User Groups

Current list of QGIS user groups

Registered 2016 or earlier

Registered 2017

Registered 2018

Removed 2018

Registered 2020

Goals of a user group

  • Organization of user meetings
  • Coordination of development, taking into account regional/national standards and requirements
  • QGIS information: meetings, articles in GIS magazines, QGIS information in social media, GIS discussion boards, etc.
  • Collection of case studies of local QGIS usage
  • Sponsoring: a local user group could collect reasonable annual membership fees (depending on the country). This collected funds could be used to pay development of certain features, to help with bug-fixing or as a donation to the international QGIS project.
  • Establishment of interest groups, e.g. surveying, urban planning, server/web client, etc.
  • Initialization/coordination of application modules, e.g. surveying, urban planning, server/web client, etc.
  • Electing a representative to act as a QGIS Country Voting Member

General assumptions/recommendations

  • stay vendor/company neutral
  • establish democratic structures for the steering committee, voting and important decision
  • stay transparent, esp. if you deal with membership-fees and how you spend it
  • inform the international project from time to time about your local activities

Organization

Depending on your country, a smaller legal entity, e.g. an association, could be established. Depending on local legislation such an entity implies that you meet at least once per year (general assembly), publish a yearly report and make the financial report available to your members. Often it also implies the creation of statutes.

Statutes of the Swiss QGIS user group as an example:

Membership application forms:

You can use these statutes and membership application forms as an idea or reference and change them to your local situation.

Local Country domain qgis.xx

It is recommended to register your local country domains, e.g. qgis.ch or qgis.uk. If the domain is already taken by someone other organization, company or person please negotiate if you can transfer the owner to the local QGIS user group. The QGIS international project has registered QGIS as a trademark, which should help you during your negotations.