Hello all,

It’s been a while since my last update. Sorry. I’ve just been traveling and presenting and working on books and this slipped through the cracks a bit. I’ll try to do better in the future.

Nothing major to report. As a board member I’ve been working primarily on two things. First, I’ve been polishing my goals for the Chapters Portfolio. I’ll publish those below. Next, I’m working on the budget for Chapters for next year. In between times, a lot of what I do, is work with Regional Mentors (RM) and Chapter Leaders (CL) on an individual basis. As much as the stuff that PASS as an organization is involved with is around technology, the PASS organization, especially Chapters, is all about people. And you know how people are. I’ve already had online meetings with the RMs and CLs in which I let them know what was going on with the Board and with my goals. The one point I made that I want to share is my own focus. I told everyone, and I’m telling you, that I see my role as a means of figuring out what the PASS organization can do for the Chapters rather than telling them what they need to do for the organization. Other than that, at these meetings, I’ve listened and taken notes. I want to know what’s needed by the CLs and the RMs to do their work as volunteers, and, where possible, make that work easier.

I also had the opportunity to have a meeting with the user groups of the UK (whether they were PASS chapters or not). This was an opportunity to listen to what their needs are and to understand whether or not PASS is meeting them. One of the most interesting things I learned revolved around Chapter Leaders and the Summit. There are a number of requirements for a Chapter to be in good standing with the PASS organization. And, if the Chapter meets all those requirements, then they can receive one free registration for Summit. Cool beans… unless you’re overseas where the cost of getting to Summit is much higher than here in the States. Suddenly, this seemingly HUGE benefit just isn’t that big. I’ll see what I can do about this one. Not sure what yet, but I’m thinking about it.

Here is a rough draft of the goals I’ve been working on:

PASS Growth

• Create a pilot program that allows a regional email to be sent to PASS membership that highlights user group events within that region
  • Purpose is to measure the work involved in order to understand the needs for expanding this to all regions
  • Success is arriving at a measure of work that allows for creating plan for next steps
  • Run for three months to arrive at measure
• Increase communication between Director for Chapters, HQ and Chapter Leaders by hosting quarterly meetings

Global Growth

• Create interface to connect Speakers with Chapters
  • Purpose is to provide for Chapters to get in touch with Speakers using our existing local speaker list in SQL Saturday
  • Success is mechanism for Chapter Leaders to find Speakers within their region
  • 3 months to arrive at minimal functionality
• Complete definition of Regional Mentor Annual Rating process
  • Purpose is to provide Chapters with mechanism for reviewing RMs
  • Success is a completed document that has been reviewed by CL and RM represenatives
  • Time frame requires completion by EOY 2015
• Continue efforts to establish chapters in countries with no or few existing chapters
  • Targeting Baltics, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Argentina

That’s about it for now.

Coming up I’ll be going to the PASS Business Analytics Conference (use the code BFFGF, that’s my Friends & Family discount, to get some money off the registration). I’ll write something up about that right after it’s over.

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