Photo: Maureen Mountjoy, Deputy Registrar, with the Toronto Monument at Queen's Park

As many of you heard at the AGM last February at Deerhurst, the 125th year of the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors will be celebrated in Ottawa in 2017. This conveniently aligns with the celebrations of the 150th year of Canada!

Our meeting will be at the new convention center in downtown Ottawa. This is a spectacular building that we have already booked for our celebration. The meeting will be a joint meeting with ACLS and consequently will include a national perspective. Plans are already underway and an AGM chair (Ed Herweyer) has already been selected for the event.

Part of the event will be the release of our book that celebrates our 125th anniversary. Charlie Wilkins, who many of you met at Deerhurst, is writing that celebratory history. I am anticipating a great book and I have to say that so far, it is shaping up to surpass my expectations.

While thinking of this celebration, Maureen decided to do some research on what was completed in 1967, Canada's centennial year. We were all amazed at the information she discovered in the Annual Report from that year and in a couple of our quarterly magazines.

Monuments recognizing the survey profession were set in every province, territory and the nation's capital. Attached (click here) is the description of the project provided by Colin Hadfield in the 1967 Annual report along with a couple of articles from our quarterly magazine of that same year. I have also included pictures of some of the monuments as they appear today.

This was a great project, but I fear it has been forgotten with the passing of time. As part of our 2017 celebration, I would like to see us revitalize all the monuments and I would like to tell the world about them in every way we can think of.

There are likely other projects that we could create to celebrate the history of our profession and if you have any ideas, we would like to hear from you. Please send them to me at blain@aols.org.

Once again, we would like to remind our OLS members that 2015 is the last year of the 3-year CPD cycle for most of you.

You can review the CPD Program here.

"How many hours do I need in the 3-year cycle?"

36 hours of Formal Activities

+

66 hours of Professional Activities

Meeting Attendance

Committee Participation

Presentation or Publication

Self-Study (10 hours/year maximum)

Note: If you are not actively engaged in the practice of professional surveying, you need additional 30 CPD hours per 3-year period (see the CPD Program for details).

"How can I get these hours?"

• By attending courses, seminars, webinars, presentations relevant to the field of surveying or to operating a surveying business
• By attending Regional Group meetings (Meeting Attendance hours and sometimes also Formal hours)
• By attending the AOLS AGM and relevant meetings of other organizations
• By participating in AOLS committees and committees of other relevant organizations; serving on Regional Group Executive or on Council; making surveying-related presentations or participating in trade shows and events that promote professional surveying
• For other ideas on how to earn your hours, please see the CPD Program and the CPD section of our website.

"How do I enter my CPD hours on your website?"

Please log in on our website and go to the My CDP section.

You will find all the information you need there - just follow the links on your left:

Professional Development - information on the AOLS CPD Program and a link to it 

CPD Frequently Asked Questions - include instructions on how to enter your activities and submit your Annual Confirmation

CPD Approved Activities - some examples of approved activities

My CPD Tracking Report - here you can review all of your CPD activities for the current 3-year period and edit them, if needed

Submit a CPD Record - enter your CPD activities

My Annual CPD Confirmation - you need to submit one for every year of your cycle

This past Wednesday, May 6th, we held our 6th AOLS Webinar. This webinar was delivered from the URISA conference that happened on the same day in Oakville. Shown below are Maureen Mountjoy, AOLS Deputy Registrar, and Ryan Griffin (the webinar presenter) at the AOLS booth in the URISA exhibit area.

The previous 5 webinars talked about the business of the association and provided updates on various AOLS initiatives. Each of them counted for 1 CPD hour of Meeting Attendance.

In their feedback comments, some webinar attendees mentioned that they would also like to see some educational/technical webinars offered, that would count for Formal hours. We have listened to your feedback and the May webinar, "Unmanned Aerial Systems", was educational and, for the first time, counted for 1 CPD hour of Formal time.

This webinar was advertised not only to the AOLS members, but also to the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors (ACLS) membership. We had over 30 people register from outside the AOLS! Overall, registration for this webinar was the highest we've seen so far, at 221 people!

We would like to thank Ryan Griffin from Cansel for presenting this webinar. The webinar was recorded and the recording is already available on GeoEd at

www.geoed.ca/index.php/en/online-courses/aols-uas.

NRCan has released Open Government in Transition: A Case Study of the Canadian Geomatics Community Round Table.

This is a case study of the Canadian Geomatics Community Roundtable (CGCRT), which is made up of representatives from industry, academia, professional associations, NGOs as well as federal and territorial governments. The study traces the history and successes of the CGCRT, including the development of a Pan-Canadian Geomatics Strategy, and its evolution into a permanent organization. The CGCRT is held up as an innovative example of collaboration and Open Government.

The report may be downloaded here.

The Summary Report of the Canadian Geomatics Environmental Scan and Value Study completed by Hickling Arthurs Low and associates on behalf of Natural Resources Canada is now available for download.

This was announced to us in an email from Prashant Shukle, Director-General, Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation, Natural Resources Canada. Please follow the links in the email to download the report.

The Toronto Star article, "After 225 years, historic log cabin could use a new roof", may be of interest to the members.

It talks about the Osterhout log cabin in the Guild Park that was built in 1795 and is the oldest building in Scarborough.

This log cabin was built by Augustus Jones, who is one of the most famous of the original surveyors of this province.

See the article at www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer/2015/04/15/after-225-years-historic-log-cabin-could-use-a-new-roof-fixer.html