Brendon and I met at the Atlanta MDF year end wrap up to contribute to the selection of next year's topics and speakers.  We started the evening out with some socializing over great Chinese food, cheesecake (thanks, Dave R) and beer (thanks, Doug).  We saw some of the regulars from other user group meetings - Keith and Harrell being the other winners of the “Most Masochistic Award”.  Three lovely young ladies from Remington (a recruiting firm - ask Keith about them) came out to the group to learn a little more about technology and hand out business cards.  I think that collectively they might just be old enough to drink, but they sure were cute.  Erin, Diana, and Katie - thanks for coming out and I hope you learn something worthwhile as one of these user group meetings.

After we'd eaten our fill, the thirty or so of us got to shout out topic ideas for the board.  Most of the list concentrated on SQL 2005, coming out this (Indian) summer.  While most of the list seemed to focus on DBA-centric topics, I was pleased to see several developer issues get raised to the board.  My personal contribution was debugging from Visual Studio 2005 into SQL Server 2005.  Brendon shouted out (in a round-about way) “Developing for Performance” or “When not to use CLR queries”.  I think we had something like 30 items on the board before we ran out of space.  We also talked about sponsors and about potential speakers. 

This is a great group and their high level of organization is what keeps them at this top notch level.  The problem is that this high level of organization is taxing on the individual running the group, so Dave Fackler and Douglas McDowell have asked for some volunteers to help share the burden of planning the meetings.  Brendon and I, always bucking for the limelight, have volunteered to shoulder some of the burden.  We're hoping for a “leadership committee” of 5 or 6 people.  With the additional help, Dave and Doug might not have to back down completely from running the group.  I'd hate to see them go as they are a big reason for the success of this User Group.

Anyone who has some marginal interest in SQL Server (and if you are even a casual developer you should have some interest) should come out to some of these meetings.  Tons of useful information flows through the group on presentation nights and the members are all very knowledgeable individuals.  Come out, ask questions, eat free pizza, and learn a thing or two.

-- Matt Ranlett

MSN Space