BCS President’s Report November 2012

Dear Members and Fellows,

This is my first monthly bulletin to you as your new President. Peter Jolly started the monthly report and I certainly valued it as a way of keeping in touch with what was going on within the Society and so I intend to continue in this tradition with a few little tweaks of my own.

For those of you who may be relatively new to the Society, or whom I have yet to meet at one of our many functions, I thought you might like to know a little more about me. I have worked for the Ministry of Defence for over 30 years and when I started my career in 1979 I said that when I became fed up with working with maps I would then know that it was time to move on. Well, I am still here and not in the least fed up! Maps have always fascinated me and I can remember at primary school when the class was told they could choose their favourite book for "quiet time" I always reached for an atlas. I have been involved with BCS since 1999 and I have spent the last 4 years as Chair of the Programme Committee. I come to the role of President with a sound grounding in both the Society and its Activities.

Our schools' initiative, "Restless Earth", which began in 2011 following on from a discussion of how best to take mapping out to schools, supports the current geography curriculum and is a very popular workshop for GCSE students. In November we delivered 2 workshops in 3 days, in Altrincham and Fleet and there are a further 6 planned for the remainder of the Academic Year.

http://www.gbsf.org.uk

I am pleased to announce that one of my final achievements as Programme Chair was to secure sponsorship from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation which was established as a result of a visit to London in 1983 by the late Ryoichi Sasakawa. The purpose of his visit was to meet a number of senior British figures to discuss the international situation and, in particular, UK - Japanese relations. 

It was agreed that it would be in the interest of both countries if more could be done to enhance mutual appreciation and understanding of each other's culture, society and achievements. We are delighted to have the Foundation as our prime sponsor for Restless Earth and look forward to working with them in the future.

A recent noteworthy item in the press has been the controversy over Sandy Island. Shown on Google Maps and nautical maps (sic) – I am sure you could hear the hydrographers shouting at the radio report "They're charts, not maps!" – it has been discovered, or rather not discovered, that it doesn't actually exist! Initially it was thought that perhaps it was simply a digitisation error, but it has since been identified on a 1908 chart in an Auckland museum. It has been reported that the island was the result of an error recorded in 1876 by the crew of the Velocity, a whaling ship, who reported a series of "heavy breakers" and some "sandy islets". This highlights the fact that you cannot always believe what you see on a map or a chart!

Sandy Island

This cartographic controversy also emphasises the point that I have made at several events, that cartography is as important now as it has ever been, if not more so in this era of Geographic Information Systems where software packages, designed by IT specialists, freely available on the internet, "make" your map for you with not a cartographic consideration or principle in sight, which can result in very poor quality products that betray the true essence of a good map. The Society needs to ensure that we reinforce the message that good design and presentation will significantly enhance a cartographic product and that bad design can often cast doubt on a perfectly accurate product that simply does not inspire confidence. Of course, the reverse is equally true, but that is another story!

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity in my first President's Bulletin to thank Peter Jolly for his Presidency over the past 2 years. During that time our membership has continued to grow, which is no mean feat in this current climate. He has handed over a flourishing Society and I look forward to all the events planned for our 50th Anniversary in 2013. In advance, I encourage you all to attend as many events as you can as it promises to be a memorable year for The British Cartographic Society.

Best wishes,

Pete Jones MBE, CGeog, FRGS

BCS President’s Report October 2012

Looking back October has been a quiet month for all sorts of reasons. A number of our members attended the Frankfurt Book Fair and I’m looking forward to reading Alan Grimwade’s report on the event in the next edition of Maplines. The IMIA, International Map Industry Association, was IMTA so ‘Trade’ has been changed to ‘Industry’, had a stand there and a number of our members were involved.

Our Restless Earth Workshop at Sandhurst was first delayed 2 days and then cancelled by the school which is a great pity as our resources are limited. Going along with the cancellation theme we had to cancel the GIS SIG because of a lack of attendees! The lesson learnt here is that, in future, we need to ensure that a GIS SIG takes place alongside another event. However, the GIS SIG in October 2013 should be packed, there’s a clue below.

Peter Jones, DGC, and
new BCS President

On a cheerful note the AGM at the RAF Club on 31^st went as planned. I’m pleased to say that the Society continues to ‘buck the trend’ as our membership continues to grow and our finances are stable showing a small surplus over the last financial year. After the AGM I duly handed over the chain of office to Peter Jones from DGC our new President. After the reception we had an excellent presentation from Steven Feldman during which he described the development of web mapping over the years.  After another short break we had dinner which appropriately enough was held in the President’s room.

November starts with a Council meeting which is followed by 3 GEOData events in Glasgow, Bristol and Belfast where we have a BCS stand and a Restless Earth Workshop at Altincham Boys Grammar School.

Our plans for 2013, our 50^th Anniversary, are beginning to firm up and I’m sure you’ll be pleased to learn that Michael Palin and Jack Dangermond, President of Esri Inc, have both agreed to take part in the celebrations. Some 6 months ago we invited the SoC to join us at our 2013 Symposium in Leicester during September but I’m sorry to say that they have declined our offer. I remember the joint event we held in Reading some years ago and what a great success that was. I’d like to think there might be a change of heart.

So this is my last monthly email as your President. I hope they have helped to keep you up-to-date with the Society’s activities and events. It has been a great pleasure and privilege to be your President. I firmly believe that the Society has a great future promoting good cartography to those thousands of map makers many of whom might well benefit from a bit of advice. Thank you all for your help and support.  Finally, my Very Best Wishes to Peter Jones, our new President, who already has persuaded me to become chair of the Programme Committee.

Best Wishes

Peter Jolly
Past President

BCS President’s Report September 2012

I hope you all enjoyed the summer break. September started with a Council meeting in London on the 6^th. You will be pleased to know that the Society’s finances are sound and the membership is up again. We are looking at ways of reducing the overall costs of producing Maplines and we’ve decided to delay the re-branding process until 2014 but we will be updating the marketing material to reflect our 50^th Anniversary next year. The 2013 programme is coming together and there will be some exceptional events.

Summer Maplines

I hope you’ve all had the summer edition of Maplines by now – another excellent effort by the Maplines team. The cut-off date for articles for the winter edition is 16 October so please get those articles to the editors as soon as you can.

We had a stand at the recent AGI conference in Nottingham and our thanks go to our hosts the AGI and to Hugo Boylan and David Cooper who helped to man the stand. I think we should get a few more members following this event. The schools Restless Earth team have just got back from 2 days in Penarth. We did 2 sessions on the Wednesday and 2 on Thursday which meant that over 200 students took part in the exercise. We’ve been invited back next year so the staff and students must have been pleased. This time we had help from RGS ambassadors and students from the University of Glamorgan for which we are very grateful.

There is a GIS SIG meeting on 24 October which is being held at the British Computer Society offices, which are just off the Strand, and entitled, 'Experiences of working with commercial and open source data and software'. It promises to be a really useful and informative afternoon so do come and join us. Details, of course, are on the BCS website.  

On 26 October there is another schools Restless Earth Workshop this time in Sandhurst. The final event in October is our AGM, Lecture and dinner in the RAF Club on the 31^st, again details are on the website and Roger Hore will be sending out the paperwork shortly.

And lastly, if you heard the short piece I did with Eddie Mair on the Radio 4 pm programme you may have gathered that I had to use the atlas index to establish the precise location of Uttoxeter – my apologies to any members who live there!

And if you are short of ideas for a Christmas, well membership of BCS might be appreciated?

Best Wishes

Peter Jolly
President of The British Cartographic Society