Winners have been selected for the top prizes for the 2019 CT Maps Competition. The top story maps in the middle and high school divisions will now go on to compete in Esri’s national competition for a chance to win a trip to the 2019 Esri UC in San Diego. Congratulations to all contestants! Be sure to check out this year’s top story maps and learn more about this exciting opportunity for teens and teachers.
The next CT GIS Network meeting will be held on Friday March 29th at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) in the Sprague-Carleton room located inside the Student Union from 8:30am – 12:30pm.
8:30 – 9:00 Networking
9:00 – 9:05 Introduction
9:05 – 9:25 Art van Meeteren, New England Institute of Technology
9:25 – 9:35 Mike Towle, WESTCOG
9:35 – 9:45 Break
9:45 – 10:00 Steering Committee Elections
10:00 – 10:30 John Guszkowski and Mark Goetz re: Connecticut SB 550, An act concerning geographic Information Systems
10:30 – 11:30 Neil MacGaffey, NSGIC
11:30 – 11:40 Cori Grainger, Yale University
11:40 – 11:50 Bryce Mase, ECSU
11:50 – 12:00 Isabelle Smith, Conn College
12:00 – 12:30 Committee Updates
The Steering Committee has the following open roles. If you have ever considered joining this group of committed individuals, this is a great opportunity to fulfill that desire! You can nominate yourself or a willing colleague during the meeting!
| Role | 2018 candidate | 2019 |
| President | Steven Birney | open |
| Vice President | Cary Chadwick | open |
| Secretary | Mark Hoover | open |
| Private | Kristen LaBrie | open |
| Regional | Carl Zimmerman | open |
| Member At large | Dan Bourret | open |
| Member At large | Jason Courter | open |
| Member At large | Kevin Dunkin | open |
| Member At large | Steven Birney | open |
| Member At large | Mark Hoover | open |
| Member At large | Meredith Metcalf | open |
| Member At large | Kristen Ponak | open |
| Member At large | Erik Snowden | open |
The next CT GIS Network meeting will be held on Friday December 14th at the Metropolitan District (MDC) 231 Brainard Road in Hartford, CT 8:30am – 12:30pm.
Agenda:
8:30 – 9:00: Networking
9:00 – 9:15: Introduction / Welcome
9:15 – 9:30: Committee Updates
Standards – Mark Goetz, MetroCOG
Communications – Steven Birney, Norwalk
Education – Cary Chadwick, UConn CLEAR
Data Acquisition Advocacy – Erik Snowden, CRCOG
9:30 – 10:00: Urban Tree Mapping Project – A.I. Prince Technical High School, Hartford
10:00 – 10:30: A Status Update on Proposed Statewide 2019 Orthoimagery – Eric Lindquist, OPM
10:30 – 10:45: Break
10:45 – 11:15: South Windsor Address Points – Thad Dymkowski, Town of South Windsor
11:15 – 12:00: Locusview GPS Asset Management
12:00 – 12:30: Education, Standards, Data Acquisition Advocacy & Communications Committee Breakout Sessions
We Need Your Help!
The Connecticut GIS Network is conducting this survey in order to better inform policy makers of the importance of Aerial Basemapping to a variety of organizations. The survey is intended to identify which municipalities or other organizations have funded and conducted aerial basemapping data collection project(s) at a municipality scale or larger extent. We are interested in orthophotography, Lidar, photogrammetric basemapping, oblique aerials, and any other aerial based data acquisition projects. This will help aid in bolstering needs for potential future statewide aerial basemapping projects. Even if your agency has not conducted such projects, it is important to know this as well.
Please take the survey and pass it on to anyone who might have input to share.
Please let us know if you have any questions or if you are having troubles with the survey. Please feel free to contact myself or anyone else on the Steering Committee if you have questions.
On May 6th the Connecticut GIS Network received a letter from the State of Connecticut Office of Policy and Management indicating that the Connecticut GIS User Network will be officially consulted for recommendations in an advisory capacity for statewide GIS matters. Specifically, this will initially include assisting in revising and updating the former GIS Council’s Strategic and Business Plans, updating the former GIS Council’s Cadastral data standard and the development of an address point data standard. The U2U Executive and Steering Committees have been involved in the discussions leading to this step and have begun making organizational changes to accommodate this important charge such as the formation of three additional Committees: Education, Standards and Communications. We are also looking to expand the membership of the Steering committee to better reflect our membership and statewide GIS needs.
Please join us at our next meeting to hear about the next steps in this process as well as provide your knowledge and experience in developing the policies and standards that are needed to help develop statewide GIS policies, datasets and resources that are important to you and your organization. There will be an opportunity for you to volunteer you time, knowledge and experience in making this a reality.
Mark Goetz