Yes, we are. Um, who would like to play the role of host today? >> That doesn't matter to me. >> I can play the role of host. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Do you I will make Bill. I'll make
you host and um we can make Cody co-host. That way everyone can share screen if they need to. Yeah, that sounds great. >> So, we are recording this is a meeting of the town of Ammerst Cultural Council. My name is Angela Mills. I work for the
town manager. I am lucky enough to be the staff leazison to this group. This meeting is able to happen via Zoom due to the suspension of certain open meeting laws by our governor Mora Healey. And at this time, I want to thank everyone for your exquisite
service and recognize the co-hosts, Cody Rooney and Bill Murray. Um, I am currently involved in family projects. So, I'm going to excuse myself and then I'll watch the video and send you some
minutes at a later date. But, I do believe that all the missing minutes are in this packet. So, that sounds like a lot of fun for you guys. >> Good question. have a yet >> right. No, you don't have a quorum yet. You're right. Sorry. Go ahead, Rachel.
>> It's okay. Bill already asked asked my question, but thank you and happy new year everyone. >> Thank you. Happy >> Happy New Year. Has it been that long? >> Happy New Year. >> I was talking about the Chinese New Year which started a week ago. >> Of course. >> The year of the fire horse.
There are many going on. Hey, Jess. >> Hi. How are you all doing? >> Good. How are you? >> Good. >> All right. Cody, shall I share the agenda and we can go through it? I don't know if you
>> I'll share my screen. >> Share our top. That sounds like >> Yes, I agree. Oh, hold on. I have to request whoever
is a host, not me. Apparently, I'm sending a request to be able to share. There we go. Got it. There. Is that big enough? >> Yeah. All right. And the mean
already called to order. And I do not believe we have members of the public
um here. So um again as always if I'm wrong please we raise here and we bring
in to the room but check I see no one. Oh, that brings us to
approval for the minutes from the past. Um, they look good to me.
How about everyone else? >> I didn't have any issues. I move to approve all of the minutes from previous meetings as a Can we do it as a package? >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> I move to approve all of the minutes from the previous meetings as one package. >> Do I get a second? >> Second. >> Yes. Hello.
Am I Joe? >> Yes. >> Bill, >> yes. >> Rachel, >> yes. Approved. >> And Jess? >> Yes.
>> All right. The pro. Wonderful. That leads us to update our FI Grand
F6 Grand I'll be quite honest. don't know what turn over means or it's just like
this of the grants which I can speak on and bill I can't add whatever
I miss. We signed to Bes. There are a few that are miss and and I miss was
kind of a shock because I repeat this. or um don't know what's going on there. Um
we did have one issue that you know we can talk
now or just when we think about next we could talk Um, it was the cemetery tour
and we approved that. This is a P. Um, we got a email from the Jones
last week. I believe saying that they did not agree to have a presentation. there as I assume the two constructs
in the initial vibe I got they just wasn't interested but the problem was that
per as one the host s host location and they
didn't know at all sounds like giving base you reserve. They were not on that list and
we told the gr that he did not if You know, and Bill me that he did not close just due to the
lack of support and I myself, you know, I even gave
second chance. You know, I we went through this with that just >> I'm sorry, Cody. Which grantee is this? I'm sorry.
No, the cemetery tour. Um, and you know in all fairness
we don't know if the why was agreed and the library said they were contact them.
I mean personally I feel that's not their place. Um just so they reached out similarly
reached out which to keep this and I know I um we if he can provide support
for why were he's good if not we keep that money and he
>> so sorry um the why does he need a letter to do the tour in the first place is it is is our issue right now the fact that he might have um mentioned. I I guess I I need to go back and look at the initial
application, but like Okay. So, cuz >> if it's a cemetery tour, it I'm not sure what it has to do with the library, right? And then, so Jess, go, please go ahead. You're probably more aware of what's happen.
>> I don't know anything about this. I was just gonna see if I understood what you were saying, Cody. Are you saying that The person who sent in the application said that he would be doing a tour of Wildwood Cemetery, but Wildwood Cemetery
was never contacted about this. So now the library is involved because they may be posting like a letter of support for the individual even though he never contacted Wildwood Cemetery.
So I myself have to look back at the but if me right he
planned to do a presentation jump about history. or imagations on their out confirming
first is the only one that has said, "Hey, we did not approve this." And what you see here is a very unhappy
gr. Um, >> and now is the next step if he does get approval from those locations. And they're saying at this point based off of what we know, we would be happy to sponsor this event. we would grant him
the money, but if not, we have to just cut it off. >> Yeah. >> Jones once. So, it's more like if
Yeah, we tal and we are on board. Yeah. But if not, GGful. >> Sorry, I I think I'm just not get there.
