Disclaimer: I don’t speak on behalf of PASS, only the Exec Committee can do that.
I want to thank everyone, just from myself, for all their patience and support for the past week. You know who you all are, and I wanted to say thank you to folks, too many to list here, who have helped me personally.
Here’s one way I’m giving back: a webinar series where you can drop by and ask questions. The focus will be on Virtual Chapters. We have an agenda to go through, but I’m happy to take questions on other things as well. I’m no Oracle (pun intended, sorry!) and I don’t speak on behalf of PASS. I’m accessible at these webinars (link to register below), and also during PASS Summit, to serve the community where possible.
Virtual Chapter Leaders Pathway
On 9th September, I wrote to all of the VC leaders to announce a ‘Virtual Chapter Leaders Pathway’, which would involve separate training sessions, held by myself. The email was below.
In the meantime, I have been collating feedback and it has also been fairly busy recently as many of you are aware.
Regarding the Virtual Chapters, we rely on GoToWebinar, the PASS websites and YouTube to deliver our Virtual Chapter sessions to the community worldwide.
I had identified that people needed help with these technologies, hence I am devising the Virtual Chapter Pathway. There was a slight delay from 9th September because I have collated feedback, and I need to priories which queries and issues to tackle and in which order.
This isn’t a small task to arrange all of this training, and deliver it myself – however I believed it was the right thing to do, and I was happy to devote my time to it, and invest my effort to do it well.
Note that I will be building on existing PASS HQ materials to do this. I’d like to thank and recognise their efforts in helping the community. Each and every one of them have been outstanding. You can find their resources page here, if you are a PASS VC or CL.
You can see from the email below that I also offered to work with people in-person. Remember I will have travelled thousands of miles to attend Summit, and I’m spending time helping VC leads at the CZ during PASS Summit rather than socialising, or simply wandering around in Seattle in the US as a tourist or a visitor to the United States. People have taken up the offer of help and I am really glad to deliver it, because my primary reason for being there is to help you guys in the community, and I work hard at it.
If there are any VC issues, I am happy to hear about them but I can’t do anything about it until you tell me, so please feel free to get in touch. My email is jen.stirrup@sqlpass.org It’s what I’m here for, so please don’t hesitate to ask questions or just drop by to the session. I need to work out the schedule, and I will post that up in due course.
Here is a note of the plan to date.
Note that these sessions are open to anybody, not just PASS Virtual Chapter leaders and co-leaders. I am happy to bring people along the journey as well.
We will have four sessions – subject to change, depending on user feedback.
Please click on the link to register.
Virtual Chapter Padawan – GoToWebinar
Virtual Chapter Jedi – GoToWebinar
Virtual Chapter Pathway – Managing Your Chapter website
Virtual Chapter Pathway – Soft Skills for VC Leadership
Other actions:
I understand that some of the VCs sometimes have problems in getting speakers. To help here, I’m going to try and get an MVP or a Microsoft ‘go-to’ contact for each VC to see if we can get people from Microsoft speaking for the Virtual Chapters.
I understand that VCs grow and you need more volunteers. If this is the case, please let me know. I have a ‘waiting list’ of people who want to be VC leads and co-leads, and I might be able to get you some help.
The sessions will go up on YouTube at a later date.
The email to the VC leads went out on 9th Sept, and the text follows here:
Hello Virtual Chapter leaders and co-leaders,
I can see everyone’s enthusiasm and pride in the Virtual Chapter program that you provide to the SQL Server community, and I wanted to say ‘thank you’ from me for all that you do. I love looking at the PASS website and seeing all of the sessions on the front page, and every time I do, I’m grateful and awed for all that you do for the ‘sqlfamily’.
To help everyone, I’m going to put a ‘VC Leadership Training Pathway’ in place to help people out. I am going to try to address your issues and queries in a live webinar series, which you’ll be invited to, and I will also record for sharing and future reference. I’d also like to share ideas on promoting your VC through social media such as Facebook pages, YouTube and so on.
So, if you have niggles about GTW, or the website, then please let me know and I will try to make sure that they are covered. I’d also like to share ideas on promoting your VC through social media such as Facebook pages, YouTube and so on.
To help me to help you, could you please let me have any ‘pain points’, issues or queries that you have with GoToWebinar, the websites and so on? I will compile a list, and we will try and go through them.
I will also arrange some time for going through any issues individually at the Community Zone at PASS Summit. I will also be there at defined times so I can help you out in-person.