Over the past few months I’ve been thinking that we don’t do enough to celebrate the people and the effort that goes into a SQLSaturday. From an attendee perspective it doesn’t look very complex (nor should it), but for an organizer it’s a massive amount of work, and it wouldn’t happen without a lot of volunteers that do the necessary but not fun or visible work.

I’d say the thing that’s hardest to explain to someone that hasn’t been to one of our events is how much fun it is. How much fun could there be in spending a Saturday learning about stuff for work? Yet somehow it is fun, and I think we can do more to show that and to share it.

So, one of one my ideas for this time – very late in the game – was a poster. Better yet, a movie poster, something that sells the excitement and the effort involved. I thought about it as I glanced at a PASS/SQLServerCentral poster I have in my office from 2003 – why don’t I have more fun memorabilia? Shirts are nice, but not something you can put up at the office.

Having the idea and getting it done, well, that’s two different things! I thought “movie poster” and listing speakers and volunteers, but that was about the extent of my vision. We sent it out to an artist I’ve used a few times, and with only a couple days to work on it, I think we got something pretty nice done. The downside was that it got done too late to print for the event, so we’ll probably just run a couple copies (it’s sized at 24×36, but you can shrink it), but I thought maybe some of you would want to print it also, so you can get the full quality 6mb PDF here.

There’s at least one web site that will do a template type implementation of movie posters, but I imagine most of us have a Photoshopper or two in or around our groups, so why not think about adding this to the SQLSaturday pattern? It’s one more thing to do, but it’s a fun thing, and it’s a keepsake too. If it takes off we can see about sending a copy from each event to PASS HQ to build a history wall.

Good idea? Maybe? Fun? Absolutely!