Something I'm not understanding is why does his doing the cemetery tour even involve the library in the first place? Like like any of us because it's a public cemetery, right? As far as I know. So anybody in theory could
organize a tour and take people through that without having cleared it with >> Right. So I mean so that I'm going to go and pull out his application to see whether he made references to working with these partners because if he hasn't
then >> I'm not understanding what the issue is. So I please do I need to be reminded too but um when Angela was engaging with with Cody and I um she noted that the library was listed as a partner and promoter in
the application. Um and that's >> and I need to remember if he was doing a tour and then doing a presentation or what the deal was. Um and and what we told him as Cody said is if if we can get a letter of support from the cemetery then great. No
problem. >> Because he gave the money back for last year, didn't he? Because like I think we gave him and then he gave it back. >> Yeah. And that that I did tell in
Bill I almost wonder do is this hot last year and no one really told any of us
and he's like you know And those that mean just too much in us
not knowing we just assume all that we've approved blah blah blah. So does make me a little
curious as to why. >> Can someone who has access right now um who has share access, could you pull up the app and share it with all of us cuz
>> it sounds like he misrepresented like >> does anybody >> Sorry. Does anybody have his application number? Because I have the panel book up pulled up. I'm just trying to I like find where his application
>> um I mean that's what Looks like it's 114559. I'm so sorry. I don't have access to a laptop right now. Could would someone be able to share on the screen here? >> I'm just trying to pull it up. So,
should we keep talking about the next item while I'm pulling this up? >> Yeah, I was thinking that number six really ties
into this, you know. But we could just go back cuz this does trigger ideas for stronger guidelines.
So this doesn't but that's it I don't view in this of the
of the cycle make inisions um or decision make my pes
and how it just went how every night the system we did um In terms of like the reviews, I like
that we had our own separate review based off of the criteria and then we did the red, yellow, green, like the sorting. >> Yeah. Um, I think the bigger point of discussion that I would want to get into is like
how we're evaluating and like the criteria we use because I just wasn't I think I came into this not thinking big picture like what I should be looking for. Um, so a lot of like the feedback you guys gave throughout the
review process really changed how I was like looking at the apps overall. Um, so maybe incorporating some of that into the rubric like the criteria itself. >> Yeah, I think the initial
is how can we evaluate each? Yeah. Of course, we have could have a whole form for each group, but that
would take a long, but um you know, and yeah, I mean I to hear us
because >> yeah, I think I'm on the same page as guests on this. I I was often kind of going back and forth between the mass cultural council guidelines, the sheet that we had, and then the separate statement about um what as a council we
valued. Um and then trying to figure out how do I balance all of that? Um, it would be nice if we could come up with maybe a more cohesive rubric um that still allows, you know, room for for qualitative discussion and um and
analysis. Um, but it would make it a little more straightforward in in doing scoring if we want to keep that part of it. Yeah. And I will say for me
was the one accepted in the clining grants. I wish I could provide constructive comments
versus oh you doesn't mean public benefits at me the middle town where I remembered
for you. This is how I could provide feedback. It's just I wish we had that and
>> thank you. So, two things about that. one is um I had in my notes for tonight's meeting because I agree with all of you and I think maybe after this meeting we can all kind of just reflect on what we thought were like either you
know um details or criteria that were not clear enough. So for example, if we want to think about the for example just interactive or experiential component of a of an
application or like you know the numbers it's benefiting or you know the the the the level of direct participation and other um criteria could be kind of what I was working with which maybe we hadn't made you know really explicit
this grant cycle was things like confirm venue supporting documents like confirm partners and sponsors or community involvement all of those things we want to make that a very you know clear criteria can you demonstrate that you have all of this because that would be
that would impact your score that way so I feel like probably all of us need to think about what um how each of those areas might weigh in our personal decision decision making and then therefore how should that interview uh
it you know how should that impact our group decision- making because like to be fair this this past grand cycle because we really didn't have leadership at the beginning and we have so few people on the council in the first place I just want to commend all of you for
having done what has been accomplished and um so I think that probably between now it's February so maybe by April or May if we as a council can come to an agreement on how we want to weigh all of
those categories, like maybe using the Mass Cultural Council um um guidelines as a basis, you know, and I think once we have that kind of clear as a group, then that can be communicated to grant
applicants or people interested because there should be an information session in August, September to just, you know, kind where like council members are available to answer questions because people like might say I want to I'm thinking about
doing this and then you know you all can be guiding the applications to you know try to make them as successful as possible also helping the evaluation process be more streamlined if that makes sense. So that's my two cents on
that and I found the application for Robert. So if you want me to share the screen unless someone wants to say something based on what I just offered. >> No, I definitely agree. I said that's
the intention come time is to hold a info session. Um, yeah. Um,
>> okay. Let me know if you want me to scroll ahead. You all can see this, right? So, just let me know if you want me to scroll ahead or when you want me to scroll ahead. Yeah, right there. It says
in a present taste and so yeah Huh? Interesting. >> So, you all can still read this, right? If I like go over and look at the rest of the application, you can still see what is up. Is that correct? Okay, cool. >> Yeah.
>> All right. I'm going to go look at the rest of his application. Um, this is a Holio preservation trust. I don't see where there's anything about. >> Yep. Nothing here.
Okay. So, that was his budget right here. Do you want me to go back? >> Yeah. I'm so confused. >> So, he doesn't mention either Wildwood Cemetery or Jones Library in the application. He just says we're going to do a
>> cemetery tour and a presentation. So, could we just say that you need to have a confirmed presentation location and like a confirmed place that you'll be touring? Would that be sufficient?
>> At the top P, >> right? And this says where will the project take place? That's okay. It is mentioned in like a lower paragraph as well. Um,
>> okay. Okay. So, on the front page here, that's where it says the project. Okay. >> Got it. And in theory then, I mean, of course, then Janet Ryan, who's the program director at the Jones, has every right to be commenting on this since she
manages the program. So, special wouldn't be just email. So I took it very seriously and
you essentially you know stay in false info on documents again you know if it was me I'm
no you're you're good but um isative effort and yeah
I I don't wonder because he said presentation and fall and we man is
will the Jones be done in the fall I don't know have eat I bring this up towards
we need to be st about that and how do We want to confirm the location
be to us and we trusted him. So I mean confirming every location will be more work
for us but it's how do we go about that? >> Okay. So, at this point, we're saying we're going to not give him the money because he presented false information
on his application, which I completely agree with. And to try to prevent that in the future, maybe something like needing uh some sort of backing statement if you write that like
someone's going to be a sponsor, that someone's hosting an event. And then if it's tentative, you have to stay tentative. >> I mean, we just say to him, if you can show that, why would
like good? Um, yeah. Oh, the email was sent yesterday.
