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June 2021 Update

June 2021 Update

 

Hello Summer…

It’s summer in Florida and it is hot!  Kids are out of school and the pool is feeling just right!  We are working hard to provide events over the summer and have some speakers lined up for later this year.  Looking forward to getting back to in person events.  We had a lunch last month and planning a happy hour next week for all of those ready to get out and be social again.  

We have our date for SQL Saturday but we are still working on the logistics.  If you have a location that can be donated for our event, please let us know.  

We have officially started a volunteer group!  Thank you to those who have stepped up and set aside some time to help the group.  Volunteering is a selfless act that requires intention and dedication.  It’s not always easy with our schedules and we greatly appreciate those who have reached out!  This volunteer group will be focused on our lunch committee and our social media presence.  We can always use more volunteers so if you are interested, please let us know.

Meetups

  • Our next meetup is June 16th, 2021 for a happy hour in Winter Garden.  I will confirm the location after today.  Here is the link to RSVP for Meetup .  In order to have an accurate number for the venue, please update your rsvp if you will not make it.
  • July 2021 – Lunch Meetup in Kissimmee – TBD
  • Aug 2021 – virtual meetup – TBD

Red-Gate PASS

Red-Gate announces Data Community Summit on November 8-12, 2021 will be virtual and free!  If you would like to speak the call for speakers ends on 6/17/2021 at 11:59 PM PST.  Here are the links:

Submit Proposal:  https://passdatacommunitysummit.com/speakers

Register for event: https://passdatacommunitysummit.com/faq

Look for a Survey Soon…Again…Again

We finally had time to review a survey platform and gather the questions, please be on the look out for a link via meetup email very soon.  We swear this time! 😉

Pay It Forward

 

Our next pay it forward discussion/interview will be with Kendal VanDyke.  We will keep you posted on the date of this because you will not want to miss his story.
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May 2021 Update

How is May already?
I can’t believe it’s almost May already!  Pretty soon the kids will be getting out of school, vacations will be planned, oh wait… is covid over?  Seems like things are starting to turn towards a normal life and it’s getting better by the day.  Because of the busy season with families, we will likely meetup again over the summer for at least one more presentation.

Meetings This Month
Don’t forget to register and learn about being a volunteer or just join the discussion:  https://www.meetup.com/SQLOrlando/events/277454594/
In June we look forward to something new and on the other side of town, a happy hour in Winter Garden.  Sign up so we can establish the best place to meet up:  https://www.meetup.com/SQLOrlando/events/277809569/
There are also several other groups hosting events.  Check them out here:  https://sqlsaturday.com/

Got a data joke?
Share your joke with us on slack channel:  https://join.slack.com/t/sqlorlando/shared_invite/zt-pm64zohg-04hOvDkX6S2qgTrmYdcbPg
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Monthly Update

February 2021 Update

Honoring Gareth

We would like to honor Gareth’s memory by doing something annually in the community.  We can discuss some different options in our February meetup. Here are a few ideas we have thought of and we are certainly open to others, so please bring them up during our discussion.

  • An Annual 5K to raise money
  • An award to a community member representing Gareth’s great personality of kindness & helpfulness

Meetups

  • Our next meetup will be Wednesday, February 17th via Zoom.  Bradley Ball will be our speaker and we will interview him on paying it forward to the community as part of our “pay it forward” campaign in 2021.  He will be speaking about Azure Synapse.  You can register for the meetup here:  February Meetup
  • We will also be hosting a virtual lunch the same day (busy day) where we can all catch up!  RSVP for the lunch:  February – SQL Orlando Virtual Lunch
  • Tuesday, March 16th – we will have Deepthi back for a St. Patti’s day themed Index session.
  • First week of March we will likely have a vendor sponsored lunch n learn to talk about a data product.  

Red-Gate takes over PASS assets

This is great news!  SQL Saturday and Summit will stay alive for all of us that love these times of year!  If you want to read more about it, please read Steve Jones’ post here: RedGate Takes Over PASS Assets  Make sure to sign up for updates on PASS events at SQL Saturday Site.

Look for a Survey Soon…Again

Last month we mentioned this, but life happened and the survey obviously did not.  We will try again this month to send out a survey post meetup to see where we can improve.  

Pay It Forward

As mentioned in the January meeting, we would like to share with the new and older members of the group how PASS and SQL Meetups or any meetups has helped in their career or personal life.  If you are willing to share or be interviewed please do not hesitate to reach out to us.  Sharing is caring and we are never alone in our journey to success.  

Another way to Pay It Forward is to speak for our group!  Teach a 101.  Speak for 5 to 60 minutes on a topic.  It can be a 100 or 500 level.  The point is to just start somewhere.  I challenge you all to think about something that might help others to learn one new thing.  This is why we do these meetups!  We love to learn and connect!    One event we have promised for this year is a virtual beginners workshop to SQL.  We could definitely use some 100 level 20-60 minute talks about setting up a home environment to learn on your own.  This would be an excellent entry point for a new speaker!  (Just sayin…)    

Alright, so that is your February update for your SQL Orlando group!  We hope to see you all at the meetups this month or next.

