Comments on: PASS Update #24

By: Roy Ernest

Roy Ernest — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:06:29 +0000

Andre,
I am based in Curacao. We have a small but strong chapter here that I am very proud off. Let me know next time you are planning to take a vacation. I will try to tempt you to come over here and give a presentation….
So far we have been lucky. Jimmy May came last month. In April, Joe Chang is coming. So we are all thrilled here.

By: André Kamman

André Kamman — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:53:04 +0000

Roy, You are based on Curacao right ?
I run the Dutch chapter, let me know if you need any help out of The Netherlands…

By: Roy Ernest

Roy Ernest — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:46:09 +0000

Andy, It is a very tempting idea to host SQL Saturday. I will be discussing this with my board and chapter members. I do not think this can be done just by me and my board. I will need lots of help from my members as well.
My advantage is that our user group has some very strong core of people as members. I will talk to them regarding this and will also try to find everything about SQLSaturdays so that I can get a good idea if we will succeed or not.
Thanks

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:21:54 +0000

Jack, as always appreciate your comments and look forward to seeing your blog post. As far as personalities, we do have a lot of strong personalities, but I don’t know that in itself causes problems or solutions. We all look at things in different ways, and speaking for me, I definitely realize that I’m not always effective at getting people to listen to my views, or in some cases not effective at listening to views of others!

That’s human of course, but still an area that needs work for me.

I’m on a really slow connection at the airport, will try to comment a bit more when I finally get to Charlotte.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:17:57 +0000

Roy, I’d be in favor of that in idea at least, not sure we could scale the event there. How about setting up a SQLSaturday and give us a reason to visit to assess the prospects?

By: Jack Corbett

Jack Corbett — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:56:21 +0000

First off, I’m glad I read your post before the edit. I’m not sure if it was because I have it in Google Reader and Gears cached it or if the feed is gonna catch up and I lose that information. I won’t comment on that decision so I won’t give it away. I’ll be commenting on the not publishing the results in a blog post since this comment is long enough.

Certainly seems tough to be part of a board and, in my limited experience through being on a church board, it can be hard to get decisions made and/or the decisions always go the way of the person with the strongest personality. Although the PASS board has many strong personalities so I don’t know how that works.

I agree that it would have been nice to put back some of the extras before hiring a new person, but I can definitely see that a new staff person might be necessary with the addition of SQLSaturday, especially if PASS wants it to grow.

The money side of SQLSaturday is interesting and I’m sure that getting the process down will be helpful. I’d like to see that functionality extended to Chapters. That way chapters don’t have to worry about dealing with cash either, other than retrieving it from the account to cover expenses.

By: Allen

Allen — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:45:04 +0000

Dang Andy, you write these things and the whole world knows whats going on! I love it!!

Id agree with you on almost every point. Its with trepidation that I see PASS BOD is proposing 2 events, while at the same time worried about more HQ staff $$/efficiency and a Microsoft presence at our current event. How much extra HQ staff will it take to pull off another event on even a partial scale of the summitt? What is the Microsoft presence going to be at an east coast event? Have they agreed to send even a single speaker to such an event? Will that take away from their involvement in PASS @ Seattle?

Knowing my background with the program committee I’m keenly interested in how this east coast event will be managed, and if the logistics were thought of in the discussion at the BOD level?

Now this part im shocked about, and frankly a little embarrassed.
Why isn’t the data released? Knowing how vocal the community was about the location, I hope the BOD realizes that the data they based their decision on would be nice to see. I’m totally OK with the BOD releasing the data and saying, “We know best, we want the event in Seattle for these reasons X,Y & Z even if the survey doesn’t support it” After all PASS is a business and should be managed as such because the crowd may not always know whats best.

Thanks again for all you do.

By: Roy Ernest

Roy Ernest — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:13:19 +0000

I was reading about having the Pass summit at Seattle. Why not have one in one of the Caribbean Isles? Our Island has Pass chapter. And everyone who comes will be escaping the cold climate.

By: Brent Ozar

Brent Ozar — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:57:25 +0000

In Seattle AGAIN for 2012? Jeez… I really get the clear signal that buddying up to Microsoft is the absolute top priority for some of the board members (not you, evidently).

And to hide the voting results under the rug? That’s really shady. I’m pretty disappointed with that.