5 ways in which councils are to celebrate Gazetteers@GIS Day

The day is all about placing location at the centre of its services, providing an excuse to talk location and gazetteers and demonstrating the value of high quality, maintained address and street data.

GeoPlace is providing a toolkit for address and street data Custodians and Street Naming and Numbering Custodians to help kick-start the conversations. Many councils have already made plans to mark the day including:

1. Using photos taken around the district during the year, I’m devising a UPRN search on our internal mapping system. Employees can search for each UPRN to bring back an ‘interesting’ fact about that location. Each correct answer will receive a prize – pen, sweets, balloon, etc. The photos will then be made into a calendar to be given as an overall prize for anyone submitting every answer correctly
2. An advertising campaign on the benefits of departments using the LLPG as the principal address source, notices on our internal and external web pages, posters and resources into departments along with a stand, I will also be advertising GIS day in internal meetings
3. A presentation to Councillors and a room all day for demonstrations and talks with colleagues
4. Articles on the intranet and setting up a local quiz competition with goody bags to winners and something for all entrants, on the day have a drop-in session to see the LLPG and a display stand
5. Using cake to entice people to come and talk about how they can use addresses in their systems

Last year 67 councils ran activities on the day and reported on its positive impact. Feedback included:

““We had another successful GISDay at Wirral, covering the Town Hall in Wallasey and another large office in Birkenhead. We saw lots of staff, some who already knew us but wanted a chat about how we could help or to find out more, and lots of staff who were unaware of us and gave information on what we do. We spoke to staff at all levels, from front line to service managers. A message went out on the intranet earlier in the week and so we even had some staff who travelled in from other sites to see us.”

“Gazetteer@GISDay gave the team the opportunity to interact with multiple departments as well as the Chief Executive, who was very appreciative of how we contribute to improving services for Monmouthshire staff and our residents and was nice enough to send out an email thanking us for raising awareness of what we do…our favourite quote from the email our Chief Executive sent was: “You really are a bunch of unsung heroes – we just need to get better at realising your ability to help us!” Thanks for providing us with so many great goodies and information packs, they really helped to make our Gazetteer@GISDay as popular as it was!”

Over the past 16 years, local authorities have worked collaboratively to develop single address and street data sources - one of the most successful shared services across England and Wales. Data is freely available, to all public-sector organisations, thanks to the Public Sector Mapping Services Agreement.

Gayle Gander
Head of Marketing

GeoPlace LLP
157-197 Buckingham Palace Road
London, SW1W 9SP
[email protected]
t 020 7630 4600 | information line 0843 4620000 | @GeoPlaceLLP | www.geoplace.co.uk