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Survey

Show us the data!

I really, really, really want to but can’t! See… pre-pandemic, we all used to meet, see and enjoy a social time on a quarterly basis. We would sit and enjoy dinner, talk about families, work, etc. We could read body language data. We could see the smiles on your faces. We could feel real joy and know everyone was helping each other. Then COVID hits and we are all immediately thrown into the introvert mental state, forcibly. What? I have to talk on camera? If it was hard to show up before, it made it even more difficult to show up virtually. I can honestly say that our group has definitely changed over the course of the last year. We are looking forward to the vaccine numbers to rise, so life can get back to normal!

We are planning for the future goals of our group and we want to gather data to show what works best for you and for us! We want to continue to provide value to the community, grow our membership, and help others.

We did some research on some survey companies and found the best fit for us is www.sogosurvey.com. They have a non-profit option, which is great for our group! The questions were really easy to set up, edit, and move around and hope to see lots of great data to report back to you all!

Please be on the lookout for the survey!

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Monthly Update

April 2021 Update

Things are Looking Up!

It’s been a long year but we’re making progress. We’ll be scheduling an in-person lunch event in May and we’ve reserved October 9th for the next SQLSaturday. Too soon to be 100% sure, but it’s time to lean forward some.

Meetings This Month

We only have one meeting planned this month, a lunch on April 28 at noon where we’ll be talking about what’s like to be a volunteer for a small group. It’s a really interesting topic and even if you’re not ready to volunteer, make some lunch and hang out while we talk shop. As always sign up at Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/SQLOrlando/events/277454594/) and the zoom link is there.

We’ll try to get back to our normal schedule in May, but it feels like everyone is tired of zoom calls and virtual meetings, us included, so we’re easing up this month.

Don’t Throw Away Your Shot

Too Hamilton? I received the first vaccine shot about 10 days ago and go next Friday for the second. Very minor side affects, just some warmth around the injection site for about 15 minutes and then it was over. I know it varies, but wanted to share at least that one experience if you haven’t decided to go.

Until Next Month

If you’re struggling (as we all do at times) and we can help, reach out via Meetup or LinkedIn. Sometimes a different friendly voice can make all the difference.

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Monthly Update

SQLOrlando Monthly Update March 2021

Greetings SQLOrlando’ers!

Hope you’re all doing well and staying safe. Two meetings this month and I know for many of you meeting exhaustion is a thing. If it’s one meeting too many, we get it. On the other hand though, sometimes a few minutes with old friends can be just the thing to remind you that there is still much to look forward to.  

Lunch Meeting Today

Today at noon we have a change of pace, a presentation by Starburst about a distributed SQL engine. One of the challenges with SQL Server is that vertical scaling is easy (but ultimately limited by hardware) and horizontal scaling is hard (usually requiring app changes) so I’m looking forward to seeing a different approach and thinking about how it compares to what most of us do today. Make some lunch and join us for an hour, register at https://www.meetup.com/SQLOrlando/events/276327931/ and it will have the link to the Zoom meeting.

Group Meeting on March 16

Deepthi returns! On March 16th we’ll have a presentation requested during her last visit with us, a deep dive on indexes. It will be St Patricks Day, so wear green and/or bring a green beverage to the virtual presentation from 7-9 pm. Register at https://www.meetup.com/SQLOrlando/events/276289939/, link to Zoom is on the page.

Other News

Red Gate has announced that SQLSaturday will be moved to a non-profit foundation. Details still being worked out, but if we can all get our vaccine shots we have a good chance at having an in-person SQLSaturday this fall.

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Monthly Update

SQLOrlando Monthly Update – January 2021

January 2021 Update

Mourning Gareth Swanepoel

If you haven’t heard yet, longtime member of the Orlando data community Gareth Swanepoel passed away recently. We will be doing something to honor his time with us, but right now we’re still processing and haven’t decided on the best way to do so.

Meetups

  • Our next meetup will be January 13th at noon via Google Meet. For this lunch meetup our topic will be “2021 Learning Resolutions” and we’ll be talking about what we all hope to learn (and why we want to learn it) this year and ideas on how you (we) can help someone else grow by paying it forward.
  • We’re hoping to have a technical meetup this month as well, watch for the announcement via Meetup!

PASS Is Ceasing Operations on January 15, 2021

As noted on their blog, PASS will be ceasing operations on January 15 (this Friday). If you have access to any session recordings from a PASS Summit you can download them before Friday at https://www.pass.org/MYPASS/viewctl/MyRecordings. 

SQLOrlando will continue operations, but it will definitely be a year of adjustment, particularly with regards to SQLSaturday. We’re mildly hopeful that someone will be able to obtain the rights to SQLSaturday.com as well as the source code, but we don’t know yet. If that doesn’t happen we’ll still move forward with a fall event with a different name.