Correct. Or Yeah. So, um I say if we don't hear back, we want a week. Um
yeah, we're keeping the money and then just to your other point I guess so the thing that comes to mind for me is thinking about and this may be it's only one example so it may not be really applicable but I think about the Jones library and the number of times
that they're mentioned in grants um and the work that that would entail for their staff to put these letters out um on a you know probably in a relatively short timeline because all the grantees are submitting at the same time and
whether that's feasible um or the or yeah >> I think sorry Bill I think um >> if let's say the council made that as a requirement or one of the um you know,
favorable uh um criteria for for um granting the request. Then cuz we've seen letters where it's they they could just be very simple saying yes, this is to confirm that we are
working with so and so to, you know, stage this whatever event. >> Um it doesn't have to be in detail. And I think I think we probably all recall the fact that like the program um director at the Jones made a very
specific um you know appeal and support for the me memoir project that okay that they really want this to happen and it was such a modest grant request in the first place. So I think they're going to pick and choose which ones they're going
to right want to support too. So, I think I I think it's actually okay if you know that they could just issue a yes, this person's going to do this at the senior center or whatever. Um but but I think the council just needs to be
explicit that that's going to be a consideration maybe you know I don't know if we can do this but almost
create a standard temp. Put your letter the project name. Um, and
the language is already there in your contact info. That way it's legit just pop in a few
versus type and let's say 10 which yeah >> I like that idea if that's something that we're able to do like if there are no restrictions from
like MCC or something on doing something like that. I I like that idea and we can just get like a signature of a representative or a staff member of each different location and have that be required or like highly recommended.
>> Yeah. Because if you provide that, it's going to like weigh your application that much more strongly versus where you don't have it, right? cuz that actually becomes really clear. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And that should go out over the summer
too at least or usual Jones Drake historic society.
Um where it does Yeah, the high school maybe. But >> there's also the section on the town of Ammerst um cultural council web page
where it's like info for people who are applying for grants. So we can just put stuff like any forms or any like criteria there in addition to the info sessions that we're giving. So that way like Rachel is saying it's just very explicitly laid out once we come up with
like what kind of supporting information we're looking for. And that way like >> the the Jones library and the high school there there were some grants that came directly from like high school clubs but like they're the ones
sponsoring the events not writing the grants themselves. So that onus is going to be on the applicants not on like the Jones. The Jones just has to sign it you know. Yeah, I
hear you. Um, we can do that. is just like I do have questions about
who's taking the deliberate time to go on over like they already
Now, hey, I was sent this for and confir >> I would think if someone's applying for a grant, they would be like checking the
information about the grant. So may there might be a case of like a repeat someone who applies every year and maybe doesn't see the updated criteria, but I think for most people like they would probably they would probably be checking
for that. At least I would assume. >> Yeah, >> I think it's okay to have all of this. It's just, you know, I think just as a council there needs just to be clarity on what they are and, you know, have that set in time like early enough. I
would recommend no later than June honestly to have these kind of determined so that you know over the summer or by you know by August people can get this information. And I mean the
the mechanics of how to get that um you know support or indicate that support. It doesn't have to be that complicated or, you know, cumbersome, labor intensive. It just it just
requires a little bit of thought in terms of how does how should this work? And, >> you know, maybe it's not it's not it's not going to be attached necessarily to MCC's application. It could just be here is um
you know, because we as a council have this and um I I mean I don't know. I'm just I haven't thought this through entirely, but >> right right email supporting
documents this past cycle. So could it be that understanding of you know
whoever is hosting their event just emails >> if you if you all want. Okay. I mean, I'm not saying I need to do this, but if
it would help you the process, I am happy to contact our liaison at MCC and just ask a question. If we wanted to add some kind of link to the online application that's specific to Ammerst, can they do that?
>> Yeah. >> Does that make sense? >> Yeah. like we had this one form or set of like a checklist if is it possible to attach it to the online application that they're going to have? I that's a pretty
simple question. So if you like I I'm happy to ask that question. >> Yeah. Yeah, I would just give them contact and that way is they can't submit their
application without that because it's >> right. >> It's a question of whether they can >> kind of back and you know, >> that's specific to Ammeris Cultural Council. So, if you if you all would
like that, I'm happy to just >> say, you know, can we do this? >> Yes or no? >> Great. Thank you. >> Sorry. That would be great. Thank you, Rachel. It's actually a really good idea um to
be able to do that because that you know if you think about when it comes time for you all to evaluate the next set of grants you you'll have all this information it's like does this person have it or they don't have it and that would impact their score right
>> so um so that's actually really good so my my suggestion is like before our next meeting are there you know before we all have to sign off um from this one. Like are there things that you know you think we want to just
move forward with? And and and also has a decision been reached on the cemetery one. Um, my proposal was give it till next
Wednesday if we have her back, you know. That's a wrap for that.
