If you are a SQL Saturday, User Group or Virtual Group PASS Chapter Leader, this is for you.
As we all know PASS goes dark on January 15, 2021. Here are some things that you need to do BEFORE January 15, 2021 (like now, not on January 14, 2021).
- User Groups / Virtual Chapters
- Setup a new webpage somewhere (SQL UGS and the Microsoft Survey (which will include Meetup Pro) are great options)
- Use the PASS emailing features to email your members about your new group’s homepage and tell people to sign up as you won’t be able to use the PASS email process after Jan 15, 2021
- If your Twitter account is tied to a pass.org email address, change the email address
- If your User Group email address is @pass.org you’ll want to create a new email address for it at Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook.com, etc.
- Review callfordataspeakers.com and get signed up to help find speakers
- If using PASS licenses for GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar you’ll need another way to hold your virtual meetings. Microsoft has a free Teams offer
- If your User Group is registered as a 501c3 then you can get some free Office 365 licenses gifted from Microsoft. Contact Denny for more information (it’s a few step process that I’ll outline in a blog post later)
- SQL Saturday Organizers
- Download your registration lists from sqlsaturday.com
- Download your sponsor contacts from sqlsaturday.com
- Review DataSaturdays.com and see if this is a good fit for future events
- Review callfordataspeakers.com and get signed up to help find speakers
A new non-profit (pending US IRS approval) community organization is being set up. The new organization is in the very early stages at the moment and we’re trying to get the word out to all the PASS members that a new org is being set up. The goal of this new organization is to handle legal matters, licensing, and to give sponsors a single point of contact to reach everyone. We’re envisioning that this new organization will be a very lightweight organization designed to handle the legal needs that come up, licensing of the Intellectual Property for the organization to the user groups, and a single point of contact for sponsors to work through.
At the moment the organization is simply collecting contact information for people that want to get more information once the organization is set up. The website that is set up is www.daug.io. Please ask people to submit their information there.
A summary of the URLs talked about here.
- www.daug.io – New Data and Analytics User Group community (it’s really, really rough at the moment)
- www.sqlugs.com – Free WordPress hosting for User Groups, Virtual Chapters, etc.
- https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2020/12/22/resources-for-the-sql-server-and-azure-data-community/ – Survey (at the bottom) for entry into the Azure Data community (will include Meetup Pro)
- callfordataspeakers.com – Assistance getting speakers for user groups/virtual groups/events
- DataSaturdays.com – New community-run events replacing SQL Saturday
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/free – Information about the free Microsoft Teams offer
There’s a history of PASS and SQL Saturday and most/all the events that have been run under those names at:
More information will be coming about the Data and Analytics User Group in the future.
Denny
