What are we doing now?.....May 2012
At the end of April 2012 Mark Probert, on behalf of Geolink Consulting Ltd, signed a 6 months Associate call-off contract with Orgut UK. The first input resulting from the contract is a 25 days project in Rwanda for the UK Department for International Development. The project ends in early June and will result in the design of a programme of support for the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority to assist with the completion of the Land Tenure Regularisation Programme, the future maintenance of the newly registered land titles, and the transitionary period.
March 2012 saw the conclusion of the 15 months Macedonian NSDI Strategy project, co-funded by the government of The Netherlands and the World Bank. On February 28th and March 28th there were workshops in Skopje that presented the results of the project and introduced the draft strategy to stakeholders.
The workshop held on 28th March was preceded by a forum which had an audience of 87, including the Deputy Dutch Ambassador and dignatories from the Government of Macedonia and the City of Skopje. The NSDI strategy for Macedonia was jointly presented by Sonja Dimova from the Macedonian Cadastre Agency, and Mark Probert, as team leader from the Dutch Kadaster.
After the presentation of the strategy and road map, a pilot web application was demonstrated that integrates spatial data published by several Macedonian data providers (AREC, City of Skopje Municipality, Crisis Management Centre and the State Statistical Office) into one unified web service.
The forum concluded with a declaration that stated it's recognition of the importance of the Macedonian NSDI and affirmed the stakeholder's committment to implement the NSDI in the future.
The month of 
December involved further work on the Macedonian NSDI Strategy Project, with another visit to Skopje during the second week that concentrated more on the IT aspects. During the previous visit in November Mark Probert and the Kadaster Internationl IT experts also worked on the IT deliverables including the start of a pilot NSDI web service application. This continued the IT activities from October's visit which included a metadata workshop for employees of the AREC cadastre agency, and other stakeholders.
In the previous months Mark Probert continued to work on deliverables for the project including those dealing with the business model and governance structure. In the Spring of 2011 the project team had begun work on the business, governance, legal and IT activities. As part of the March mission the joint AREC and Kadaster International team introduced the NSDI Strategy project, via a high level kick-off meeting, to the Macedonian Vice Prime Minister, several other Ministers and representatives from other government departments. The project team were delighted with the level of understanding and the political support offered.
During February and January Mark Probert was in Zanzibar working for NIRAS on the spatial data infrastructure project, reviewing the national Land Policy and making recommendations for development of the ZALIS information system.
In December 2010 Mark Probert was again working for Kadaster International on the NSDI Strategy for Macedonia. The project started in November last year and will last until March 2012. Mark will visit Skopje regularly throughout the project acting as Project Manager and providing specilsit input for several topics.
At the end of October Mark Probert began the first of two inputs that will result in an SDI report for Zanzibar. The work is being done as part of the SMOLE II project that is managed by NIRAS and mainly funded by the government of Finland.
This first two week input has resulted in an Inception Report. The second input, of a further 6 weeks, will begin in January 2011. The study will describe the current status and recommend options for developing an SDI, and for expanding the services already being created by the ZALIS land information service. Also in November Mark will be visiting Macedonia again to discuss the terms of reference for an SDI strategy project being funded by The Netherlands and implemented by the Netherlands Kadaster.
In October Mark Probert completed a study that provided a generic methodology for assessing and monitoring the progress of cadastre and land administration projects. This was done with the Netherlands Kadaster and funded by the EC. The work followed on from the monitoring work that has been done by the same team over the previous years.
Mark Probert attended the International Conference on Spatial Data Infrastructures in Skopje, Macedonia (15-17 Sep).
Over the Summer we have been mainly spending time in the office preparing bids for future work. Mark Probert attended the INSPIRE conference in Krakow, Poland, where he chaired the session on trans national SDI projects and participated in meetings of the "state of play" project.
May was a busy month for Land Surveying training again. In conjunction with PBTDS Ltd, Mark Probert delivered three courses to Land Registry staff. The courses are specifically aimed at helping candidates on the path to AssocRICS membership. Candidates spend a week of intensive practical training using graphic, total station and rtk gps surveying methods to consolidate classroom learning.
In April Mark Probert was in Mongolia again for two weeks working with BlomInfo on the subject of addresses.
In March Mark Probert was in Greece for two weeks, supporting Dutch Kadaster with the monitoring of the Greek cadastre. This involved a two week mission in the middle of the month.
In January and February 2010 Mark Probert visited Mongolia again to concentrate on the NSDI aspects of the Land Privatization and Title Registration Project being managed by BlomInfo. The 18 months project is part of the Property Rights Project being supported by the Millenium Challenge Corporation of the USA.
December 2009 - Mark Probert was supporting Blom in their Land Privatization and Title Registration project in Mongolia. During December Mark was assisting with the project start-up and his input concluded with the creation of the project inception report and a stakeholder workshop.
