As corporate members of the British Cartographic Society, we always take part in the Annual Symposium – and this year it was in Hook, near Basingstoke, easy to get to from our Southampton head office. My colleague Charley Glynn gives an update on the event.

As well as our own stand (Olympic-themed this year) we were also involved in talks and workshops at the event. The first day had themes of ‘Changing Times’ and ‘Transport Mapping’. Adrian Fox from the British Antarctic Survey got things under way with a fascinating journey through the history of place names on theAntarctic Peninsulaand the shaping of these names through early explorations to political disagreements. This set the tone for an interesting morning of talks which were rounded off by the President’s Address from Peter Jolly.  

The afternoon workshops included ‘Emergency helicopter relief’ by Map Action and ‘Mapping a practical transit map’ run by Mark Ovenden, Transport Design Historian.

The afternoon talks included an interesting presentation from Clare Seldon of Steer Davies Gleave who showcased some of the maps that she produced for the England 2018–22 World Cup bid book, a mammoth publication of 1,752 pages. Richard Goodman from Intergraph (UK) Ltd brought the afternoon to a close with a presentation which included many examples of our products being used by a plethora of different organisations from various industries. 

Chris Wesson presenting the OS MasterMap Award to Warren Vick of Europa Technologies. Photography by Martin Lubikowski

The evening consisted of a Gala Dinner and Annual Awards Ceremony for which Ordnance Survey sponsor the OS MasterMap Award for ‘Better Mapping’. This year it was awarded to Europa Technologies for their rendition of OS MasterMap as part of their viaEuropa hosted map service. Chris Wesson presented the trophy to Warren Vick, Founder and Director of Europa Technologies. 

Friday’s talks included how cartography is used as an art form with speakers from Aberystwyth University, University of Sunderland, ESRI and the London Transport Museum. Of particular interest was Claire Dobbin’s talk from the London Transport Museum who gave us a taste of some of the artwork that has been commissioned for display at the 2012 Mind the Map exhibition. 

The talks rounded up with an insight into how geographic information and cartography is being used to help host a successful 2012 Olympics. The Olympic Delivery Authority, Metropolitan Police, Centre International d’Etude du Sport (CIES) and Ordnance Survey gave four very different talks, all highlighting some of the fantastic work being done across the cartographic community to help support the 2012 Olympic Games in London.  

For more information about the symposium, the awards and the society itself you can visit their website.