
• Creating educational materials for how to contribute and how to use OSM data
• Editathons and code sprints (coordinated events)
• Conflict management
• Spotting and welcoming new mappers
• Collaborating with other local chapters around the world

Discussed

• Creating a 'getting started with your local community' package / page (either / both)
• Is paying for meetup groups and swag really good value for money / effort?
• Perhaps more impactful to hold editathon training hangouts/chats?
• Building local communities means investing in core/founding/deeply-involved members and helping them branch out
• Don't forget about institutional members of the community (National Park Service, Census, etc.)
• When there's dispute in the OSM community, OSM US is it not in a good position to arbitrate (requires real-time communication, might require very local decisions be made)
  • Don't try to make decisions, but help people make decisions themselves
  • As board members, we should be good role models

Action items

• Invesitgate meetup.com sponsorship. http://www.meetup.com/perks/, try for zero-cost-to-us, reduced cost to meetup organizers (Ian)
• Editathon how-to materials
• Editathon prep session on hangout
• Materials/guides for institutional groups -- how to get involved, use the data, and work with the existing community
• (Carefully) ask to be kept in the loop on US-based DWG cases

Growing the Community

• Diversity
• Women/underrepresented groups in OSM
  • OPW internship?
• OSM courseware / supporting bringing OSM into the classroom
• Communications: highlight interesting examples of OSM usage and collaborations with other groups
• More speaking gigs for board members
• Balancing the interests of new vs veteran mappers.

Discussed

• Who are we missing from the community/what do we want it to be?
• Can/should institutions/companies be formal members? (no)
• Interviews/comms to highlight what institutions are doing with OSM so that other organizations know that others are
• Take proactive approach to increasing diversity -- how do we make this actionable?
• OPW internship - we need to come up with the money but it's highly visible
• Diversity mailinglist might have more ideas
• Codes of conduct for SOTMUS & talk-us / other us lists
• Diversity through more education?
• Sell the SOTM.US conference to a wider audience
  • Workshops have a great beginners track, but sessions are built for OSM insiders
  • Solicit sessions for beginners and from women/minorities/diverse viewpoints

Action Items

• Come up with blogging plan showcasing interesting OSM uses institutional and individual (Alex)
• As we get into SOTM US planning phase, further investigate how to make the conference more inclusive & solicit diverse talks
• Revisit SOTM code of conduct, think about codes of conduct for the US mailing lists
• Send a post to talk-us reminding the list about the rules Ian moderates by (Ian)
• Encourage other moderators to follow the lead (Ian)
• Look at best practices (Linux Kernel?)
• Investigate a list / communication mode for members of the US Chapter

Map completion goals/targets

• Supporting imports / the importing process?

Dicsussed

• MapRoulette and Battlegrid give people a shared goal with a completion point
• Use stuff like this as fodder for editathons
• Revive project of the week / month for the US?
• Prizes / (traveling) trophies for achievements

Actions

• Ian and Martijn should talk about MapRoulette hosting
• Martijn was interested in putting some time in to revive project of the week

SOTM US

How do we make the conference more inclusive?

Discussed

• How we can sollicit more real bids for SOTM 2015 and onwards?
• Make our expectations really clear

Actions

• Board should discuss how to make more call for proposals more effective.

Get the house in order

• Finances
• Membership management?
• Local Chapter status w/ LWG

Discussed

• Face-to-face is not ruled out as a possibility financially, but we should have a reason to meet face-to-face
• Get formal local chapter status
• Collaborate with other local chapters

Actions

• Table face-to-face meeting discussion until after SOTM plans solidified
• Alex to look at LWG info and report back
• Martijn to fwd next LWG WG meeting to Alex √DONE muhaha