Dear Mr Rapant,
I have pleasure to send you my paper and information that we can come on Monday morning and go back after the conference immediately. We can also pay all the accommodations.
Please to inform me where the conference will take place and what is it agenda.
With best regards
Edward Mecha
GISPOL
GISPOL ACTIVITIES
for the period between October 1996 and December 1998.
1. Introduction
GISPOL Association was founded in 1996 following efforts of the then Surveyor General of Poland, who had very good information about the worlds/ geographical information development trends and who predicted spontaneous development of non - professional initiatives in this domain. He tried to create a professional lobby against the various cultural, historical and technological influences on the use and development of information connected with space.
It was obvious that such development will take place, because of the quick pace of common computerisation and the organised multi-access to information in the form of Internet.
The various strategic activities of the surveyor authorities of that time, were meant to secure a highly professional level in the spatial information domain.
One of those activities was the formation of GISPOL Association which, thanks to the government recommendation, in a very short time was admitted to the European Union of GIS Organisations, EUROGI, representing Polish interests there.
Thanks to the active participation in the GIS international activities, it transfers the European experiences to the Polish ground and disseminates the Polish GIS Model in Europe.
It is necessary to emphasise clearly that Polish geodesy, thanks to a uniform reference system (frame of reference), thanks to country being densely covered with geodetic grid (networks), thanks to the uniform ground evidence and classification, thanks to country covered with big scale topographic maps and being covered by a fundamental map, including the unique utility network maps, and especially thanks to its modern geodetic and cartographic law, including the submission and transfer of geodetic works system, has had at its disposal at least till 31 December 1998, a model and unequalled system of spatial information. The system was a little bit disassembled during the last two years, but it still is of great value.
At present the main idea is to protect the functionality of GIS based on the real data, not on the approximate data, the dynamic GIS, not static one, GIS with the updated legal status, not only the general urban plan, this is the GIS we still have ready yet, but often we are not aware of that.
It is not true that geographic information systems are just being created, that they are a product of the last twenty years and relate to the computerisation process. Of course it holds true but in Polynesia countries, where the geographical information functionality was very poor, but the situation in Poland is totally different as such information has been collected there and resulted in obtaining relatively precise documentation.
GIS in the international terminology or SIT in Polish terminology, in their traditional forms have existed for hundreds of years, and recently only the digital – computer form was added to them. This form has set free the information system from being rigidly combined with the map scale, in which the information was presented; it eliminated the margin of error in the point or object location with which information, especially on the small scales, was connected.
This situation divided the world roughly into two groups of users: the first one where thanks to the advanced geodetic technology the information is connected with the real point, those are the cadastral countries, including Poland; and the second one where because of lack of historical traditions in measurement, the spatial information is revealed in the rough way: those are countries related to the United Kingdom and United States of America, the biggest developer and vendor of informative systems, which automatically promotes spatial conception created for local conditions.
Taking the above into consideration, I would like to come back to the sources of founding the Association.
The aims of GISPOL Association and the ways of their realisation were unambiguously given in paragraphs 7 and 8 of the charter.
Moreover the First General Assembly expressed its will in the ten-point resolution (published in Bulletin No 1) obliging the board to:
integrate LIS users and provide social advisory services for its optimisation,
counteract the dispersion of geodetic & cartographic resources
co-operate with Surveyor General of Poland, Minister of Finance, Minister of Justice and with managers of public utility networks to initiate LIS
join the EUROGI
popularise internal GIS solutions and protect Polish interests in this case
prefer supporting members
popularise the Association
promote uniform LIS all over the country
establish the pricing policy for LIS use
take the activities for establishing order in LIS elements to improve overall efficiency
2. Main activities
All these tasks and purposes described above the Board, which held 18 meetings, realised by:
organising 3 scientific – technical conferences
preparing presentations during 28 seminars
being admitted to EUROGI
taking part in 15 international conferences, 5 problem papers were delivered there
publishing 8 issues of the GISPOL quarterly
efficient carrying out of agreements connected with joining 2 scientific – research EU projects
submitting 15 letters to authorities ( 1 to the Speaker of the Parliament, 1 to Prime Minister, 3 to Deputy Prime Ministers, 7 to Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration Mr.Naglewski, and 3 to Surveyor General of Poland).
As of the date of the General Assembly (25 October 1996) the Association had 128 individual members and 14 supporting members. On 19 November 1998 the number of individual members was 144, but 21 of them, despite repeated reminders did not pay the member contributions and did not want to make contact which caused removing them from the list of members.
