Rocky Mountain GITA Goals and Results for 2007
• Continue to provide educational and networking opportunities for our membership. Host at least three educational seminars and one social event during the year. This year we hosted or participated in: 1 seminar, 3 hands-on workshops, a career fair, GIS Day, GIS in the Rockies conference, a golf outing, and the Geospatial Holiday Social • Continue to grow the funding base for the scholarship program. Dedicate at least 50% of the proceeds from our events to fund the scholarship program. The chapter had a series of seminars and workshops this year. Proceeds from those events as well as income received from our participation in GIS in the Rockies are used to fund our scholarship program. In 2007 these efforts provided about $4000 which will be used to fund our scholarship program. • Improve the Chapter website by appointing a web liaison to work with GITA on updating and improving the chapter web pages. Place additional information and more communication items on the website. The chapter chose to have the President act as the web liaison for updating and improving the chapter web pages. In addition, each event had a point person that worked with GITA Staff to post registration and event information to the chapter web pages. • Keep our scholarship program active by providing at least 4 scholarships to education institutions within our Rocky Mountain region. In 2007, the Rocky Mountain chapter provided 5 scholarships for $1,000 each. The scholarships were awarded to the University of Wyoming, New Mexico State, Mesa State, Metropolitan State College, and University of Colorado – Denver. • Continue to promote membership in GITA by highlighting the benefits at all events as well as offering GITA corporate staff the opportunity to present membership material at our events. The Board promotes GITA membership at all events. Listed below are some of the ways we promote membership:
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We have membership materials available at all of our events. We invite GITA staff to make a short presentation about member benefits and GITA events at our local chapter events. We offer member discount pricing at local chapter events.
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Provided a free booth to GITA at the GIS in the Rockies conference.
Provide visibility to previous scholarship recipients. Invite them to attend and present at our events. We extended an invitation to all our scholarship recipients to attend the career fair that was organized by RM-GITA. We also invited them to present at GIS in the Rockies.
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Continue to improve GIS in the Rockies. Work on hosting a pre or post – conference event as well as improve the content of the RM-GITA sponsored track. The chapter worked to strengthen our track as well as the general program at GIS in the Rockies by recruiting specific papers and speakers. The technology panel was organized and moderated by Cherie Jarvis, 2008 RM GITA President. The technology panel brought together six industry leaders to address the topic of Service Oriented Architecture as well as topics and questions from the audience.
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Continue or expand our relationships with other local Geospatial related societies. We continued to work with and expand our relationships with other local Geospatial related societies. We were one of 6 sponsoring societies for the 20th Annual GIS in the Rockies conference. It is a joint effort of ACSM, ASPRS, GIS Colorado, GITA, PLSC, and URISA. We also participated in a joint Holiday Social that was hosted by GITA, Rogues, and URISA. New joint efforts for 2007 included sponsoring the GIS Day activities at DRCOG. This allowed us another venue to promote GITA membership and RM GITA chapter activities.
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Expand our educational outreach by attending at least one college or university function to promote GITA student memberships. Emily Drummond, an at-large chapter board member attended the Society of American Foresters Student Chapter meeting at Colorado State University. The attendance was good with several students interested in GITA and GIS in the Rockies. Emily discussed how they could become involved with the chapter activities such as volunteering for GIS in the Rockies. This was a very successful event and one that we would like to continue in the future. We were also approached about starting a student chapter at University of Denver. We put the student chapter on hold pending additional discussions with GITA Staff and possible student chapter guidelines.
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Develop a theme for the year and create a series of event to promote the theme to aid the planning a promotion process. This year we hosted 1 seminar and 3 hands-on workshops focusing on internet applications. We hosted a seminar in March focusing on ESRI’s ArcExplorer. In July and August we hosted two hands-on workshops that focused on Google Earth and KML. Our last hands-on workshop was held as a pre-conference workshop for GIS in the Rockies. This last workshop focused on MapGuide. Having a theme made picking topics and creating the events for the year easier.