AGI Cymru Calendar Updates

AGI Cymru is continually working to promote and enhance Geographic Information across the region, this year being no exception; organising a wealth of events, socials and networking opportunities.

After a successful Winter Cymru conference last year at the SWALEC Stadium Cardiff the venue has been booked again for this year with the conference set to go ahead on Tuesday 3^rd December 2013.  An exciting agenda of keynote speakers and presentations is currently being planned by the steering group.

As well as working to promote and raise attendance numbers at the conference, AGI Cymru are also continuing to promote Geographic Information across Wales; organising events, socials and networking opportunities. AGI Cymru will be running an expanded “Walk and Talk” event which will take place in Bangor on 8^th July. The KOREC Group will demonstrate the use of UAV, followed by a “walk and talk” associated around the theme of the new coastal path app. This will be followed by a social of “Geo-drinks” and a catch up with members of AGI old and new.   

The AGI steering group meeting will then take place in Bangor on 9^th July, the steering group gives Wales a voice to address specific issues relating to Wales and the people of Wales.  The steering group welcomes new members committed to sharing our vision and to move Geographic Information forward in Wales 

GeoPlace Award : Mapping the Tragedy

Phil Mountain, GIS Project Manager, Caerphilly County Borough

GeoPlace is the joint venture between the Ordnance Survey and local government that manages Britain’s definitive address database and associated spatial information.  Their annual Exemplar Awards recognise innovation, creativity, best practice, hard work and achievement.

While sitting in the audience during previous award ceremonies admiring the ingenuity on show, I'd never considered submitting anything on our behalf just thinking: “That's a good idea, wish I'd come up with something like that.”.

What changed this time and prompted me to enter was the nature of a project I’d just been involved in, it wasn’t a particularly large piece of work but it was a bit unusual so it might pique the judges’ curiosity.  It did and we won their 2012 Citizen Award.

A bit of background:  on the 14^th October 1913, four hundred and thirty nine miners and one rescuer died in an explosion at the Universal Colliery, Senghenydd.  Thirty of the miners were below the age of eighteen, two hundred and five women were widowed, and five hundred and forty-two children were left fatherless.  This was Britain’s most devastating mining accident.  Following the official inquiry, the mine owners’ culpability was recognised and they were fined £24 - five-pence-ha'penny for each life lost.

Earlier this year, the communities in the Aber Valley asked Caerphilly County Borough Council to create a website with a section devoted to the 1913 disaster to help them commemorate the centenary of the explosion.

The community hoped that, with the support of the National Assembly, this campaign would also provide the impetus for the establishment of a Welsh National Mining Memorial at the site of the Universal to honour the many, many thousands of individuals who perished keeping our industries running, our homes warm and our ships afloat.

At the top of the website content list were photographs and documents not seen elsewhere or hidden in archives.  As the council’s map ‘expert’, it was left to me to come up with historic maps, aerial photographs and underground plans.

I also wanted to create some original content and this is where the idea of matching the victims’ addresses to our Local Land & Property Gazetteer emerged.  It seemed novel, nothing like it appeared to have been attempted before and, anyway, every website benefits from having a map.

The names and addresses of the victims were listed in the official inquest and inquiry documents and were available in a digital but unstructured format.  Using simple database tools, the addresses were tidied up and matched to the Council's LLPG.  The LLPG match also revealed that a number of addresses recorded during the original inquest process were incorrect and had lain unnoticed for a century: a miner living at '30 Woodland Terrace' in a street of 22 houses instead of number 13; one at '42 Kingsley Terrace' which has only ever had 27 properties; another at number '50 Cenydd Terrace' when the numbering only reaches 37.  Simple transcription errors like '104 High Street' instead of '104 Commercial Street', 'Church Street' instead of 'Church Road, and several others. These anomalies were dealt with where possible using the on‑line version of the 1911 Census.  Now equipped with the UPRN and map reference, it was possible to visually represent where the miners had lived at the time of the disaster.  When these were plotted and converted from BNG to WGS84, they could then be used to create an interactive Google map which was incorporated into the website. (http://your.caerphilly.gov.uk/abervalleyheritage/1913-pit-disaster/mapping-tragedy).

