Swiss Castles Day and ‘Burgentag’ Sunday, October 4, 2020

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On Sunday, October 4, 2020, 25 Swiss castles invite you to the 5th National Castles Day. Their gates and drawbridges will then be open from 10 am to 5 pm for a varied program. So – come on in!

The association Wikimedia CH and the Swiss OpenStreetMap association (SOSM) will complement the event with a Swiss ‘Burgentag’ 2020. Young and old medieval enthusiasts alike are invited to discover a castle ruin on their own. You decide the program yourself. Every castle has a history and many have something mystical about them. And there is often a fireplace nearby. Find out more with the following tips:

  • Map with selected castle ruins sites (see picture below),
  • A photo challenge to upload missing photos of castles.

Illustration: Interactive online map of selected castle ruins (realized with uMap and with OpenStreetMap data). [Large map]

The photo challenge is simple: Work through this list of castle objects without pictures and upload the photos to Wikimedia Commons! For each uploaded photo there is a tweet (from @trending_places) with the hashtag #CastleProject. The photo is then usually immediately visible on the Castles project map.

The interactive online map of selected castle ruins shows a hand-picked selection of castles in Switzerland that are freely accessible and easy to reach. Depending on the castle, it can be up to one kilometer (i.e. approx. 20 min.) or more away from the nearest public transport stop or parking lot. Please follow the signs and treat nature with respect (e.g. make sure that there is no danger of forest fires in the area, watch out for ticks, don’t leave litter).

The map contains only a small part of the castles and palaces as they are managed in the Castles Project Switzerland. The Castles project links open data directly from the four open data projects OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons (photos).

The Swiss Burgentag 2020 was initiated by the SOSM association and Wikimedia CH. The event is also kindly supported by the Swiss Castle Association. We thank the association ‘Die Schweizer Schlösser’ for agreeing to link the two action days Swiss Castles Day and Burgentag 2020.

Inquiries and contacts:
Verein SOSM, Stefan Keller
Wikimedia CH, Kerstin Sonnekalb

AGM online May 16th 2020 11:00

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Participation and voting (BigBlueButton, link was sent by mail to all members)

  1. Opening and Welcome
  2. Election of the minute taker and vote counters
  3. Adoption of minutes of the 2019 AGM
  4. Activity report 2019
  5. Financial results 2019
    • Presentation by the treasurer
    • Auditors report
  6. Discharge of the Board
  7. Membership fees 2021
  8. Budget 2020
  9. Amendment of the articles of association
    • Introduction of honorary members
  10. Appointment of honorary members
  11. Elections
    • Board
      Candidates for all positions are welcome. All existing board members are standing
      for re-election.
    • Auditors
  12. Any other business

«Bleibtoffen» («It stays open») now showing hotels

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One of the differences between Switzerland and other countries during the pandemic is that hotels have been permitted to stay open. Not all have done so, but there are around 400 that have kept their doors open.

“Bleibtoffen” now has support for displaying both open and closed hotels, and if your establishment is open, or you know of one that is open, please update this information on bleibtoffen.ch.

«It stays open» – The map of shops that are still open #COVID19

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The map service bleibtoffen.ch allows everyone to find open shops and share information about open locations with a few clicks. The new service is based on the community project OpenStreetMap. Anyone can also report changes at bleibtoffen.ch. This information is then directly integrated into OpenStreetMap – in addition to the many volunteers who already add to OpenStreetMap on a daily basis.

A communication instrument for authorities and location promoters

In France, there are already some cities like Lyon and municipalities like Montrouge that are using “It stays open” (in French “ça reste ouvert”) as a means of communication in dealing with the Covid19 crisis.

Therefore, dear authorities and location promoters: inform your citizens and companies about this useful tool in dealing with and containing Covid19!

You can read more about this in the blog post of bleibtoffen.org (in german). Here you can go directly to bleibtoffen.ch. If you have any questions please contact us at SOSM (see contact).

OpenSchoolMaps wins DINAcon Award 2019

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The DINAcon Awards were presented at the Conference for Digital Sustainability (DINAcon) in mid-October 2019. The winner in the category Best Open Education Project is “OpenSchoolMaps”. OpenSchoolMaps is a small project to promote open maps and map data for schools and self-learners. It is mainly a collection of teaching materials and information about outdoor mapping events, OpenStreetMap and Open Source software.

The idea and concept for OpenSchoolMaps came from Stefan Keller, professor at the HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil (SG) and member of the board of SOSM. The decisive factor for the jury’s decision was obviously that OpenSchoolMaps offers different possibilities for feedback.

Browse the teaching materials yourself! Here is an excerpt from the topics of the work and information sheets:

  • Using the OSM.org website in everyday life
  • Edit and use OpenStreetMap
  • Mapping the surroundings yourself (Outdoor Mapping Event)
  • Create a map with uMap
  • Apache Superset the data visualization and publishing tool
  • Introduction to QGIS 3 and Geo Information Systems (GIS)

Logo OpenSchoolMaps.org
Further information on the DINAcon Awards (german).
Click here for the OpenSchoolMaps project (see zip download in English).

Candidature for State of the Map 2020, HSR Rapperswil, 19-21 June 2020

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Update
The SotM 2020 will be in Cape Town. We congratulate the team from Southafrica and look forward to the conference next year.

We would like to inform you about some recent developments. Every year the OpenStreetMap community meets at the international conference “State of the Map” (SotM). This year the event will take place in Heidelberg.

Up to two weeks ago no applications for the SotM 2020 event had been received by the SotM working group. In light of that situation we, the HSR Hochschule Rapperswil and the association SOSM, were asked if we could submit a bid, which we have now done.

We see this as an opportunity to expand the Swiss community and to present ourselves as a cosmopolitan host.

Please reserve the 19-21 June 2020. We hope for an active participation, and that some volunteers will contact us as helpers as soon as it is clear which location will win the bid. The decision is expected by the end of September. 

2018 Activity Report

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At the annual general meeting end of March we presented our yearly activity report. Some of those activities were already reported in this blog:

osm.ch Website

Keen visitors may have noticed, we’ve re-launched our osm.ch site. Thanks to Flavio and Claudia and Michael for making the website more modern and professional looking. Comments on the new site are always welcome. Either here in the comments, as a mail to us, or by opening an issue on github or even a pull-request.

New logo and stickers

With a new logo designed by Roman, we finally came around to produce stickers. We distributed one sticker to each member with the invitation to our annual general meeting. In case you would like to get some stickers, just ask. We will gladly send you a couple of them.

Plans for 2019

  • Get a second hosting location operational
  • Further development of OpenSchoolMaps