Oceania

Organisation

OSGeo Oceania's purpose is to support and grow the open geospatial community in the Oceania region, including the oversight and stewardship of the FOSS4G SotM Oceania conference series.

The Oceania region includes countries listed in the United Nations Geoscheme for Oceania. We have also included Timor-Leste in our Travel Grant Program. We recognise the important cultural and social connections with other countries in the broader region, such as the Philippines.

We recognise the long-established Pacific Islands Chapter of OSGeo, and work closely with them to build a strong community across our region.

How to learn more & get involved

The best way to stay up to date on what we're doing is to join our mailing lists:

• oceania - discussion about the regional open geospatial community and OSGeo Oceania
• foss4g-oceania - FOSS4G SotM Oceania conference planning
• oceania-board - OSGeo Oceania board discussion (public, but read only)
• oceania-board-private - non-public OSGeo Oceania board discussion (private, board member access only)

There's also a lot of informal chatter on the Maptime Oceania Slack group: join here

And you can head to the conference website (link below) and join the conference updates mailing list there.

If you want to talk about how you can get involved, feel free to post on any of these lists, or drop us a line at admin@osgeo-oceania.org.

OSGeo Oceania Calendar

• Google
• iCal

Membership

Membership of OSGeo Oceania is an opportunity to engage more actively with the support of open geospatial software & data in Oceania. Members can support OSGeo Oceania in a variety of ways:

• Helping to organise the annual FOSS4G SotM Oceania conference series
• Organising local geospatial events
• Editing in OpenStreetMap
• Active discussions in Oceania related mailing lists
• Writing developer documentation for open source geospatial projects
• Contributing to open source geospatial repositories

Membership is free, and you can apply for membership at any time. Becoming a member allows you to run for the board of OSGeo Oceania and/or vote in the election process.

Applications are reviewed by a membership working group. Generally memberships are approved within a few weeks.

Public Member list: (only includes those who have agreed to be listed).

Community support

Microgrants Program: aimed at providing small grants to support local initiatives, for example paying for pizzas for a meetup. The process is designed to be relatively quick and easy. The maximum grant per activity is AUD $250. Details here.

Documents & policies

Document	Date
Constitution	2019-11-07
OSGeo Oceania Terms of Reference	2018-12-17
Budget 2022-2023	2022-06-20
Budget 2021-2022	2021-07-07
Budget 2020-2021	2020-06-30
Budget 2019-2020	2019-10-03
Membership Policy	2020-03-25
Finance Committee Terms of Reference	2019-10-03
Finance Policy	2020-12-15
Communications & Outreach Working Group Terms of Reference	2020-03-16
Special Interest Group Guidelines	2020-10-21
OSGeo Oceania Annual Report 2019-2020	2020-12-14
OSGeo Oceania Annual Report 2020-2021	2021-12-14
Microgrants program	2021-02-19
QGIS Special Interest Group charter	2021-03-01

Board of Directors

OSGeo Oceania is governed and managed by a board of directors. The board delegates responsibilities to committees as needed. As per the constitution, directors are elected by the membership in annual elections. Details of process, current and historical election records can be found on Oceania_Elections.

Responsibilities

The primary responsibilities of the board are to:

• govern and manage OSGeo Oceania, with regard to finance, risk, and sustainability of the organisation
• provide oversight of the conference committee, and ongoing stewardship of the conference series
• coordinate other related outreach activities, including local FOSS4G and State of the Map events
• maintain a relationship with OSGeo and the OpenStreetMap Foundation, and maintain OSGeo & OSMF chapters in good standing
• hold accounts, domain names, and other administrative tools, data, and assets as needed
• enter into agreements with other parties as needed.

