Local Chapters and Communities Working Group/Meeting minutes/2026-09-10
Meeting started at 14:09 UTC.
Attendance
Present
- Anisa - IT (joined 37')
- Eugene - PH
- Héctor - ES
- Laura - Board liaison (also KE)
- Michael
Not present
- Maggie - US (with apologies)
Administrative
- August minutes: Local Chapters and Communities Working Group/Meeting minutes/2026-08-06
- Approved
Main agenda
Local Chapters and Communities Congress
- Brief report from the recently State of the Map 2026 Congress:
- Over 500 people attended SotM; 30-40 people attended the Congress
- Slides used: https://www.canva.com/design/DAHRhpgNPXo/k5jiKZFLU5Px2UaoQyZV8A/edit
- Facilitated by Maggie, Michael, Michael, Geoffrey, Laura
- WG members shared about past and future LCCWG activities (Microgrants, 31 Day OSM Challenge, OSM Geo Week)
- Discussions were on various topics especially those discussed during the March Congress
- WG members invited participants to next virtual congress in March 2027; created a spreadsheet for interested attendees
- Michael observed that not many people knew about Local Chapters and the LCCWG
- Laura shared that the communities-related pages on the OSM Wiki are not really updated
- Pages that may need updating:
- TODO: LCCWG agreed to take on updating wiki pages related to LCs and communities
- Suggested to point the Foundation/Local_Chapters page to the one on the OSM Foundation website
- TODO: LCCWG agreed to review and maybe update https://www.openstreetmap.org/communities
- TODO: Add LC application checklist items related to updating these pages when an LC is approved
- Laura said that there was also a discussion on platforms and tech that communities use
- TODO: LCCWG to create a blog post introducing the LCCWG
Local Chapter applications
- Colombia
- Blog post still on draft status
- OSMF Board approved Dani's attendance to SotM Latam for Colombia LC agreement signing
- Catalan
- Half of the LC agreement signing was held at SotM 2026; chapter needs to sign and send the agreement back to OSMF
- Blog post yet to be created
- Spain
- Eugene asked some questions including a typo in the Bylaws, and confirming whether the decision to become a Local Chapter was approved by the general assembly
- Community consultation can probably proceed
- Pakistan
- OSMF received an email from Asad Khan on Aug 31
- TODO: Send a reply similar to the Middle East inquiry
- Sierra Leone
- Board received interest from Tommy Charles of Sierra Leone to become LC, but government requires an agreement of some sort with OSMF
- Héctor said that this is similar to that of the Catalan chapter: they were having issues before applying as LC for the registration, because of the same issues as Sierra Leone faces, the use of OSM trademark. How it got solved is that the LWG proposed and accepted a temporary name usage, under the condition that they would run for LC within a year.
- Ethiopia
- No update yet; Eugene to get back
Microgrants
- Current notes by Laura: https://hackmd.io/@laura-mugeha/Hy5eAAjrGl
- Geoffrey created the following OSM Wiki pages:
- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Microgrants/2026_Community_Microgrants#Start_an_application
- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Template:2026_Community_Microgrants_Proposal
- TODO: Create a blog post announcing the start of Microgrant applications
- LCCWG agreed to extend application deadline to October 7
- TODO: Eugene to ask Laura for help with coordinating with Roland (by email!) regarding processing of funds transfer
31 Day OSM Challenge
- For reference, OSM Poland's Maptober repo: https://github.com/openstreetmap-polska/maptober
- Draft task list: https://hackmd.io/@lccwg/rJlAxMMLGl
- TODO: Create a blog post announcing the project
- Do we reach out to CWG? LCCWG can publish the blog post but CWG can advise on how to promote more widely
Any other business
- No other business
Next meeting
- Currently scheduled for October 1, 14:00 UTC
Meeting ended at 15:03 UTC.