The list of supporting members increased to 26.
The activities concentrated mainly in three regional branches: Włocławek, Katowice, Olsztyn, whose seats we granted by NOT Włocławek, GEOBID Katowice, OPGK Olsztyn.
2.1 Board activities
The Board consisting of 5 persons was elected during the first meeting in Ciechocinek.
The Board held a total of 18 meetings, 8 in Warsaw, 3 in Włocławek, 2 in Pabianice and 1 each in Ciechocinek, Dębica, Katowice, Bełchatów and Olsztyn.
The club/s co-ordinators participated many times in the Board works: council, infrastructure and supporting members very often, particularly GEOBID headmasters, GEOKART International and GEOKART Warsaw.
The Surveyor General of Poland participated in one of the meetings.
2.2 The interest teams
According to the General Assembly arrangements the activity of the Association was based among other things on, the functioning of permanent and temporary problem-solving group. The most active was the team of supporting members inspired by Mrs. Weronika Borys, thanks to them it was possible to pay the GISPOL financial obligations towards EUROGI this year and to publish the GISPOL bulletin. Also the organisational and financial contribution of GEOKART International Rzeszów should be emphasised.
The self-government team was very active, too, headed by the chairman ex President of Pabianice town, and at present the Chief Official of Pabianice town, Mr. Jacek Gryzel, on behalf of him all organising activities were taken by Mrs. Jadwiga Myczkowska. As a result of the activity of this team it was possible to organise so many seminary meetings in local councils and to assure a large number of council representatives in scientific – technical conferences. Following the team suggestions permanent contacts are maintained with councils, for example through the GISPOL bulletin available to the most active and opinion-making ones.
The Infrastructure team led by Miss Mariola Gilska prepared the seminaries on infrastructure in Ostróda, Włocławek and Pabianice.
As yet there are not sufficient conditions for greater activity of the teletransmition team. Functioning of temporary teams is more needed at present, especially teams to deal with organisation of scientific – technical conferences.
2.3 Publishing activities
The publishing activity of the association started from the 6 page announcement from the first General Assembly, which includes the resolutions taken, the authorities make-up, the spatial framework of individual members, the list of group members and the photoreportage from the conference. It was bulletin number 1, later called GISPOL Bulletin, which is published to the present day as a quarterly, by the way number 8 among other things, includes a report from the Ostróda – Mierki conference, the English version of the text and it is visibly distinguished by its high quality from others, thanks to colleague Pietluch.
The first editions had 120 copies, the last 3 numbers had 500 copies and, apart the GISPOL members, they were distributed among the main LIS users, especially the authorities and local administration. As a result of such promotion we received many letters, mainly from the local administration. It confirms the right method of popularising GIS issues, especially regarding the necessity of harmonisation and assuring the platform for information transfer.
The publishing activity is not restricted only to bulletins. We have worked out 3 conference reports (proceedings):
the first, in the form of papers distributed during the Łańsk conference,
the second, in the form of printed-ready paper collection from the conference in Pabianice which, because of the inflow of conference papers until the conference day, was edited in the form of paper collection in the conference edition,
the third, in the form of a very nice book edited by Ryszard Staniszewski for the Ostróda conference
The English version of reports from the conference together with approved conclusions were sent to EUROGI, and through them to all EUROGI members in Europe.
For EUROGI General Assembly in 1997 and 1998 we prepared and handed out to participants special information papers about the activities of our association.
There were also papers about he association activity in the Budapest and Brno, which were presented there, and the later published in the post-conference materials.
It is worth notice that the bilingual GISPOL bulletin number 8 was distributed to participants of the first World/s Cadastral Congress in Warsaw.
GISPOL publications contain many remarks, postulates and conclusions addressed to geodetic authorities.
2.4 Seminars
Seminars, which are organised or co-organised by GISPOL has their own specific character. In fact, they are seminary presentations, facilitating the exchange of views or ideas based on prior presentations of GIS functioning, precisely the Polish GIS model, that is a dynamic GIS based on the real data, the functioning and updating of which is assured by current legal system.
GISPOL provides the presentations free of charge and organisers or seminar participants sometimes make donations, which were used, among other things to pay the EUROGI fee.
There were 28 presentations like those described above until the present time, yet if to include the scientific – technical conferences there were 31 events for over 2000 persons.