I would personally suggest just reaching out to him and saying you misrepresented your relationship with the Jones Library and for that reason we can't grant you the money. >> Yeah. My only issue is that we already
did. We as coaches jump the gun in the way to talk about the
probably that's on us. But we did tell him well if you can provide this here you go. Um, but
I think it's fair, you know, to give told him, then that makes total sense to give him until once you said Wednesday to do that. >> Yeah. >> And then we know >> and then we know for in the future like
we're going to have an action plan to prevent stuff like this from happening again. >> And that way if someone does misrepresent something, it's very clear. >> All right. And Cody, you bring up another good point. Um, we don't have to discuss all
this all the way through, but uh, tonight anyway. Um, but for situations like that, like what what are things that the chair or co-chairs should handle and what should come back to the council as a whole? Um, because yeah, you're right. I think this based on this
discussion, we we probably should have waited for the for the meeting to to bring it up. Um, >> I actually think that this is something the co-chairs could have just probably made the call because Okay. Yeah, that's my that's my understanding.
I don't know what you all think. >> Yeah, I'm curious how you all feel if if you're comfortable with that. >> That's fine with me as well. Yeah, the reason I brought it up
was just being transparent and yeah and also he is right to
avoid in the future. I was not really thinking or make a decision.
So, apes for not being clear on that. in terms of like other criteria that I would personally want to
discuss and come up with more concrete concrete guidelines about. Um the event planning was like one of them that I think our discussion about the like sign off and like all of that I think that's cleared that up for me. The other one
that I would want more um to have a more in-depth discussion about and hammer down some more concrete guidelines is um the community benefit one and like what exactly community benefit means.
>> Um so just bringing that up now. so we can like think about it and discuss it more in depth at our next meeting. >> I mean, I'm just real Yeah. I mean actually
you bro this point I never really but let's say is yeah some
folks they go. But how accessessible for those that don't drive or have Uber money
and a Uber rais is you may not have look and you stream it
out there. So um that's something defin to consider how it's accessible transportation wise
is yes in that window. >> Well, also it really behooves us to define what community like how to define
the community because there many ways to do that, right? And so um I think there a couple of other just details that I thought I would really ask you all to consider since I'm not going to be involved in the next grant cycle really is one is the um kind of adherence to
one application per applicant. I mean that that is kind of a rule we have but if we look at the past payments that was that were made for example last year's um payment record that Angela shared like I think there were three separate payments made to Emmer
historical society so maybe there were three different projects but if they're kind of doing them all so is that how does the council see that you know that's really just like up to you all to decide right
because it could distinct projects, but if it's really the same applicant using different names, >> you know, is that like how how do you view that, you know, because it could be three unrelated projects? Um, but that's
that's one question I have. And then the other question is really um things like paying for food, travel, lodging. that's really up to the council to decide whether categorically that's not an issue or you don't want to support that.
So, those are two really um you know just detailed um questions. And then the third one, sorry Cody, I'm just going to um finish and quiet. But um it's maybe I don't know if y'all have time to spend
like maybe five or 10 minutes just talking about the calendar for the next few months like by March, by April, by May, by June, what would you like to have um done or discussed or established
or you know um so so that that's that's my other suggestion. Thank you. >> Yeah. Um well time flies. I will say this for next meeting that also
you said this earlier number people let's say 40 people let's say green field or
10 how many of those 40 will be from. Oh, that number could be important.
Also like 20 people in there as for $7,000 does not play well. But let's jump
to really time. >> Sorry, I just it occurred to me. Do you all remember when the global village festival is supposed to happen? Is that coming up?
>> I saw some advertising about it happening soon actually. Okay, that would be one opportunity where we as a council can have a table, >> right? Or like at the POW because that's POW is what at the end of May. So those
maybe like times when we could have a cultural council table >> where you know either celebrate the people who have already received grants or like you know people can come and ask questions or um it it might be a useful
time to just get you know feedback too in terms of how to um launch or how to promote the next grand cycle. >> Yeah. with the power and the noven
spots. Oh, I don't know where that start info boos as well. Um I would argue
like hey we funded but we have a right to table but um if we really
felt strong about table especially at major events which I have no issue
doing. I know we talked about the block party which is after few weeks before do
we Yes, I do that. I'm also teach and celebration. So, um, one thing we could do is look at
what we got and really identify events. We would like to attending table at the global village festival is happening
April 11th. So, one thing we could do timelinewise is to aim to come up with the concrete criteria by that date and reach out about tableabling then
>> and then that way we're like even if we don't end up tableabling there, we're we're prepared for the events that are coming up in the spring and summer that we will be table like we'll t we'll plan to table at at least a handful of
them and do info sessions in that time frame as well. >> Um >> yeah, >> so that could be like a concrete kind of like deadline is like the week before April 11th or something have those set criteria and the set like how we're
reviewing applications. >> Does that mean having like a meeting the first week of April, end of March kind of thing then like a month from now pretty much available for that or What? >> Yeah. In terms of
dates, I can only Well, I can do that last Wednesday in March probably in that Friday. But
I'm away in Houston. March 20. Well, March 30th to April. Oh. Um,
but yeah, that Wednesday at this be for me cuz I be in all time. I could do that.
Um >> I would personally suggest we plan to have two meetings in March just based on like the pace that we get through discussions. So plan to have one where we like bring up the criteria and discuss them and maybe a second where we
like solidify everything >> now. >> March starts next week. So that but I think I think that's a good idea. Yeah. >> To do that. >> I mean we're not allowed to I I don't think we can conduct council business on email otherwise you know um so we kind
of need to have the quorum and have the access. >> Yeah >> that's part of me consideration. Um because I would just call yesterday
with someone that experience a violation and like that's not fun. It's a lot of
training. They make you go boo. So yeah. >> Are are you all available like say the 11th and the 25th of March? >> That sounds perfect to me. Wednesday like they're Wednesdays.
