We’re out mapping again TONIGHT! Join us for the next London summer event in Victoria area. It’s also quite close to Westminster area. We’re starting outside Westminster cathedral in fact. So we should get some people from government involved, or some cops from scotland yard perhaps.

The last thing we did was the OpenStreetMap aniversary party. Sadly I missed it, but it looks like fun was had, and maybe Grant’s email campaign attracted some new faces?

The last thing we did which I was at, was a mapping evening around the area south of Baker Street, starting from a little park called Paddington Square Gardens I met with Roger the bus driver and Nick the architect and we went on a look around the area. OSM mapping has taken me to new and interesting parts of London many times before, and this was no exception. The park itself was a new one on me, but also we found various little rows of frightfully smart shops e.g. Chiltern Street is full of wedding dress shops. And there’s a good bit of out-of-date bing imagery here due to a recent demolition.

Nick was a new face, while Roger the bus driver has been along to our events before, and was showing us his military efficiency paper-mapping approaches.

Also in the pub…

We had various dicussions on various tables, none of which I wrote down unfortunately. Andy was hatching some ambitious plans to motivate more exhaustive mapping of suburbs, by laying some easter eggs to find. So if you happen to add a particular test building into OpenStreetMap with address data, then you win something. There would be several (or many) of these test buildings around London’s suburbs, which would have to be known to the system. This means they would have to be mapped by the organisers, without actually being mapped if you see what I mean. It would take some doing, but hopefully less doing than the actual mapping of the whole of London’s suburbs (which is a lot of doing). I think it could be fun, but I’ve tended to prioritise my detailed mapping efforts (and ecouraged others to) in central London. And even with this modest (!) aim, we’re not succeeding very quickly. There are plenty of buildings and addresses not mapped yet within the centre (the congestion charging zone say). …but it would be good to have a renewed mapping focus led by somebody.

More photos from both me and Alex

So tonight…. Lovely weather for a spot of sunny evening mapping! We’ll be discussing mapping ideas in the pub again no doubt, also discussing who to vote for in the foundation board elections.

…and I have an exciting thing to show people!

All the details of tonights event are on the wiki. Head on down to Victoria, and bring a friend.