Philadelphia

Philadephia Local Chapter
The Philadelphia chapter of OSGeo is based on the user group around metropolitan Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia chapter is a proposed chapter of OSGeo, seeking out a critical mass of users prior to formal Chapter incorporation.

History
Started: November, 2008 at Chapter House coffee shop.

Mission
The OSGeo Philadelphia Chapter strives 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 Philadelphia metropolitan region of the United States. The group plans to host meetings providing networking, support and educational opportunities to the local members.

Continuing Goals

 * Advocate for the use of Open Source GIS at regional and state levels
 * Help act as a breeding ground for new projects
 * Serve as starting point/meetup resource for geospatial software discussions.

Near Term Goals

 * Set up mailing list
 * Identify mailing list audience and get to them
 * Come up with list of goals for group? Maybe a basic context for user list (list of topics/guidelines).
 * IRC room, meeting time

Initial User Base
Approach/contact existing user groups in GIS and OS development for interested individuals, and direct them to this wiki page and mailing list. Potential groups include:
 * Other user groups
 * DrupalCamp
 * PLUG
 * Regional OS projects/user communities
 * PANMA
 * OSM chapter
 * NJ GIS user group (Sean)
 * other?
 * Advertise at schools (Penn, Drexel, Temple)?
 * LinkedIn

Membership
2 total.

Contact Information
Mailing list:
 * TBD

IRC:
 * #osgeo-phl (irc://irc.freenode.net/osgeo-phl)

Founders:
 * Michael McLarnon: mmclar [at] gmail [dot] com
 * David Zwarg