>> I'm not I'm I got to share a state me on >> what >> that
Wednesday. Um, I'm supposed to be on a personal trip, but um, yeah. >> What time is that? Do you have to do
that, Cody? Does that kind of You're not available for the entire day. Is that what you're saying? or >> I the I do got five to
Well, no. No. Yeah. I like if you all could do a 8:00 p.m.
I could do that, but that's what Yeah. Um, sure. Who the f I could do 4 to 5
p.m. that Wednesday? >> How about the 18th and the 25th then? How does that look for people? >> That works. >> Um,
>> yeah, I can do that. I'm not sure cuz I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm supposed to be with my partner and
this so first time. So >> I think I could just
do it. I just am very hesitant about that. >> Are there other days in the week that work for everyone? I mean, it just seems easier if we can get this kind of out of
the way now and before we do available that Thursday to let me just Um, yeah,
I can do the 12th. I can do the 12th, but it would have to be probably six o'clock or later. That's
me. >> 6 o' on the 12th works for me as well. >> Or even a little later works for me as well. How about you, Joe? >> Yeah, I can make that work for six or later. Um,
>> usually >> Yep. Usually get out at 5:30, so that should work. Um, >> you're talking about Thursday the 12th. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. So, what about the um Wednesday
the what is it? The >> 25th. Yeah, >> I can make quick work. >> Yeah, works for me. >> It works for me, too. >> That's a fly out day for everyone.
So won't be any post in confidence. So that works. >> So we're talking about Thursday the 12th at 6 and then Wednesday the 25th at 6.
Is that correct? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And then as Jess said, the first meeting is to kind of talk about the criteria that people want to have and the second one would be to confirm them. Is that right? >> Yep. >> Okay.
>> Yeah. >> Thanks for shephering us through that, Rachel. >> No, I'm just thinking, oh, I'm not going to be here when all that comes around. Whatever, you know, can um we can kind of put it put um in in process and
everything. So, >> and then as you know, if you all still want to do the survey or whatever at whatever point that can all just um happen depending on >> what's what's available and people have the capacity.
>> Thank you. If we table more than just a question of do we want
the survey at every event or just the prop? We can focus on that. >> Yeah. And that's just a a suggestion maybe for the next uh meeting agenda. I
think we can we can add things to the agenda. We don't we're not discussing this via email as a group, but we can add things to the agenda that we think we want to cover. >> Yeah. >> Um and then I think that would be really useful. So, um maybe maybe we can do that.
>> Yeah. Thank you so much. I believe that brings us to a close because we already talked about or next
days they um no business not so yeah I called me um and I see you Oh, I will see you almost
12 at 6 p.m. >> Thank you. >> Good night everyone. Thank everyone. Bye. >> Have a good night. Take care everyone. Here on the left you have the browser that um
allows you uh to browse the things you have. Hi everybody. In this issue, I'll show you a little bit about the interface of the QGIS GIS desktop
and UGIS has a nice graph and it's able to integrate a lot of other opensource go. So the first area to focus on is
some fundamental GIS concepts. Geocoding, routing, JavaScript, Python, React, command line, R, DEM, Jupyter notebooks, spatial feature engineering, spatial data science, geospatial data engineering. PO, that was overwhelming.
And yes, modern GIS can seem very old. It's a brand new territory with different types of tools, technologies, libraries, languages that may seem very confusing. But today, what I hope to do is break down what are the most important things to learn and get you know where you want to go. So the first
area to focus on is some fundamental GIS concepts. Now if you've gone through a GIS or geospatial education, you've probably studied these things before. Things such as spatial joins, how spatial features touch each other and interact, measuring distances.
