PRESS RELEASE: BCS Symposium

Mapping Chiefs Unite to Discuss Future of Mapping at BCS Symposium

For what is thought to the first time ever, the heads of the five British Mapping and Charting agencies will come together to discuss the future of mapping in front of an audience of cartographic professionals and enthusiasts. This keynote presentation – ‘probably the most important conference session held in the UK, this year, on the future of mapping’ – acts as a headline for the British Cartographic Society’s 50th Annual Symposium. Part of a year-long celebration of mapmaking the theme of the anniversary Symposium is ‘Today, Tomorrow and Beyond’ reflecting the Society’s forward looking vision for the future of cartography, and the event is being held at the historic Hothorpe Hall, Leicestershire from 3-6 September 2013.

“In our 50^th Anniversary year it is a pleasure to return to Leicestershire as this was where the first Symposium was first held back in 1964,” commented Mr Peter Jones MBE, President of the British Cartographic Society. “It is also a huge honour to welcome senior executives from the five British Mapping and Charting agencies to discuss how their organisations have changed over the past fifty years and highlight what they see as the key elements of the future of mapping. This is the centrepiece of our Anniversary Symposium and emphasises how important maps are today in our rapidly changing and increasingly digital society.”

Dr Vanessa Lawrence CB, Director General and Chief Executive of the Ordnance Survey joins Paul Hancock, Director of the Defence Geographic Centre, John Wilkinson, Chief Executive Land and Property Services, Rear Admiral Ian Moncrieff, CBE, Chief Executive of United Kingdom Hydrographic Office and Professor John Ludden, Executive Director of the British Geological Survey for a session titled ‘The Future for the UK World Leaders in Mapping’.

The BCS Anniversary Symposium will follow the successful format of events developed over the past fifty years including formal presentations, hands on workshops and lively debates. The event kicks off with a number of Special Interest Group meetings, including the Map Curators, GIS and Design groups, followed by the biannual Helen Wallis Memorial Lecture. Nick Millea, Map Librarian at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford will present ‘Today, tomorrow and beyond: can the past project cartography into the future?’ Other sessions during the three day event will include ‘Mapping technologies for tomorrow’, ‘Cartography and Geospatial Intelligence’ and ‘Mapping for the challenges of tomorrow’ with contributions from the Unites States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, Glasgow School of Art and the British Antarctic Survey.

The 2013 BCS Annual Symposium is kindly sponsored by the Society’s corporate members Cadcorp, ESRI (UK), Harper Collins, Leica Geosystems, Newgrove, Ordnance Survey, Star-Apic, The GeoInformation Group and Victoria Litho and is organised on behalf of the Society by Training4GIS.

To find out more about this and other events in the 50th Anniversary Calendar follow the society on: twitter @bcsweb, facebook https://www.facebook.com/bcsweb or visit the webpage www.cartography.org.uk/symposium  

A booking form for the symposium can be downloaded: http://www.cartography.org.uk/downloads/mapping2013/Mapping2013.pdf

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Notes to editors

About the British Cartographic Society

The British Cartographic Society promotes the art and science of cartography through awards, events, publications and special interest groups. 2013 marks the 50^th Anniversary of the Society, a registered charity, and is being celebrated with a year-long programme of promotional, lecture, social and outreach events.  The 2013 calendar of events is sponsored by society corporate members Cadcorp, ESRI (UK), Harper Collins, Leica Geosystems, Newgrove, Star-Apic, The GeoInformation Group and Victoria Litho.

www.cartography.org.uk

BCS President's Report May 2012

When I was thinking about what I could include in this report my first thought was that not a lot has happened in May but actually it’s been quite busy. BCS was represented at the GEOData event in Dublin on 1 May and this was noteworthy as we are thinking of running a BCS Better Mapping event there later in the year. It could be an important area for attracting new members.

Another successful Restless Earth Schools Workshop was held in Stoke-on-Trent on 9 May and some more of our members, who hadn’t been involved before, took part. We had a stand at the Esri UK one day Conference in London on 15 May and there was another GEOData event in Manchester on 17 of the month and on the 28^th  we had a UKCC meeting in London.

Recently I had a week in Redlands at the Esri HQ and Ken Field and Linda Beale very kindly hosted a party so that I could say ‘thank you’ to all my friends there who have helped me over the last 15 years – there are about 6 BCS members over there now. On Tuesday, 29^th I’m off to Dresden for the IMTA(EAME) Conference. There’ll be quite a few BCS members there too and, of course, the next ICA Conference is in Dresden in August 2013, our 50^th Anniversary year. We hope to share a stand there with Maney’s.

You’ll be interested to know that we are in the initial stages of re-branding BCS which we hope to have completed by the end of the year ready for 2013. Whatever happens it’s bound to be controversial, there’s bound to be lots of ‘huffing and puffing’ but we need to do it to help with our recruiting drive and give BCS a ‘fresh face’.

