OPASS meetings are held at Logans Roadhouse in Sanford now, I think the fourth location over the past couple years, but maybe the best so far. Easy access, plenty of parking, the only downside for me is that it’s all the way across Orlando from where I work. Took an hour to make the drive today.

I arrived really early, but not the earliest – Rodney and Karla Landrum were already there, so I sat at the bar with them and had some dinner while we waited on the crowed to arrive.

Karla did the welcome speech tonight, did a good job covering for Shawn who has a cold and looked like he was going to fall over. Only a couple new faces in the crowd tonight, plus Tek Systems present as the Q1 sponsor for oPASS, and Yanni Robel from Seattle in town for the marathon this weekend.

The first presentation was on SSIS by a mother/son team of Lilly and Jason, Jason is just 16! Going smoothly, he’s got his demo set up well,zoomed in when needed – nicely done. Hope we see him on the schedule for SQLSaturday Always great to see someone new join the speaker ranks,oPASS has a great history of growing people.

Our main speaker is Allen White, visiting from Cleveland, showing off Powershell for managing SQL Server. He started with a great intro to Powershell in about 10 minutes, then into the SQL specific stuff. Allen is a great reminder that passion matters. He loves Powershell, no way you can sit and listen and not be energized by that passion.

I had to leave early, about 8:30 pm, but had a great time.

Now, some post meeting thoughts:

• The idea of a restaurant for a venue is growing on me. I think the trade off of having a less than perfect presentation area (compared to a class room) is offset by having food and drink available, easy parking, and of course you can move right into the post meeting social time without any effort (usually it requires driving to a different spot and most people opt to head home)
• I missed having name tags. I don’t make all the meetings any more and so I don’t always know the people that have become regulars (or at least I don’t always remember their names)
• I liked that Karla was there to step in for Shawn when he was sick. Successful groups have to have that kind of team. Chapter leaders, put it to the test, arrange a meeting but hand it off to someone else to run and take a night off – they get to learn, you get a break.