SQL Saturday and PASS

I wanted to post this letter that just went out from PASS. As it reads, Andy, Steve and I are excited to announce that we have gifted one of our prized brands, SQL Saturday to PASS to grow the brand with the community owning at a whole.

Dear Community Leaders,

It gives me tremendous pleasure to announce that the PASS Board of Directors recently voted to acquire the SQL Saturday Event brand and management. SQL Saturday is a very popular event brand started by Andy Warren, Steve Jones and Brian Knight in May 2007. Since then, over 28 events have occurred world-wide with an anticipated growth of 40-50 events over the next two years.

This great program is a gift to the PASS organization from Andy, Steve and Brian and gives PASS control over the SQL Saturday domain, events, as well as the event management tool put together with collective help from the SQL Server community. Over the coming weeks, we will transition the event program underneath the PASS Community Connection Events umbrella and provide SQL Saturday events the management infrastructure it needs. We are also working to integrate our events portfolio to support SQL Saturday financially at the same levels as our PASS Community Connection branded events. SQL Saturday event owners will not see major changes as a result of this transition, but can expect to receive higher level of engagement and support from the PASS management team.

I am also quite excited to be speaking at the next SQL Saturday event #33 which is being held in Charlotte, NC on the 6th of March. This will also be the first SQL Saturday under PASS management!

As key stakeholders in the community, I wanted you to be among the first to know. I will be posting this announcement later today on the PASS blog.