Ottawa Chapter Report 2007

= Ottawa Chapter =
 * Period covered by report: Jan-Dec 2007
 * Contact name:  Scott Mitchell

Key Accomplishments

 * held regular meetings, which included both presentations to share experience in particular projects/software, and social/networking to learn what others are doing, job opportunities, opinions on where the community is going, etc
 * WIDE range of participants, including programmers, users, experts, novices, educators, students, program managers, people from government, non-profits, large and small firms
 * presentations exposed the community to developments in a number of OSGEO/FOSS4G projects, including GDAL, PROJ, Geoserver, GRASS, Mapbuilder, Nunaliit, the Cybercartographic Antarctic Atlas, and Mapnik
 * booth presence at the GIS Day events at Carleton University and University of Ottawa, as well as Software Freedom Day
 * developed and hosted a GRASS/QGIS workshop
 * shared experiences from FOSS4G07 with community members that couldn't make the trip to Victoria

Areas for Improvement

 * keeping momentum going to have regular meetings is occasionally challenging

Opportunities to Help

 * suggest presentations that you might be able to give to the group
 * encourage others to give presentations, or submit suggestions to the group on things you'd like to see
 * help pay attention to the calendar and get meetings scheduled, venue reserved, A/V equipment arranged

Outlook for 2008

 * more great (informal) meetings!
 * work together towards presence at GeoTec 2008 (Jun 2-5, in Ottawa)
 * GIS Day 2008
 * which lucky members can make it to South Africa?