BCS Annual Winter Lecture
Most years the BCS invites a key speaker in the industry to talk about their field of interest
Recent Winter Lectures have included:
-
Dr Barbara Bond - Mapping Escapes in World War II
-
Philippe Frei - The Federal Office of Topography Swisstopo and the history of cartography in Switzerland
-
Oliver Green - Mapping the Underground
-
A panel session discussing the future roadmap of cartography. With Seppe Cassettari (President, BCS), Mark Wigley (President, Swiss Society of Cartography) and Dr Jochen Schiewe (President, German Cartographic Society), chaired by Alex Kent
Details of our most recent Winter Lecture are shown below.
2026 Winter Lecture
Thursday 10th December
GeoFutures: The challenges and opportunities of realising the exciting future for geospatial visualisation
Speaker: Seppe Cassettari
Time: 7.00 - 8.00pm (sign in from 6.45pm)
This event is open to all, not just BCS members
After the GeoFutures workshop in March this year, and the publication of the report about the outcomes at the BCS conference in September, Council adopted an Action Plan that led to the setting up of three Working Groups to look more deeply into the key issues.
Many people have joined the groups and are contributing to their work, but we are always keen to get more feedback and input from BCS members.
This talk will include opportunities for attendees to give us their views on many of the ideas that are emerging through on-screen voting using your mobile phone (no downloads necessary).
Working with our partners, we hope that the outcomes will form a cornerstone of the GeoViz initiative.
Seppe has over 40 years’ experience in the mapping and geospatial industry. Having retired in 2019 from his role running Verisk UK, he is now contributing to projects where his knowledge and skills can make a difference.
In 1998 Seppe became CEO of The GeoInformation Group which went on to publish geospatial datasets and undertake many projects in the UK and abroad. The company is best known for the early aerial imagery databases developed in the mid 1990’s, published as Cities Revealed, and more recently the UKMap large scale topographic map base and the UKBuildings database of building type and age.
Seppe continues with his interest in mapping, has contributed a column for the GeoConnexions magazine and remains involved in the British Cartographic Society.
2025 Winter Lecture
Thursday 11th December
The exploration of the North West Passage:
the fascinating stories of Dr John Rae and Sir John Franklin
Speakers: Fiona Gould and Eugene Rae
This lecture featured speakers from the John Rae Society and the Royal Geographical Society, examining, comparing and contrasting the explorations of Dr John Rae and Sir John Franklin. The talks especially focussed on their quests in the mid 1800s to discover the North West passage in Northern Canada which would link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The contrast between the two men is significant, with differences which were highlighted in the talk in upbringing/social standing, career choice and approach to exploration. Here there was much controversy engendered by factions and supporters of both men with claims and counter claims about what had been achieved. The talk examined some of these disputes, including evidence of surveying and the background to the disappearance of the lost expedition commanded by Sir John Franklin and the part Dr John Rae had in uncovering the truth and his subsequent vilification for doing so.
Fiona Gould of the John Rae Society had a career in teaching and supporting students with Special Education Needs (SEN), gifted children and asylum seekers, a career which led to Fiona’s appointment as Project Manager for West Sussex LEA, whereby she established an outreach support service for students with social communication difficulties. Since retiring and living in Orkney, Fiona has worked as a volunteer for Advocacy Orkney and for The John Rae Society as membership secretary, leading historical and archival researcher and has been developing the partnership.
Eugene Rae is the Principal Librarian of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). He has worked at the Society for twenty- five years and is part of a team that looks after the two million items contained within the Society’s Collections. He has a particular interest in the history of exploration and has lectured for the Society on such topics including “Reaching for the Poles: From Phipps to Fiennes: a look at some of the explorers who tried to reach the North or South Poles and some who tried to do both”. Eugene Rae holds a Master of Arts (M.A.) in United States geography and literature from the University of London.