2023

Directors

• Alex Leith (Chair and Treasurer)
• Tishampati Dhar (Deputy Chair)
• Ewen Hill (Secretary)
• Jonah Sullivan
• Alan Cheung
• Rafael Kargren
• To'oa Brown
• Greg Lauer
• Edoardo Neerhut

Meeting minutes

2022

Directors

• Jonah Sullivan (Chair)
• Elisa Puccioni (Deputy Chair)
• Alex Leith (Treasurer)
• Ewen Hill (Secretary)
• To'oa Brown
• Carrol Chan
• Tishampati Dhar
• Greg Lauer
• Edoardo Neerhut

Meeting minutes

• 2021-12-18
• 2022-01-14
• 2022-02-18
• 2022-03-18
• 2022-04-14
• 2022-05-20
• 2022-06-10
• 2022-07-22
• 2022-08-19
• 2022-09-16
• 2022-10-14
• 2022-11-11

2021

Directors

• Edoardo Neerhut (Chair)
• Dionne Hansen (Deputy Chair)
• Alex Leith (Treasurer)
• Jonah Sullivan (Secretary)
• Carrol Chan
• Elisa Puccioni
• Emma Hain
• Ewen Hill
• Greg Lauer

Dionne, Greg and Emma are concluding their two-year term.

Meeting minutes

• 2021-12-17 (AGM)
• 2021-11-26
• 2021-10-15
• 2021-09-10
• 2021-08-20
• 2021-07-09
• 2021-06-10
• 2021-05-14
• 2021-04-16
• 2021-03-26
• 2021-02-19
• 2021-01-15
• 2020-12-11

2020

Directors

• Alex Leith (Chair and Treasurer)
• Trisha Moriarty (Deputy Chair)
• Greg Lauer (Secretary)
• Adam Steer (resigned 27 Nov 2020)
• Daniel Silk (resigned 24 Nov 2020)
• Dionne Hansen
• Emma Hain
• Martin Tomko
• John Bryant (was Chair; resigned 29 May 2020)

As per this thread, Adam, Alex, John, Martin, and Trisha have a 1 year term and their seats will be open at the next election. All other directors have a standard 2 year term.

Meeting minutes

• 2020-12-11 (AGM)
• 2020-11-27
• 2020-10-30
• 2020-09-15
• 2020-08-14
• 2020-07-24
• 2020-06-26
• 2020-06-12
• 2020-05-15
• 2020-03-13
• 2020-02-14
• 2020-01-09

Motions/decisions

Motions of the board are recorded in Loomio here.

2019

Objectives

In order to guide the organisation towards a mature state, in 2019 this board will aim to:

• determine a process for recruiting and managing an appropriate general membership
• determine a process for renewal of board membership, including accountability to the general membership, and clarify such items as term limits and staggering of terms
• determine a process for inviting expressions of interest and selecting groups wishing to host the annual FOSS4G SotM Oceania event
• determine and formalise an appropriate non-profit structure
• submit an official expression of interest to the OSGeo board to form an OSGeo local chapter
• apply to the OpenStreetMap Foundation board to form an OpenStreetMap local chapter

Directors

• Alex Leith - OSGeo Oceania Treasurer - OSGeo Charter Member
• Daniel Silk
• Edoardo Neerhut
• Greg Lauer - OSGeo Oceania Secretary
• John Bryant - OSGeo Oceania President - OSGeo Charter Member
• Jonah Sullivan
• Kerry Smyth
• Martin Tomko
• Trisha Moriarty

Meeting minutes

• 2019-01-25
• 2019-03-26
• 2019-05-16
• 2019-07-30
• 2019-09-12
• 2019-10-16
• 2019-12-12

Committees & working groups

• Membership working group: Ewen Hill (chair), Emma Hain
• Finance committee: Alex Leith (chair), Greg Lauer, Dionne Hansen
• Communications and outreach working group: Emma Hain, Martin Tomko, Trisha Moriarty, Emily Hurry, Celina Agaton, Joeli Varo, Hamish Campbell, Elisa Puccioni, Paul Worwor, Dionne Hansen
• Grants working group: Elisa Puccioni (chair), Jonah Sullivan, Carrol Chan, Nemaia Koto

Special Interest Groups

Special Interest Groups (SIG) are ad-hoc groups that have been established to support a specific topic. Their narrow, topic specific focus is what distinguishes them from the functionally focused working groups. Any member of OSGeo Oceania can propose the creation of a new SIG by following the SIG Guidelines outlined here.

