Talk:Local Chapter Guidelines

Review

As posted by FrankW to International-Discuss and the board list. Please send all major edits on this page also to mailto:international-discuss@osgeo.org.

Concerns and Sggestions

• Local chapter does not need to have a voting member of OSGeo involved

Suggestion to have 2-3 "levels" of chapter.

Level one

does not need to have any "official" existance

• mailing list
• wiki pages

Category

Working Group

Interest Group

Level two

Official existance

reports to the board

no OSGeo funding or management

• mailing list
• wiki pages
• web pages
• Documents directory
• SVN(?)

Category

Project

Level three

Official Organization in the country where it is formed

own chapter board

no OSGeo oversight of finances

• bank account
• funding and management
• local conferences

Groups working on building some momentum to form a chapter (level 1) might start in category 1, and might never get past that level if there is no need.

--Arnulf Christl 17:06, 5 June 2006 (CEST)

3) I foresee some local chapters that are essentially very local "social

   and support" groups.  For instance, the mooted "OSGeo Ottawa Chapter".
   Such chapters would be focused around a local group that meets regularly
   as opposed to a "language or national" based group that might not actually
   meet in person frequently.

4) Generally I think OSGeo needs to ensure that local chapters are

   behaving in a manner congruent with the OSGeo mission, and not
   otherwise bringing the foundation into disrepute, but beyond that
   we shouldn't need to interfere much.

I do like the idea of language based chapters acting as an advocate for translation into their language.