We can go ahead and let's make this a little bit bigger. So you can click here to learn a little bit about uh what QGIS is which is really great. So now that we covered a little bit about the documents and then I have a folder in here called QGIS tutorial. I can go ahead and add that as a favorite and now
we can get right back to that whenever we want. Um you'll also see some different options for things like a geo package file if you have Postgress rounded to it. So the first thing you always want to do is start a new project. So you can do that here by going to project new or you can just
double click here. That should open up a new project for you to get started with. Now before we jump in, we'll walk through the interface so you can kind of acclimate yourself to where things are in the application. Of course, this might look a little bit different if you're on Windows versus uh Mac versus
Linux or anything like that, but for the most part, everything pretty much remains the same. So the first thing I'm going to point out is the layers list. And this will start to pop up when we add data to the map. But that's down here in this lower left corner. If you can see here, this includes um all the layers that you're going to list. You can change the order, remove them, do
some filtering, uh change visibility and things like that. And you can also control them from the individual layer itself. So that's the first place where you're going to look is you're going to see all these different layers in the map that's there. The other thing that you can look at is up here, and this is your file browser. These are all your
available data sources that you might want to start to use and pull within them. So as you can see here I have uh my Macintosh system. I can see where all my data is here. Uh I can also go and see that here. So this is my home drive which is just the higher level of that. Uh there's different volumes. Then you
can actually create some favorites here if you want to store those. So let's go ahead and add a new favorite in here. I'm going to go in here to Mac HD. I'm going to go to Mac documents. And then I have a folder in here called QGIS tutorial. I can go ahead and add that as a favorite. And now we can get right
back to that whenever we want. Um you'll also see some different options for things like a geo package file. If you have Postgress or spatialite connected, those are database options that you can connect. You can see a bunch of others here too. There's uh web mapping services, XYZ tiles, all these different
things including RJS REST servers. If you want to find some data that's in a open data portal that happens to be backed by Ezri, uh you can actually pull those in here and go ahead and add those. So, we'll cover how to add these in a minute, but for right now, we'll just add our favorites here and this is where we'll be pulling in all our data
for the tutorial. Uh if you want the data, you can either follow along, I have all the links, so if you want up-to-date data, um you can use that. If not, you can just download what we have here and use that. So, this big blank white area here is the map canvas. Now, this is where the map will eventually
show up. And, uh, you'll start to see that here. Um, a few things to note. As you move the map around, you can see you can see the coordinate system down at the bottom right here. As I move my cursor, you'll start to see where that is. And ultimately, this is centered around 0 0 somewhere nearby. Um, and then you can see the scale here. Now,
you can automatically adjust this or as you zoom in and out, you can use your uh mouse scroll or something like that to do that. Uh there's also the magnification if you want to zoom in with the magnifier and rotate the map, things like that. You can also turn off the rendering if you wanted to not render uh every time you change the
zoom, you can do that. So that's helpful if it starts on like a really high level view like the entire nation or the world and you want to zoom into maybe like a state level or a city level, turn it off and then just turn it back on. Maybe you need to render it again otherwise it might freeze up and do things like that. Um all your projections are managed
here. So this is for the project projection. Uh you can see all the available projections. So now we're going to grab some data to put on our map. Um I'm going to be using the New York City open data portal uh for a couple reasons. One, I live here, so I know it's there. Um two is that a lot of
people kind of generally know things in New York City. We're going to be taking a look at Central Park today. I think most people kind of know what Central Park is. Um and that may, you know, make it easier to interact with. And then third is that there's just a ton of data here. there's so much that we could pull in and you might want to go out and
explore and see things like that. But, uh, it's a great place to get started. So, it's pretty easy to like actually open up a search. Um, let's say we just want to look for trees. Bayer is a pretty famous New York City tree census data set. I can search that here. Um, and then you can actually see the
results uh of the individual tree census here. So uh what you can do to see like map related data is you can actually filter this to map and then it will just show you the results for map and the keyword trees if you just want to search all things map. Uh you can just delete your you know your text query here and
then it'll show you everything. So there's 342 different layers of data for you to play around with here. Some of them are are small data sets a few points or polygons. Some of them are really massive and we'll talk about the scale of those. So, um, like I said, we're going to be taking a look at Central Park and and some of the other
parks in New York City. Uh, so we'll go to this layer here. This is the parks properties map. These are all the things that the New York City parks department actually owns and operates. So, you see you have your small parks for the city, your giant ones like Central Park, uh, others out in Queens and in Brooklyn and
things like that. So, this is the data that we want to pull in. So, how do we actually get this data out and into our map? Let's take a look right over here. So, how do we actually get to this data? Now you can actually click this export button up here and we only have a few options that are really nonspatial. The CSV might include the the polygons in
them, but it's a little bit tricky. So one thing you want to look for in this map and this uh portal has changed a little bit is this little button right here. So you can view the source data set. That's sort of the map view of that data set. And now this is the full data set as you can see here. You can actually play with some of this data in
this interface or we want to go to export here. We want to download this file. So there's a few options for spatial specific data. There's KML, KMZ, shape file, and gojson. Now, um, KML and KMZ are specific to the Google Earth interface. They will work in Q.JIS. Um,
they just sometimes have some extra properties that we may not want. So, I'd encourage you to look at a shape file or gojson. Now a shape file will actually download as a zip file and it will include at least four or other you know four or more files with it that has information about the projection and the
data and all those other pieces. So it can get like a little bit confusing because it's it's a zip zip file but you only need the SHP to open it but you need the other files to read it. Um it's kind of you know it's one of those older formats that's been used forever. Uh but I like the giojson option. It's a single file. Uh you don't really have to you
know do anything else with it. So, we're going to go ahead and select that and hit download. And that's going to download here. So, we can see that we have this data. And I'm just going to move it into that folder. And then we'll jump back into QGIS. So, you can do the same on your end. Take that file you downloaded, put it in whatever source folder you're
