Dear BeSpatial Members,

Well, another year is in the books. And while it feels good to slowly be returning to normal (post-CoVID), the operative word is “slowly”. We’re not quite out of the woods yet, as I can attest as I recover from a bout of CoVID in late November. Fortunately, it wasn’t severe, and other than a loss of smell and taste, it felt more like a mild cold. I’m therefore grateful for the vaccines I received and the continued watchfulness of our Public Health authorities.

It definitely felt good to have our first in-person Board meeting in late August since I joined BeSpatial. Many of my colleagues on the board were only known to me virtually. We convened to have a strategy meeting to review our mission and strategic objectives, and set some priorities for the organization.

One of those priorities was to continue to provide meaningful content to our members. Since our AGM, we staged 4 different webinars, including one on Airborne LiDAR, Addressing the Housing Affordability Crisis with Geospatial Data in September, Hamilton’s Enterprise GIS Roadmap in early November, and how the Broadband One Window online map-based platform supports the Province of Ontario’s Accelerated High-Speed Internet Program in late November.

I’m also thrilled to report that we have filled a vacancy in our team. The Board has welcomed James Dorland, OLS, CLS as Northern Director. James is based in Sudbury, and is actively working towards staging a BeSpatial event in the area in 2023.

As we look forward to the year ahead, the BeSpatial Board of Directors are already hard at work planning our 2023 AGM, on May 2-3. The theme we have selected is “BeCreative”. Creativity is intelligence having fun!

• Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way
• Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought

Our Geospatial Professional members are creating new insights every day with the work they perform, so this theme should provide a wealth of material. We are deeply appreciative of the sponsors that have already announced their support.

 An initial “Save The Date” e-mail was sent out in late September, and we have recently issued a call for presentations. We’ll once again have different streams, centered around Technical, Business Apps and Strategy, and reflecting the diverse roles our members occupy. In short, we’ll have something for everyone. Please send us your expression of interest to present and a brief abstract, as soon as possible.

Based on the feedback we received from our last Annual General Meeting, we took the decision to once again host the event virtually. While this may be disappointing to those that were looking forward to some real, face-to-face interaction (including myself), the fact is that we are able to reach a far greater number of our members this way. Many organizations, whether public or private, typically limit how many employees can attend such a live event. Those limitations don’t come into play for a virtual event. But we also recognize that many folks yearn for some in-person networking opportunities, and we have committed to holding a 1 day event in each of our three regions (Eastern, Western & Northern) in 2023.

Last but certainly not least, I’d like to acknowledge and thank all of the stakeholders that contribute to bringing value to this community of like-minded geo-professionals, from our executive director and board to our volunteers, members, sponsors and other supporting organizations. May this new year hold much health, happiness and prosperity for you and yours.

Sincerely,

Peter Hettstedt
President, BeSpatial