Mapping the homes of the victims draws attention to the scale of the disaster.  The striking impression is the density of distress, house after house, street after street and perhaps unexpected was the distance some men travelled to work - from as far as Cardiff docklands.

There wasn’t anything groundbreaking here.  There weren't any particular technical difficulties; there were only four hundred or so addresses to match, nothing like the tens of thousands of records we normally georeference.  The interesting thing from a data point of view, I think though, is the historical aspect.  We're used to matching our LLPGs to contemporary databases but there’s also scope for doing the same to any old historic property data, which we may have lying around.  BBC4 recently showed a series based on Charles Booth's late nineteenth century street‑by‑street, house‑by‑house poverty maps of London (http://booth.lse.ac.uk/) which proved how entertaining and useful old spatial data can be.  This type of social history is very popular but also has value and intelligence (the London Blitz map http://www.bombsight.org is another fantastic example).

The website was launched by the First Minister, Carwyn Jones, on 28^th June 2012 and for the first time, the community now has a method of broadcasting their story and publicising the memorial campaign.  Within the Council, the useful upshot is that it again highlights how crucial and useful the Gazetteer is to any project which involves geography and precise location information.

For this small community, like many others in Wales, these memories still have resonance.  The pit winding gear continued to loom over the village until 1963 when they were finally demolished; the shafts weren't filled and capped until 1979 - generation after generation was reminded everyday of the tragedy their families had suffered.  So far, the Aber Valley Heritage Group has raised £100,000 towards the memorial.

From a personal standpoint, I was delighted to be involved.  I remember my grandmother telling me how her father, who himself was seriously injured in an underground mining accident, had walked over the mountains from his pit three valleys away to help with recovery work at the Universal.

As a member of the first in five generations not to share the hazardous life of the collier, something my forebears would probably be delighted in; it’s been a pleasure to play a very minor part in helping those august men and women of the Aber Valley achieve the recognition they deserve.

Phil Mountain, GIS Project Manager, Caerphilly County Borough

Location Wales 2012

It was my privilege again this year to chair AGI Cymru, bringing my tenure as chair to an end. It has been a pleasure to contribute to the group as chair for the past two years and network with AGI steering group members who always show enthusiasm and excitement for all things spatial. It has been a really enjoyable personal learning experience and several spin off projects have resulted from this professional network of people.

As usual, the thrust of our efforts in the latter half of 2012 has been towards the winter conference which this year moved to a new venue at the SWALEC stadium. The new venue along with a top line up of speakers contributed to an excellent conference with a packed agenda. We also had excellent representation from a great range of exhibitors. An enormous thanks to all who contributed.

If you‘d like to catch up on any presentations you missed during the day, or if you couldn’t make the event at all, they are available from the AGI website here.

As well as highlighting an excellent conference, the other reason for writing this blog was to mention the AGI volunteer of the year award. At this years conference we had the pleasure of the company of Peter Capell (AGI Chief Executive) who presented AGI Cymru’s Sue Beetlestone with the award at the conference opening (pictured below).

Sue commented on the award : "I am honoured to be awarded the AGI " Volunteer of the Year" Award for 2012. I feel passionately about the value of Geographic Information and about the importance of the role that the AGI plays in promoting its’ use. In addition to my own fairly long association with the AGI, my former colleagues at Powys County Council have made significant contributions to the work of the AGI." Its great that Sue has received this recognition for her years of hard work, the award is well deserved, so congratulations to Sue from all at AGI Cymru.

On reflection over the past two years, it has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience, with minor frustrations, thankfully stemming from a lot of enthusiasm at meetings but not enough time to complete tasks…..if only there were more hours in the day ! I look forward to continuing my support to AGI Cymru in 2013 and beyond.