using on your side. Okay. So, I've added my data in. Um, I'm ready to go. And I can actually go here and open this up. And you can see now that I have this uh specific layer here. It's reading that in. It's saying that it's the park properties CSV. And I can do a few things um that I actually want to do. Um
we'll add the layer to project. You can right click on it that way and do that. Or you can just drag and drop it into this options for spatial specific data. There's KML uh others out in Queens and options for spatial specific data. There's KML, KMZ, shape file, and
GIOJSON. Now, um KML and KMZ are specific to the Google Earth interface. They will work in Q.js. Um they just sometimes have some extra properties that we may not want. So I'd encourage you to look at a shape file or a giojson. Now a shape file will actually download them as a zip file and will
include at least four or other you know four or more PSV might include the the polygons in them but it's a little bit tricky. So one thing you want to look for in this map and this uh portal has changed a little bit is this little button right here. So you can view the source data set. That's sort of the map view of that data set. And now this is
the full data set as you can see here. You can actually play with some of this data in this interface or we want to go to export here. We want to download this file. So there's a few options for spatial specific data. There's KL, KMZ, shape file, and giojson. Now, um, KML
and KMZ are specific to the Google Earth interface. They will work in QGIS. Um, they just sometimes have some extra properties that we may not want. So, I'd encourage you to look at shape file or gojson. Now, a shape file will actually download as a zip file and will include at least four or other, you know, four
or more files with it that has information about the projection and the data and all those other pieces. So, it can get like a little bit confusing cuz it's it's a zip zip file, but you only need the SHP to open it, but you need the other files to read it. Um, it's kind of a, you know, it's one of those older formats that has been used
forever. Uh, but I like the gojson option. It's a single file. Uh, you don't really have to, you know, do anything else with it. So we're going to go ahead and select that and hit download and that's going to download here. So we can see that we have this data and I'm just going to move it into that folder and then we'll jump back into Q that. So
really when we look at map data there's two components to that. First there is the geometry actually where I click down here work site. Here's obviously the round a little bit. Uh I should note that you can also add layers here. If you want to add different layers from this menu you can certainly do that. Uh but this gives you the starting. Now, if
you want to see what each of these elements are, we're going to click on this little icon with the eye up here. That's our tool to look at the feature selection. So, now you can see my mouse has changed. I have my little eye, and I can actually click on that. When I do, now that I moved myself out of the way, we can actually see what we have here. So, this is the properties of that data
set. Uh, you can see that there's a jurisdiction. Is it mapped? What's the zip code it's in? Um, all this different information. You get the URL link to the actual park site. Here's obviously the name, you know, Central Park. Is it a category? it's a flagship park uh where it runs to all of these different you
know all to the map. That's really how it works is you download a file, put it in a location you want, then add it to the mapping and you're ready to go. So that gives us that first layer that we can actually play around with. So now you can see as I move the map around, it's starting to change. You'll see this uh status bar of it recalculating. I can
zoom in and see the layers at a more granular level here. You can see this is like a strip of of, you know, parks along Park Avenue, I believe this is. Um, and you can kind of see some of these different things uh from this perspective. So, you can see this start to change and move around a little bit.
Uh, I should note that you can also add layers here. If you want to add different layers from this menu, you can certainly do that. Uh, but this gives you the starting. Now, if you want to see what each of these elements are, we're going to click on this little icon with the eye up here. That's our tool to look at the feature selection. So, now
you can see on this little icon with the eye up here. That's our tool to look at the feature selection. So, now you can see my mouse has changed. I have my little eye and I can actually click on that. When I do, now that I moved myself out of the way, we can actually see what we have here. So, this is the properties of that data set. Uh, you can see that
there's a jurisdiction. Is it mapped? What's the zip code it's in? Um, all this different information. You can tell the URL link to the actual park site. Here's obviously the name. We know Central Park. Is it a category? It's a flagship park. Uh, where it runs to, all of these different, you know,
information about this individual park. So, we can keep moving around and looking at other parks as well. If you want to click down here should be Washington Square Park. You can get the streets once again all this other information about that. So really when we look at map data there's two components to that. First there is the geometry actually where it exists like I
mentioned earlier there's points lines and polygons. These are our polygon data sets. So that's the actual you know where this thing is the geometry the place that it is representing on them. And then you have all your other data here that basically represents the uh you know the tabular data that's
associated with that thing. It can be anything from a string like text fields. It can be numeric. It can uh a URL. It can be anything we kind of want to put in there. So there's a lot you can actually do with that. So to get out of this view, you actually have to change this mouse. You want to go back to the hand over here, which will allow you to
move the map around. And you can close this out if you're done with looking at the features from that side. If we jump back here, I picked out a few different layers. Like I said, you can download these from the links if you want to. Uh those are our original parks data set here. Uh these are playground areas. if you want to use those. So this is a data
set of like playground areas. Uh we'll go ahead and export this and you can see here we'll get the gojson view. Let's go ahead and do that again. Uh these are the so this layer is the NYC parks forever wild map. These are ecologically
important natural resources within the parks. These are very like kind of protected areas within the park. Uh we can go ahead and do our double export here. open that up and then hit explore giojson once again. There we go. Uh we
also have our park permits area. These are areas where you can actually uh you know set up an event within the park. So if you want to register an event, we can go ahead and export that as well. And then these are with our park gojson. Let's get open that up. Uh we can go
ahead and do our double wherever this use. We've got a few different layers set here. Uh if you're this mouse, you want to go back to the hand over here, which will allow you to move the map around. And you can close this out if you're done with looking at back to the hand over here, which will allow you to
move the map around. And you can close this out if you're done with looking at the features from that side. If we jump back here, I picked out a few different layers. Like I said, you can download these from the links if you want to. Uh those are our original parks data set here. Uh these are playground areas. If you want to use those, so this is a data
set of like playground areas. Uh we'll go ahead and export this and you can see here we'll get the giojson view. Let's go ahead and do that again. Uh these are the so this layer is the NYC parks forever wild map. These are ecologically
