Quebec Chapter Report 2011

Quebec Local Chapter Report for 2011

 * Contact name: Daniel Morissette (for the Quebec Local Chapter Steering Committee)

Key Accomplishments

 * Organized the Montreal OSGeo Code Sprint on March 15-18, 2011. This event was a great success with 29 OSGeo project developers and contributors from North America and Europe meeting face to face to work on half a dozen OSGeo project for four days. Read more in the wiki and in this blog article.
 * Held local meetings around the province:
 * March 14, 2011: OSGeo-Qc 5 à 7 in Montreal, before the OSGeo Code Sprint.
 * October 11, 2011: OSGeo-Qc 5 à 7 in Montreal, right after WhereCamp Mtl and before the opening of Geomatics 2011
 * Decision to organize a second edition of Rendez-vous OSGeo-Quebec in 2012, in collaboration with Vision Geomatique as was done in 2010.
 * Creation of a legal entity for the local chapter: OSGEO-QUEBEC was officially incorporated as a Quebec nonprofit organization on 2011-01-27, with the 5 members of the local chapter's steering committee as directors.
 * Elections for the Quebec Local Chapter Steering Committee took place between Nov. 28 and Dec 13, 2011. The current steering committee members for 2011-2012 are:
 * Daniel Morissette (2008-2012)
 * Thierry Badard (2008-2012)
 * Simon Mercier (2009-2013)
 * Daniel Pilon (2010-2012)
 * Jean-Denis Giguère (2011-2013)

Areas for Improvement

 * There continues to be growing interest for Open Source Geospatial software (and data) in Quebec, we had a great start in the past years and especially with our very successful Rendez-vous OSGeo-Quebec in 2010, and now that we set the bar high we need to keep the momentum going.

Opportunities to Help

 * Rendez-vous OSGeo Quebec 2012 offers lots of opportunities for people interested in contributing:
 * Join the organizing committee
 * Answer the upcoming call for presentations and share your work with your peers
 * Help with specific tasks
 * Register for the event and join us in Saguenay in October!

Outlook for 2012

 * The main activity of 2012 will be the Rendez-vous OSGeo-Quebec 2012 (October 17-18)
 * We will also continue to hold local meetings ("5 à 7") around the province with 2-3 15 minute presentations each time