Geraint Davies
(AGI Cymru Chair, 2012 – 2013)

A Steer on the AGI Geocommunity from the Steering Group

This year a number of the steering group team were able to attend the annual AGI Geocommunity Event. It’s the main event of the year where all the AGI sigs and community come together to debate, discuss, catch up, gossip and talk all things geo for two days (two and an evening if you come to the ice-breaker).

Below are some thoughts from the team on their experiences and thoughts as we move towards the annum Welsh event this year

We have split this down into three sections – those who were first timers, some views from the regulars and also a different perspective from Charlie as a speaker. Thanks to all the team who volunteered their comments!! We hope you enjoy them.

The Newbies View

Matthew Yandell-Thomas, GIS Analyst, Environment Systems

“This was my first AGI conference. I thought the experience was a good one as I was able to put faces to names that I had heard mentioned around the office. 

The talks I attended were pretty good and I found the keynote talks by Andrew Watson from the Metropolitan Police about planning the Olympics and by Tim Stoner about the flow of cities particularly interesting.”

Geraint Davies, AGI Cymru Chair, 2011 - 2012.

"This is the first time I have attended the annual AGI conference, and I thought it was excellent. The range of speakers and content meant that I was often flipping a coin in order to decide which presentation to attend. Sadly I did not have time to attend the pre conference ice breaker or the meal after the first day's activities, but will definitely make time next year, as it sounded like excellent fun and an additional opportunity to build on existing networks. All in all an excellent event, professionally organized and good value."

The Regular’s View

David Downing, Government Team, ESRI;

“Having attended a number of AGI Annual Conferences over the years, I always come to the next expecting it to be the same as the year before – however there’s always something new to pick-up on and ‘old’ friends, colleagues and customers to meet. The conference in 2012 was no exception to this; again proving the value of this annual get-together for those involved in all things GI whether an application user, developer or supplier. The move by AGI in  2013 towards more regional events is a great idea but should not replace the annual conference where so many people come together for a couple of days to exchange ideas and views.

Hopefully the AGI Cymru annual conference on the 4^th December will be just as rewarding to attend – with Esri UK having the pleasure of being a major sponsor again this year.”

Sue Beetlestone, Senior Corporate GIS Officer & PSMA Principal Contact, Powys County Council;

“Having attended Geocommunities (and their predecessors) over a good number of years I was looking forward keenly to this years offering. It did not disappoint!

It was fortunate that I was able to take a colleague from Powys along this year and we were able to cover more of the presentations which caught our interest – we were still spoilt for choice though. Altogether it lived up to the usual standards with presentations to inform and inspire us. The plenearies this year were exceptionally good – as befitted the Olympic spirit pervading the rest of the country. Geocommunities never fails to send me back to work full of ideas and enthusiasm for this great “Geoworld” we work in.”

Dave Roberts, Cartographics, WAG

 I have been to the AGI Geocommunities events for a number of years, but this was my 1st ice breaker, what a great way to start the conference. Instead of setting off at 5:30 and beating my way around the Midlands during the morning rush and feeling exhausted before the days presentations had even started, I arrived the evening before only having to fight the traffic for the last few miles into Nottingham city centre.

 The evenings entertainment started with a cheeky geobeer before dinner, then into a quiz that made Mastermind and University Challenge seem like an Under 8s quiz night. Before the dining was finished the challenge was on to build the tallest possible free standing tower from spaghetti and marshmallows, the table I was on soon conceded as it became clear that the team consisting of the telecom engineers from China were at a clear advantage (though I'm sure the mobile masts they construct use materials a bit more robust than pasta and marshmallow!) as the tower they were constructing soon approached 5 feet in height.