Look for a Survey Soon

Look for an email from us in the next week or so with a survey link to help us understand your focus in 2021.

Pay It Forward

You’ll hear us start to talk about this at every meetup, so much of the value of participating in a local group is paying it forward, in all kinds of ways. We’re going to start sharing stories about our members paying it forward, both to celebrate the effort and to share ideas on how to do it. 

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Monthly Update

SQLOrlando Monthly Update – December 2020

December Update

The holiday season is here, hoping that the end of 2020 is safe and fun for you! 

Meetups

  • Our next meetup will be January 13th at noon via Google Meet. For this lunch meetup our topic will be “2021 Learning Resolutions” and we’ll be talking about what we all hope to learn (and why we want to learn it) next year.
  • We’ve cancelled plans for any type of in-person Holiday Meetup, better to do our part to keep everyone safe and look forward to getting together again sometime next year.

Next Year

  • We’re still finalizing the plan, but we’re hoping to continue with one virtual lunch a month, a quarterly evening meetup, and a SQLSaturday in the fall (we’re hoping in-person, but if not it will be virtual). We have not planned any full day classes, too many unknowns at this point.
  • Katie will be taking the lead on most of the events next year and putting more time into providing volunteer opportunities (one example is a Social Committee that will work on lunch topics & guests). Andy will be working on documentation and process for all the things we do so that as we bring on new volunteers we’ve got an easy way to show them what to do and how to do it. Look for more details on the volunteer stuff in January.
  • While you’re thinking about next year, think about taking the big step of volunteering to speak at one of our events. It’s a fun way to give back and a way to grow some new skills. We’ll be there to coach you to success too.

Pay It Forward

You’ll hear us start to talk about this at every meetup, so much of the value of participating in a local group is paying it forward, in all kinds of ways. We’re going to start sharing stories about our members paying it forward, both to celebrate the effort and to share ideas on how to do it.

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Uncategorized

SQLOrlando Monthly Update – November 2020

November Update

Hope you’re all safe and making the best of it. If we can help in some way, please reach out.

Meetups

Our November Virtual Lunch is this Friday (Nov 6) at noon and we’re excited to have Steve Jones from SQLServerCentral.com as our lunch guest. Fix your lunch, join the call, and spend an hour with us as we chat with Steve about SQLServerCentral, working for Redgate, being a SQL Server MVP, and more!

We’ll be having an evening meetup this month as well, details still TBA via Meetup when it’s confirmed.

In December we’ll have a virtual lunch, an evening meetup, and maybe an in-person late lunch/holiday event on December 12th at 1:30 pm in Lake Mary. We’ll open that up for registration around December 1st, please keep in mind that we’re going to have to limit attendance to keep everyone safe so only register if you’re sure you’re going.

PASS Summit 2020

Just a reminder that the PASS Summit is virtual this year and is being held the week of November 9th. There is still time to register, its about $700 for the three day event and you get access to all the recordings for a year.

PASS Voting

The annual election for the Board of Directors will open soon, you can check your voting status and vote at https://www.pass.org/MYPASS. If you’re not a PASS member I encourage you to join, it’s free, and is a great way to participate in the SQL community outside of Florida.

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Monthly Update

SQLOrlando Monthly Update – September 2020

September Update

Hope you’re all safe and making the best of it. If we can help in some way, please reach out.

Meetups

Our September Virtual Lunch will be on September 23rd at noon and we’ve already scheduled the October one as well for October 21st. Both will be via Google. These are low effort and more fun than you might think. Participate or just listen in while we chat, it’s all good and a way to feel a little more connected in these disconnected times.

Katie is working on a guest speaker for an evening meetup in late September/early October, more on that as soon as we have it confirmed. 

We will plan for no events in November to give everyone time for Thanksgiving and family.

It’s hard to know what December will look like and it seems unlikely we will be able to do our usual holiday dinner event (due to both safety challenges and not being able to get our usual meeting space). As an alternative I’m proposing we do a holiday lunch at a location where we can sit outside (perhaps Fourth Street Grill in Lake Mary) if it seems safe to do so. Let me know what you think of that. I know it would be good to have something to look forward too!

PASS Summit 2020

Just a reminder that the PASS Summit is virtual this year and is being held the week of November 9th.

Keep Learning

It’s definitely a little hard to stay motivated about learning right now, there’s a lot going on in our lives, and that’s just a little more stress on top of the rest. If I can offer a couple of suggestions:

– If you’re not in the mood (or have time) to learn right now, that’s ok. Put a reminder on your calendar 60 days out that says “Schedule Learning Time Again If Things Are Better”. That’s a way to make a deliberate decision about now and not just totally lose sight of the need to add some skills over time.

– If you want to be learning and are struggling to get it done, put it on the calendar! Block out 30 minutes a week to read a blog post, watch a video, try out a new idea.