 Michael
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Posted: 13 March 2007, 12:26 PM
If 5% of the ideas for new areas in the back of beyond are going to come about, there's going to be a surge in demand for mapping services. Even before this I knew of three clubs who couldn't get mappers for straightforward revisions within cooee of town. And there's increasing scope for entrepreneurial work for schools, corporates, events and areas of federation activity that are starting to be paid.
I want to taper my work and at the same time pass on some technical and commercial skills. I thought that squad members looking for flexible work to combine with training and competition would be most suitable, but after talking to Carsten I haven't yet had any nibbles. So I cast the net a little wider here.
I'm not thinking of an employment relationship, more like a loose association where we both undertake to work side by side for a client. I'm trialling the concept with OHV at present (as with many other developments...)
You know how to get hold of me.
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Jamie
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Posted: 13 March 2007, 10:28 PM
Yeah its a bit of a worry the lack of mappers around...I hope you find someone Michael..
How many fulltime mappers do you think NZ could support currently?
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Michael
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Posted: 14 March 2007, 3:53 AM
Hard to define, do you count experienced mappers who only work for their own club? I would say the contestable market is about 1, but if you want to work half-time in order to do something else like train, and if that half includes non-mapping work like o in schools or entrepreneurial event work then that may represent 4 contractors.
Camping beside a stream far from town and running on a beautiful new map on innovative courses has undoubted motivational benefits for both planners and competitors. However I think that demand will be dominated by revising existing or old maps that are accessible from where people live. Many of these are not being updated in spite of having been put into OCAD - providing problems for planners and frustration for competitors. Many of them have had piecemeal additions with poor geometrical control. Many were not well-mapped to start with, our expectations have risen over the years. The three jobs I mentioned above are examples.
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Paul I
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Posted: 14 March 2007, 1:55 PM
Where are the mappers?
Baby Boomers = too busy enjoying life and travel!
Generation X = too busy paying the Mortgage!
Generation Y = just too busy!
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Ellmo1769
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Posted: 14 March 2007, 2:01 PM
Generation Y = just too busy playing CF
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davemeyer
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Posted: 24 March 2007, 6:08 AM
Australia is about to experience a shortage of good mappers too. Eric Andrews mapping for JWOC already brought him out of retirement and he's too old to keep going. Alex Tarr is in much the same boat, but it wont e to much of a shame if he keeps mapping. and Aussie clubs are too tightarse to pay for Rob Plowright, he lives in Japan too but im sure hes keen to map here. Apart from that there are a few part-timers around the states that done have the experience/skill/knowledge for big projects. Bit of a worry really
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ole codger
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Posted: 24 March 2007, 2:10 PM
I understand that Aussie pay less than NZ for mapping services $15-18 p.h so I guess it is not much incentive for talented o'teers to come forward over there. Tricia and my services are available when we can find a windows of time away from the farm, generally early spring or late summer. We find mapping enjoyable and challenging,( almost as good as orienteering it self) but after having served our apprienticship on 6-7 club maps for free and many other ones for mate? rates, we feel we are entitled to a rewarding income from our services.For the last 3-4 years we have been charging $20 ph + gst+ milage. Orienteering clubs get a pretty good deal really. Just call in your electrician or plumber to find out and check out their milage rate as well. A mechanic recently charged me $1.20 p.km.and an $60 hourly rate from the time he left the workshop and here we are charging anything a miserly 25-35 cents p.k with the price of petrol now $1.59. Now that funding is available from community trusts for this kind of work it may be a good time for an income increase which could attract other o'teers to offer their services ( once they have got their hand in a map or two for free).If we retired from farming we would do it full time like Micheal and we feel that we have a decade to go before the years catch up. Micheal/Paul/Selwyn and others; after the Nats we would be available for a workshop mid week at White Lighting after the race or perhaps the day after. And also we may go to Aussie in July, so would be interested in the mapping seminar with GPS. Another comment. The days have long gone when 5-6 club members gave up their weekends to create a confused map. I would rather see these members focusing on course setting and controlling( which in CMOC they are paid for) and leave the mapping to semi and full time mapping Professionals.
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onemanfanclub
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Posted: 25 March 2007, 9:23 AM
...and perhaps that is part of the problem? I agree that a map produced by one professional is BY FAR better than 5-6 club members, and would not want to see the latter reappearing to a great degree. But there is still room for maps being fieldworked by maybe a couple of club members, otherwise where are the people who are going to replace our current professional mappers going to get their experience?
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Michael
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Posted: 18 September 2007, 4:20 PM
A reminder of the "technology transfer" scheme in which I seek partners for mapping work.
A good training project would have been a recent remap of a little area of farmland centred on an old school now an outdoor centre. The old map was so bad as to be worthless as a base, but combining the photogrammetry, LINZ and Google photos gave a new base tied into the NZ map grid for future expansion.
I recently updated my website with some of the mapping issues that we face in NZ. www.mapsport.co.nz --> Services to Orienteering --> Mapping.
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