As dinner finished talk inevitably moved into the geoworld (there were over a hundred geographers in the room) and some useful networking was carried out, before a final social flourish. The socialising for some went on well into the night and early hours, but I took the opportunity of a night away from the kids to get a whole nights sleep knowing that the following night when the rest of the Geocommunity turned up was going to require even more "networking".

 The next 2 days passed in a whirl of presentations, meetings, workshops and networking. I came away feeling inspired to do things better in my own job, justified that we doing things the right way and that the AGI is helping make the connections to make my job easier.

  I look forward to December 4th at the SWALEC Stadium in Cardiff, to see how we put a bit of a Welsh spin on the Geocommunity and geobeers the night before at Zero Degrees....”

The Presenter’s View

Charlie Gilbert, Business Solutions Director, Dotted Eyes

“I have attended AGI for a number of years and this year I was really pleased to be selected to deliver a presentation in the social geography track on the second day. The title of my presentation was something that really interests me – how we all interact and connect as a “geo” community – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs and even events such as the AGI – the melting pot of communication!

I had the full intention of carving out a significant amount of time to write my presentation but the time drifted towards the event I became more and more nervous about the fact that I had to submit a paper and deliver a presentation with only a few weeks to go.

So one weekend, a few notes suddenly turned into a 3000 word paper. Heading back to Nottingham took me back to my University days where I studied Geography and did a Masters in GIS, and I even went back to my old halls as the event was hosted at the University’s impressive Conference facilities.

It was a really well run event with some great speakers, and a good opportunity to network and catch up with the AGI team, and my presentation appeared to go down well, especially as Dave and Geraint were in the room cheering me on.

I too particularly enjoyed the plenary presentations which were a mix of theory, technical progression and development, and also some thought provoking sessions which challenged you. It was also good to see that in the difficult economic climate, suppliers like ESRI are still making the investment and pushing the technical boundaries forward in terms of what you can do with GIS, rather than the same old stuff presented again year after year. This innovation was also matched in the projects people had implemented, showing that the industry isn’t standing still and resting on its laurels.

I really enjoyed Charles Kennelly’s presentation and I am looking forward to his presentation in Cardiff next week too. As I was delivering my presentation on the second of the two days, it meant I didn’t take part in any festivities in the evening, so I’m looking to doing that part again next year.

Looking forward to a great 2013 year with AGI Cymru as I take the helm from Geraint as Chair.”

Forestry Commission has formally launched its DataDownload service

The Forestry Commission has formally launched its DataDownload service, which enables users of geographic information systems (GIS) to download spatial datasets directly from its website. Users previously had to ask Commission staff to manually prepare and download datasets for them.

The site holds over 60 datasets from the Forestry Commission  14 of which are Wales based, Including the Ancient Woodland Inventory 2011.

You can access the page at http://www.forestry.gov.uk/datadownload

Welcome to the first AGI Cymru Blog

Welcome to the first AGI Cymru Blog. AGI Cymru (AGIC) is a regional sub group of the Association of Geographic Information that I have been involved with for several years as a corresponding and attending member. This year I’ve had the pleasure of leading the group as chair. AGIC is composed of AGI members from public and private sector organisations who are based in Wales or are conducting their business in Wales.

We get together every two months to discuss events, plan activities and take actions in relation to our role which you can read about here. We are a like minded group of people who are striving to promote location information at every opportunity and would like to see GI in the mainstream within Wales and beyond. One of the ways we are doing this is through our strategy document Location Wales which we are monitoring and promoting.

Each year our work culminates in a Winter conference, which in 2012 is being held on 4^th December at the SWALEC stadium Cardiff. We also have several social events planned, so keep an eye on our calendar for more details.

Our recent meeting in July was enhanced by a presentation on laser scanners and there use in BIM’s, as well as our usual social “Beer and Maps” evening which is becoming an annual North Wales event. A fantastic informal networking event open to all.

You can expect a number of postings through this Blog relating to the above strategy document including case studies and news and views from AGIC members. We always welcome new members, so please get in touch through our website if you would like to be involved.