Recruitment Poster
The following is a design of a Recruitment Poster. The page gives some possible text and then a possible poster graphic using this text. The aim to serve as a "recruitment poster" appealing to the general public, suitable for posting on a local noticeboard.
There are many other ways the text could be worded, and many other ways the graphics could be designed. Feel free to use these materials as-is, or create new versions to suite your purposes. See Flyers and posters for other materials.
Suggested Text
Put your community on The Map!
A project called OpenStreetMap is making a free street-level map of the entire world.
Volunteers from this area have already begun mapping the roads and rivers in your community, but now they need your help to add details of street names and local amenities such as restaurants, hospitals and cinemas.
So why not just use Google Maps (or the like)?
There are many places on the Internet where you can look at maps without charge, but that's all they usually allow you to do - you cannot re-use the map, modify it, publish it on your own web site or print it in a leaflet. To do any of that, you would have to obtain a license, which typically costs money. And if you spot a mistake in your area, the process to get it corrected is lengthy.
OpenStreetMap is different in that the map data is available to everyone, for whatever purpose they want (it's "open" or "free-as-in-freedom"). Anyone can put in the locations and names of roads, footpaths, railway stations, or whatever else is important to them. And people can immediately respond to changes on the ground, so the data is the most up-to-date information available.
Maps created from the data are available to browse on the Internet (just like other online maps), but they can also be downloaded and used for any purpose. And if you don't like the way the provided maps look, you can download the data and create your map, your way.
So what do I need to participate in OpenStreetMap?
Tools such as GPS receivers and digital cameras are useful for advanced mapping, but simply having access to the Internet will allow you to contribute by checking/editing the maps and to add that all-important local information. The only real requirement is that the information is 'first hand' from observation or local knowledge and that it is not copied from restricted sources (such as printed maps or online services).
This area is currently being mapped! Visit https://www.openstreetmap.org to find out more and see how you can help.
Other Ideas
Below the poster, you could put a picture of how the area looks now, and perhaps also one of a (reasonably) local area or city which has much better OSM mapping, titled "How {city} looks now, which is how {our area} could look".
Poster Graphics
Source now available in SVN (https://trac.openstreetmap.org/browser/misc/pr_material/recruitment_poster)
Other Posters / Flyers
See Flyers and posters for other materials