2.5 Conferences
During the last two years of its activity GISPOL inspired and co-organised 3 conferences:
together with the Governor of Olsztyn the conference in Łańsk 12 – 13th June 1997 concerning “Integrated Land Information Systems”, 6 problem papers were presented and discussed there with 169 participants present,
together with the President of Pabianice the conference in Pabianice – Bełchatów between 6 –7th April 1997 concerning “Using the Integrated Land Information Systems for Experimental Real Estate Assessment Implementation in the town of Pabianice”, 6 problem papers were presented and discussed there in with 161 participants present.
together with the Governor of Olsztyn and the President of Pabianice the conference in Ostróda – Mierki between 17 – 19 September 1998 concerning “Aggregated LIS in Reformed Administration”, 25 problem were presented and discussed there in papers with 147 participants present.
The representative of EUROGI K. Barwiński took a part in the first conference, the General Secretary of EUROGI Mr CH. Chenez sent a special letter to the participants of the second conference being unable to attend, the third one was attended by himself Mr Chenez.
On behalf of the government the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mr Józef Kalisz, was the patron to the first conference and he was present personally, passing the department standpoint about moulding the GIS in Poland.
Deputy Prime Minister Janusz Tomaszewski who was the patron to the third conference and he was present personally, delivering a his speech that provide a very good knowledge of geodesy matters and possibilities for LIS use.
Vice Minister Naglewski agreed to be the patron to the second conference but because of many duties he was not able to participate in person in it and delegated the Surveyor General of Poland.
The conclusions of the Conference were submitted to the Prime Minister and two papers with proposals of readiness for co-operation to the Deputy Prime Ministers Janusz Tomaszewski and Leszek Balcerowicz.
We prepare the next (fourth) scientific – technical conference to be held between 15 – 17 September 1999 “Functioning of Olsztyn local GIS” connected with international workshops of the research and development project EU - PANEL GI.
2.6 International activities
During the last two years GISPOL representatives took part in 15 conferences, including:
1/ II Workshop “Geodeta for all in Europe” Amersfort 10-11.X.1996
2/ MOLA Meeting Geneva 3-4.III.1997
3/ Working Session ABDS Budapest 13-l4.III.1997
4/ General Meeting of EUROGI Luxembourg 19.III.1997
5/ III Workshop “Geodeta for all in Europe”2.IV.1998
6/ MOLA Meeting Warsaw 26-27. X.1997
7/ MMRCS and Info 2000 Meeting Luxembourg 12-13.I.1998
8/ General Meeting of EUROGI Luxembourg 17-l8.III.l998
9/ ESMI Workshop Lisbon 26-27.V.1998
10/ Coastal GIS Genoa 29.V.1998
11/ 4th EC-GIS Workshop Budapest 24-26.VI.1998
12/ PANEL-OI Steering Committee Brno 1.VI.1998
13/ PANEL-GI Study Visit Lisbon 14-19.IX.1998
14/ Worlds Cadastral Congress Warsaw 17- l 9. XI .1998
15/ PANEL-GI Steering Committee Vienna l.XII.1998
All travel expenses were covered by participants themselves.
2.7 Co-operation with other organisations
GISPOL was set up following the Surveyor General of Poland initiative and that/s why it is in a natural way connected with national geodesy and cartography services and in the early stages the Polish Main Office of Geodesy and Cartography was engaged in the courses and demonstrations. With time, the co-operation was more difficult and the reason was the EUROGI fee case. Circumstances were different as regards paying this contribution in the time of setting up the association, and they are different today; this topic is the reason for calling the Extraordinary General Assembly. GISPOL was to be and could be a strong support for the geodesy and cartography service activity, although it was created for representing and negotiating the requirements of GIS users, among whom the geodesy and cartography services should be and could be a strong link, but they do not seem to be specially interested in this topic.
This is the problem of choice announced before. Do we create the picture-like GIS or GIS based on real data in Poland ?
As a country we have (as few other countries) very good conditions to create a real GIS, but without the engagement of geodesy and cartography service, it is rather impossible.
Besides the Polish Main Office of Geodesy and Cartography there is a very good co-operation with local communes municipalities, provincial administrations, the Main Statistical Office and the Polish Geodesy Association.
3. CONCLUSIONS:
The Extraordinary General Assembly of SUKSIT GISPOL, which was taken 17 December 1998, considered the existing situation, made the necessary amendments charter and outlined the corrected trends of the further activities of the association.
The matter is: