| Dear Reader,
Thank you for your continued interest in and support of ICIS. As with our past issues, you are receiving this email because you are a new member or have expressed interest in receiving updates from ICIS. If this is not the case, you can unsubscribe using the links above.
As always, we welcome your feedback about this and any other developments in the Society's services to its members.
Kindest Regards,
Janice, Pete, Ken, Steven and Laura
The ICIS Team |
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First CivicSpatial Grants Approved |
Sunshine Coast Regional District and the City of Merritt are the first recipients under the CivicSpatial grant program. Under the program, local governments can apply for funding to improve the quality of their spatial data including accuracy and timeliness. The Sunshine Coast Regional District submitted a joint application with Sechelt and Gibsons to establish new GPS control points which will then be used to correct the position of the parcel base. The project has been awarded $14,500 in CivicSpatial funding.
The City of Merritt submitted an application to assist with the purchase of GIS software. The City has acquired new high-quality data but has no software for displaying and managing the data. A grant of $2,300 has been awarded to assist in the purchase of software in addition to ICIS member discounts on those purchases.
Applications for CivicSpatial funding are on-going. Visit the ICIS website at www.icisociety.ca and click the CivicSpatial Grant program link for all the details.
Ease the Pain of Data Delivery
As part of the CivicSpatial program, ICIS has developed a software tool in cooperation with the District of North Saanich that automatically delivers data to ICIS, eliminating the need for local government staff to submit data manually.The tool monitors a published directory for changes then, when changes are detected, automatically submits the data to ICIS. Local governments that have applied for CivicSpatial grants will be asked to use the tool as part of the commitment to more frequent updates of their data. Any other local governments that are interested in using the tool can find out more by contacting ICIS or email us at info@icisociety.ca.
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Membership |
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Membership and Municipalities Growing
Local Government membership in ICIS continues to grow along with the number of municipalities in BC. ICIS welcomes the Town of Port McNeill and the District of MacKenzie as our newest members bringing our total signed local government membership to 125 of 187 local governments. An additional 10 municipalities do not have signed agreements but do have their data submitted to ICIS by the regional district plus an estimated 20 agreements are in progress. ICIS welcomes Westside, Barriere and Clearwater to the local government family.
The BC Centre for Disease Control has joined ICIS as an associate member. We expect to be welcoming the Department of National Defence, Translink and the Prince Rupert Port Authority. All organizations report signing of their Data Sharing and Licensing Agreement is imminent.
ICIS is also considering associate member applications from private sector firms such as surveying, engineering or environmental companies. Companies that are interested should remember that associate membership is not for a one-time data purchase. The associate member must commit to providing ICIS and its members with spatial data initially and over time, that is of interest and benefit to membership. Typically, provincial government data is only available to associate members on a case-by-case basis.
The Membership Committee has just approved Island Timberlands as our newest associate member.
Steven Garner - Membership Coordinator |
| New Data Update |
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In the past three months, we have had several new updates from Local Governments. Cowichan Valley Regional District, Gibsons and Peace River Regional District have all sent recent cadastral data, which is now available on the webmap and portal sites. Additionally, Port Moody and Kimberley (new to ICIS) have submitted AutoCAD data which can be found exclusively on the portal.
BC Assessment provided an update at the end of March, and BC Hydro and Terasen have provided recent updates as well. The ALR Dataset was updated at the end of April.
Several other Local Government cadastral datasets have arrived and will be loaded in the coming weeks. These include Richmond, Langley Township, Port Coquitlam and North Cowichan.
Laura Cassian - Technical Services Coordinator
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Technical Strategy |
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ICIS Developing 3-year Technical Strategy
For the past three months ICIS has been working to develop a plan for its technology services that will enable them to move forward and support the needs of the Society over the next several years. This project is being led by Richard Dzioba of Project Strategies, and sponsored by ICIS board member Bruce Cuthbert of the Provincial CIO's Office. Other members of the working group include Pete Flagg, Laura Cassian, Steven Garner and Ken Rigler - ICIS, Paul van Nieuwkuyk - Cartosmart GIS, Gary Cooney, Bill Anderson and Darryl Richardson - ILMB, Steve Botham - Fraser-Fort George Regional District, Bill Hain and Dan Shannon - TELUS, and Per Kristensen of the City of Nanaimo.
The group first met to define the business requirements of the society, and again to determine how best to fulfill the technical aspects of these requirements. To date we have developed a high level model for how the Society intends to move forward with its technical services. This model encompasses a "blended" hosting solution, similar to how ICIS currently operates, with ICIS owning its own hardware and software, and contracting the hosting of web applications and associated hardware and software to outside sources. Options discarded by the Board of Directors were a comprehensive internal resourcing or a completely outsourced model for technical services. Another requirement defined by the model was to leverage the technology and resources of ICIS members, and also to consider ways in which our technology can help ICIS members to enhance their services and fulfill their business requirements.
Over the next three months we will be refining the model for technology services and determining how best to implement any changes. Projects and tasks to be considered in the IT Strategy include consideration of upgrading to ESRI's 9.2 suite of products, and also to explore the potential for more user-friendly "Google Earth" type services for our members. Stay tuned for more information or contact Laura Cassian at lcassian@icisociety.ca.
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| Common Address Project |
The Common Address Information Solution (CAIS) Pilot Project is now complete. The pilot allowed ICIS to gather information about existing address data from ICIS members and to learn more about costs and effort associated with a province-wide application. A demonstration end-user interface was available for a three-month period, allowing project participants to test address loading, maintenance, and distributing from a central location.
The Project also obtained Expressions of Interest from vendors who would be willing to partner with ICIS on the initial build and ongoing support for CAIS. Information provided by interested vendors showed there is a strong level of interest in a province-wide civic address registry from the private sector. Interests ranged from providing services for the initial build to sharing costs, and potential revenue from non ICIS members.
Next steps for CAIS include developing business requirements for ICIS and its members. The pilot project provided lessons about existing data resources, stakeholder needs, technical requirements, and a range of potential roles for vendors. This next phase will include consultations with the broader user community, and how CAIS would serve the needs of ICIS members.
Joe Boyd - Trackside Consulting | |
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Board Update: |
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ICIS Board Elections and AGM
The ICIS Board met in planning sessions and formal board meetings on June 6th and 7th in Victoria. The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Society was held on June 7th.
The Society's new President is Dan Shannon, Manager, Data Operations, TELUS Geomatics. Dan has served on the Executive Committee for the past two years as 2nd Vice President. Connie Fair, Executive Director Business and Customer Services for BC Assessment, has stepped down as president of the Society after a three year term. Ms. Fair will continue on the board of directors in a new position as "Past President" as per the recent change to the Constitution.
In the past year the following directors have left the board:
Cecil Saele (Shaw)
Jose Villa-Arce (Province)
Stu Hackett (Province)
Joining the board this year is:
Mike Bazwoski (Shaw)
The new Executive Committee is:
Dan Shannon - President (TELUS)
Brian Sameshima - President Elect (Burnaby)
Kevin Jardine - 1st Vice President (Ministry of Agriculture and Lands)
Ferenc Pataki - Treasurer (Terasen Gas)
Connie Fair - Past President (BC Assessment)
The Membership Committee, which reviews associate member applications and recommends policy affecting membership, is composed of:
Sonja Johnson - Chair (Spectra Energy)
Michael Baxter - (City of Colwood)
Kevin Jardine - (Ministry of Agriculture and Lands)
ICIS also struck a formal Governance Committee this year, charged with research and making recommendations regarding constitutional amendments and sourcing appropriate board replacements that ensure good governance of the Society continues.
Constitutional Changes
ICIS proposed and passed a number of changes to the Constitution at this year's AGM. Chief among them is the creation of a fourth membership class: Corporate and Professional. The first member of this new class is the Land Title and Survey Authority with Tony deBruyne, Deputy Surveyor General of the Province as the board representative. We also adjusted the complement of the Executive Committee to include a past president and enshrining the progression from President-elect, to President, to Past-President, in the constitution. This allows for continuity of leadership among the Executive of the Society. The constitutional changes are posted on our website.
Peter Flagg - General Manager |
| Retiring Board Member |
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Cecil Saele (Shaw) receives a farewell gift from Connie Fair, Past President.
Cecil served on the Membership Committee, participated in the
IT Technical Strategy and was the initial sponsor of the Common Address Project (CAIS) |
| Local Government
Member Status
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Click to Enlarge |
| Prince Rupert, Port Edward Project |
An Integrated Cadastral Fabric (ICF) is being compiled by ICIS for the cities of Prince Rupert and Port Edward under a special grant from Partnerships and Sales Branch (ILMB). The grant also includes funding to purchase orthophotos in the area, create point based addressing and georeference and develop a GIS product for the underground infrastructure in Prince Rupert and Port Edward.
The ICF compilation portion of
the project is complete and submitted to the Parcel Fabric Section of ILMB for QA. The milestone of delivering the ICF by 30 June 2007 will be met. The orthophotos have been purchased from McElhanney and are being delivered this week. We will be publishing the .5 meter 2005 photos to our Web Map site for viewing and creating pdf maps. The remaining portion of the project, the point addresses and underground infrastructure will be completed by the end of July. BC Assessment has begun creating the assessment fabric for Prince Rupert using the data. This summer, ICIS will be traveling to Prince Rupert to deliver the data, give a workshop on how to use the data and spend time with the GIS personnel to help in the adoption of the ICF.
Ken Rigler - Training Coordinator |
| Visiting Victoria?
Come see us
at the ICIS Office: |
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Suite 16
1537 Hillside Ave
Victoria, B.C.
V8T 4Y2
250.381.9295
1.866.403.0095
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ICIS Newsletter 