November 2009 - During November Mark Probert visited Greece again acting as team leader for the Kadaster International project that is monitoring the implimentation of various activities in support of the creation of the Greek Cadastre. The team spent just over one week in Athens and visited the offices of Ktimatalogio and Agroland.
During the Autumn we have been based in the Southampton office, mainly preparing bids for future projects.
August 2009 - In August we were in Macedonia again to finish the Training Needs Assessment began in June. This trip included visits to the regional offices of Ohrid and Struge to evaluate the training needs in the districts away from the Skopje HQ.
July 2009 - In July we were back in Azerbaijan to complete the Training Needs Assessment project started in May this year. There were some organisational changes in the meantime with a new State Committee for Property Issues now responsible for the land register.
June 2009- Geolink Consulting has begun a seven week project looking at the training needs of the Macedonian Cadastre and Land Registry - AREC. The project began with a week long mission in Skopje in mid June and continues until August. Working with PBTDS Ltd the study has involved a concentrated information gathering exercise using interviews, focus groups, observation, existing documentation and a questionnaire. Work has involved visiting the main City registration office and the regional office of Kumanaova as well as the main HQ in Skopje.
May 2009-We have been working in Baku, Azerbaijan for two weeks on a Training Needs Assessment for the main cadastre and registration agencies. The three main agencies implementing the World Bank Real Estate Registration Project have very recently been streamlined into two agencies. The work, which will be completed by a second two week visit in July, will result in a Training Strategy and Training Plan to help the agencies with the Registration and Cadastre project and with their day to day work into the future.
April 2009 -During April we have been running this years AssocRICS Land Surveying courses with staff from Land Registry. Two events took place in Bristol, with another course scheduled for the second week of May in Leeds. Candidates enjoyed fine weather for the first course and were out surveying every day. Rain during the second week necessitated a re-schedule of some of the work but didn't prevent the candidates from completing all their graphic, total station and RTK GPS surveyassignments. For the rest of this month Geolink staff have been preparing for forthcoming projects in Azerbaijan and Macedonia.
Nov 2008 - Mar 2009- Most of this period has been spent in the UK preparing bids and content for future projects. April sees the start of this years programme of AssocRICS land surveying courses for Land Registry staff.
Oct - At the beginning of October we attended the WPLA workshop in Cavtat, Croatia. A paper about Training Needs Analysis, co-written by Mark Probert, Paul Bullock and Mario Josic was presented at the workshop by Paul Bullock of PBTDS Ltd. The event, which was superbly organised at a great venue, was a great opportunity to meet up with old and new friends, and to learn about new activities in the world of Land Administration.
Sep - The end of September brought about the final Geolink input into the Training Needs Assessment project in Albania. Geolink had previously completed inputs earlier in September and back in July. Geolink was involved in a GPS network project in Albania at the end of 2007.
July - During July Geolink supported the PBTDS Ltd
Training Needs Analysis project in the IPRO, Albania. IPRO is the Immovable Property Registration Office and this first 2 weeks input was aimed at gathering information on the current status - through existing documentation, interviews and a questionnaire. The remainder of the project was completed in September. Final deliverables included a training strategy and plan, an evaluation package, and a report.
June - The Geolink NSDI Study for Croatia, completed in 2006, has now been published in Croatia (in Croatian). The Geolink report has been combined with another SDI study - from German geoada company conterra, and was launched at a very pleasant event in Zagreb on 26th June 2008. The book (ISBN-978-953-6971-13-8) will be distributed to a wide range of stakeholders in the Croatian NSDI and forms an excellent medium for communicating the key issues. For enquiries contact the Project Implementation Unit of the Real Property Registration and Cadastre Project. 
Also in June we attended the FIG working week in Stockholm and the EC GI-GIS Workshop in Slovenia. Both represented excellent opportunities to keep up to date with current developments and to maintain contacts in the Land Administration / SDI worlds. For much of September we will again be working back in Albania before presenting a paper at the WPLA Land Administration Workshop in Croatia at the beginning of October. (In August we might even take a holiday!)
May - back in April/May, and working with PBTDS Ltd, we delivered a series of land surveying training courses for Land Registry and Registers of Scotland. Land Registry students were gaining survey experience as part of their work towards the TechRICS qualification. The courses took place in Bristol and Leeds - culminating with survey exercises that involved use of graphic survey techniques, total station and rtk gps. The data captured was loaded into Cadcorp GIS and merged with Ordnance Survey data. Registers of Scotland staff were provided with three day Introduction to Survey Practice courses.
Feb - Earlier in the year we presented a paper on capacity building and SDIs at the Intergeo East conference in Belgrade, continued monitoring work in Greece, and visited the Immovable Property Registration Office in Albania again. Geolink Consulting Ltd continues to be active in a number of fields connected with Land Administration - the navigation menu to the right will link through to case study examples that give a brief overview of many of the projects. We will regularly update these.