QGIS Oceania

QGIS Oceania is a "Special Interest Group" of OSGeo Oceania. Its purpose is to provide support to the QGIS network in Oceania promoting the use of QGIS, advocating for professional development, and combining resources (time and monetary) to meet targets identified by the community. The SIG is not intended to replace the roles and responsibilities of local QGIS User Groups, but to support them in their endeavours.

The QGIS SIG charter is here.

Steering committee: Andrew Jeffrey, Emma Hain, John Bryant, Nathan Woodrow, Nyall Dawson

OpenStreetMap Oceania

OSGeo Oceania has been recognised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) as the official local chapter in the region. A charter to establish OpenStreetMap Oceania is a SIG is currently awaiting board approval.

As the official local chapter of the OpenStreetMap Foundation in the region, we are able to support the development of the OpenStreetMap community in Oceania while making sure our diverse range of interests are represented, supported, and promoted. A working group has been established under OSGeo Oceania to focus specifically on OpenStreetMap and our role as a local chapter. The working group is still determining its long term priorities, so feel free to contribute to the discussion here.

Minutes from the inaugural meeting can be found here.

Anyone within Oceania is welcome to join the working group and attend working group meetings.

Chair TBD. Interested parties are currently: Edoardo Neerhut, Andrew Harvey, Luke Stewart, Jonah Sullivan, Martin Tomko, David Brown, Angus Scown, Violaine Doutreleau, James Nuccio, Carrol Chan, Kamsin Raju, Greg Lauer, Kasaqa Tora, Edwin Liavaa, Malcolm Archbold, Julie Callebaut, David Garcia

Note, while OSGeo Oceania is currently the recognised local chapter in the region, we are fully supportive of other groups that may form in Oceania with the intent of becoming a local chapter. One example would be a national entity that determines their interests would better represented as an independent local chapter. If this was to occur, OSGeo Oceania would be fully supportive and will not claim to speak for groups who do not wish to be represented.

Events

• FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2023
• Pacific Geospatial Conference 2022
• FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2021
• FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2020
• FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2019
• FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2018

History

See the Aust-NZ wiki page for an earlier incarnation of this community. OSGeo Oceania picks up where Aust-NZ left off, and aims to build on that foundation.

Some notable open geospatial events in the region:

• 20 November 2020: FOSS4G SotM Oceania, Apia/Auckland/Cairns/Canberra/Christchurch/Hobart/Melbourne/Perth/Rarotonga/Suva/Wellington/online [1]
• 12-15 November 2019: FOSS4G SotM Oceania, Wellington [2]
• 20-23 November 2018: FOSS4G SotM Oceania, Melbourne [3]
• 17 November 2017: Australian QGIS user group meetup, Sydney [4]
• May 2017: QGIS Noosa Hackfest [5]
• 1 March 2017: NZ QGIS User Forum, Wellington [6]
• 23 September 2015: NZ QGIS User Conference, Wellington [7]
• 22 September 2015: NZ GeoNetwork Users Meetup, Wellington
• 12 May 2015: QGIS Forum, Perth
• 14 May 2015: QGIS Forum, Melbourne[8]
• 18 April 2013: Melbourne QGIS User Conference [9][10]
• 14 March 2013: Perth QGIS User Forum/Group [11]
• 15-16 November 2012: FOSS4G-AU 'unconference', Brisbane [12][13][14]
• 20-23 October 2009: FOSS4G international conference, Sydney [15]

Also see the Pacific Islands Chapter page for history of events and developments in the Pacific Islands.