Our next big event is the BCS Symposium, 13-15 June. There is still time to book your place and I’m delighted to say that the numbers are up on last year. On Wednesday morning there will be a Restless Earth Workshop for schools in the area and the GIS SIG meets that afternoon. Just a further reminder, the exhibition opens at 5pm on Wednesday 13 June with a drinks reception and is followed by a talk from Claire Dobbin, Head Curator of London Transport Museum which promises to be fascinating. A very special ‘thank you’ to our Symposium sponsors for their support: Cadcorp, Esri UK, Leica Geosytems, Europa Technologies, Victoria Litho, Newgrove, Ordnance Survey, Star-Apic and Global Mapping.

After the Symposium there is a Better Mapping event in Leeds on 19 June and a Better Mapping 2 in London on 26 June followed by a BCS Council meeting in London on 28 June. This Council meeting will be preceded as usual by a Programme Committee meeting which this time will be focusing on the 2013 BCS 50^th Anniversary events. It’s only 7 months away.

Let’s hope this sunny weather continues.

Best Wishes

Peter Jolly

President of The British Cartographic Society

BCS President’s Report December 2011

The month began with the London Mapping Festival, Mapping Showcase event at the Emirates stadium. There must have been about 400 attendees and we, BCS, had a stand. There was a lot of interest shown in the work of the Society so I’m hoping we’ll make that target of 100 new members in 2011. I’ll let you know.

Just to take a step backwards I mentioned in my last report that there was a meeting in Vienna of ICA chairs and vice-chairs of Commissions with the ICA Executive. I gather that meeting was constructive and that there were 7 representatives from the UK out of a total of approximately 50 attendees.  No doubt there will be a full report from David Forrest at the next meeting of the UKCC on 10 January.

Over the last couple of weeks Mary Spence has done a great job updating and creating new marketing material. So there is a new BCS Awards flyer, the first flyer is available for the Symposium in June and there is also a ‘call for papers’ for that event on the website. There is now a Restless Earth flyer too and finally my words for the ‘Why Join BCS’ flyer have been considerably enhanced with the addition of paragraph headings and photographs. All these documents are available for download from the BCS website.

If you wish to go to the UK GEOForum Lecture on 26 January at the RICS in London which is being given by Mike Parker, author of ‘Map Addict’ it would be a good idea to register as soon as you can as seating space at the RICS is limited and this is likely to be a very popular event. Check out our website for more info and to book

Finally may I wish you a Very Happy Christmas and if you are in need of a smile try: http://www.icq.com/greetings/cards/66/

Best Wishes

Peter Jolly

BCS President

BCS Symposium 2011 - The Power of the Image

After a successful three days at Shrigley Hall Hotel, Nr Macclesfield we're now almost recovered and settling back into not as sumptuous surroundings!


To start us off we held the Schools Workshop : Restless Earth for year 10 students from the local area. Following an astonishing amount of responses to attend we managed to facilitate two sessions about the Japanese Earthquake for a total of 12 schools! We hope they enjoyed it and we seem to have had some great feedback and a few calls for us to expand the session to the rest of their students... Well done team who organised that one, looks like we'll need a resource pack for the future. 
(Past review from 2010 available here)

Photography by Martin Lubikowski @MartinMLDesign


The GIS special interest group gathered in the afternoon to hear talks on 3D GIS - Exploring the capabilities of GIS for the visualisation of land, air, sea and subterranean environments from Google, British Geological Survey, Luciad, Seppe Cassetari from Geoinformation Group and Dr Kenneth Field from ESRI.
We've come away from it with a much more illuminated feeling of how such 3D GIS is used from below our feet, right up into the sky!

Source: www.luciad.com

More to follow on the rest of the Symposium shortly...

Reaching out to Schools

After some fantastic comments from the participants that came to the workshop in 2010, the BCS are running the Schools Workshop on the Wednesday morning of the next BCS Symposium in June for Year 10 students.

Restless Earth - Mapping Natural Disasters - FREE Workshop for Year 10 Students on Wednesday 8th June 2011
For more info and to apply for places : http://www.cartography.org.uk/schools
Parkside School attended in 2010 - see their write up here

With mapping becoming a part of everyday life, we should be encouraging the next generation to use it in more useful ways and showing them how beneficial such resources can be. The 2010 workshop focussed on the Haiti Earthquake Disaster and unfortunately with more flooding, and extreme weather events occurring all over the world then these natural disasters require more and more resources and sometimes in even more remote locations.
Check out this link and pan around  to see how comparison between past and present imagery is being used to see the devastating effect of the Queensland floods http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.472769,153.001559&z=21&t=k&nmd=20110113