important natural resources within the parks. These are very like kind of protected areas within the park. Uh we can go ahead and do our double export here. Open that up and then hit export and gojson again. There we go. Uh we
also have our park permits area. These are areas where you can actually uh you know set up an event within the park. So if you want to register an event, we can go ahead and export that as well. And then these are our bike routes that go through the actual uh park and actually all over the city. So what we can do here and go ahead, we'll export those as
gojson. And then the last one, which I think is just probably one of the strangest data sets I've come across for NYC open data is the gojson here. uh these are playground areas if you want to use those. So this is a data set of like playground areas. Uh we'll go ahead
and export this and you can see here we'll get the gojson view. Let's go ahead and do that again. Uh these are the so this layer is the NYC parks forever wild map. These are ecologically important natural resources within the parks. These are very like kind of
protected areas within the park. Uh we can go ahead and do our double export here. open that up and then hit export and gojson again. There we go. Uh we also have our park permits area. These areas where you can actually uh you know
set up an event within the park. So if you want to register an event, we can go ahead and export that as well. And then these are our bike routes that go through the actual uh park and actually all over the city. So what we can do here and go ahead, we'll export those as gojson. And then the last one, which I think is
just probably one of the strangest data sets I've come across for NYC open data, is the uh squirrel census, where they actually go and count squirrels where they're seen in the park. And this one actually tracks their fur color. Okay, so now that I have those layers, what we can do, I'm going to move those from my
downloads folder into my folder. Uh you can go ahead and do the same and then we'll revisit that in a minute. We'll jump back over to Q and start adding layers to map. Okay, so as you can see here, I've added my layers in. And I can see those in my uh favorites folder here. And we can just start to add those
in. So we have our properties. Let's go ahead and those play areas on top of the map here. So now you can see those play areas are popping up in the map. They're quite small, but you should be able to see them there. Um we'll also add in our squirrel senses here to see where squirrels have been seen throughout the
park. And then we'll also add in our bike routes and then our forever wild areas. So now we have multiple layers on the map. you can start to see where things are showing up. Um, you can start to see a little basic information like a street grid. Um, of course you can't see
everything here. You would have to go and download tons of layers to create a map and actually see this. So, we're going to do two things here. So, the first thing is we're going to add a plugin. It's the most popular plugin in QGIS. So, people use it all the time. Uh, it's called quick map services,
which basically allows you to add a base map underneath this. So, you don't have to add all those other contextual layers to the map. And the second is we're going to change the projection. So, it looks different. You'll see why as we add those in, but we'll touch more on plugins later in the course. But first, let's go ahead and manage and install
plugins. You can do that right up here. And this will open this up, and you'll see all of the different plugins that you can have available. So, there's lots and lots and lots. There's a lot to go through here. So, we'll talk about some of the top most popular ones later on, but for right now, we just want that quick map services. You can start typing
that in map services. As you can see, I've had this enabled on my uh computer already in QGIS. If you've installed it already, what you can do, you may need to upgrade it. So, I'll go ahead and upgrade my plugin. If not, you'll just have to add it and then it will be installed. To make sure it installed, you just have to click here, and you'll
see yes, I have installed my quick map services, and I'm ready to go from there. So, before we go any further, let's go ahead and actually save our map. So, we can do that up here. We'll hit save. Um, let's go ahead and put that in our folder. So, I'll go to documents. I'll go to Q.js tutorial.
This will save as a QGZ. Uh basically a Q.js file type. And you can go ahead and hit save. And then you'll see that up here. Uh if you do see that little uh star at the top, that means your work is unsaved. So you want to be periodically going through and hitting the save button just so you make sure you don't lose anything. So after I install that
plugin, for some reason, I had to restart QGIS. Um it it maybe works if you just needed a quick restart because I couldn't find the plugin. Uh that may or may not happen to you. So just be aware that that's something you might have to do. I'm going to go ahead and open up the project. You'll see here it's a very recent project, so it shouldn't be going anywhere. And you've
saved that. Um, and then to find the plugin, it go plugins are installed, they go into various parts of the menu. Um, what I want to do here is you can start typing for quick map services. You can see that's over here under web is where that lives. Uh, but it may or may not have actually added it here as well.
So, you can add a quick map service. You can see some of the different options we have here. There's NASA layers as well as open street map. We're just going to add the open street map standard service. And as you can see now, we have the complete open street map base map here, which shows everything from roads and locations and things like that. But
you'll see the text looks kind of funky. And that's because of the projection that we're working in. So most web maps use the web merkar map projection. That is uh the epsg code 3857 3857. You can
see here we're in 4326. So we can quickly fix that. This is the project setting. number and we'll go here and change the uh projection for the project. If you don't see it under recent, you can go ahead and search that. But we'll go ahead and hit okay to check that the work looks good. We hit
apply. We'll hit okay. And now everything looks great. Now you can change your projections uh based on if you need specific projections either for a print layout or for measurements or anything like that. They're basically all there so you should be able to use them. Uh but at least this gets us started for to keep it accurate to the
base map so it's readable and legible for what we want to do. Now it's not the the best projection. There's lots of different topics on that. Uh but that's a story for another day. We'll keep pressing on from here. Now just a quick overview of the layers that we have on the map. Uh as you can see here, this is the order that these will be rendered
in. So for some reason I want to put this OSN layer on the top. You'll see nothing else below it because everything else is rendered underneath that layer. Uh, if I wanted to toggle a layer on and off, I can do that here. And you'll see it'll go to italics. The checkbox won't show up. And you can see that those
areas are now off of the map. Now, if you want to reorder these, it's pretty simple. You can just drag and drop them to reorder them. Or you can use this. You can hover over that and use the up and down arrows here to move those up or down. And that'll move that layer to where you want it as well. And then that's basically what we have here.
There's some filtering controls for legends and things like that here. Uh but for the most part that's uh the pieces that we have here in Legends toolkit. So that allows us to change the map layers, turn them on and off and things like that. So we'll be going back and forth. playing with doll.
I'm uh interacting with them. >> Oh, can I interact with the dolls, too? >> Sure, son. Let's interact together. What's your kittens?