Dear PASS Community,
 
There has been a healthy debate in the community surrounding the election process and the outcome where Steve Jones, a well-known member of the community, did not make the slate. Despite the outcome, the process that was defined and vetted by members of the community and board worked extremely well and addressed the concerns that were laid out by the community during last year’s election cycle. I thank the Nomination Committee for their volunteerism and hard work through the process. The proposed slate was approved by the board. I fully support the process and the decision of the board.
 
We have also come a long way towards transparency. Our books are open to you. You now know the details of our revenues and expenditures. The board has risen to the challenge of ensuring that this organization remains a solvent and vibrant organization. I am proud of the achievements of this and former boards and certainly aware of our many failures as we apply our limited resources to your volunteerism and support to build a better and more vibrant community. Over the past years, we have steadily increased our support to the offline community and also made inroads into the online world with very successful virtual events like 24 Hours of PASS and hosted trials. Your support of these efforts has been invaluable and I hope that you also benefited from these efforts.
 
This brings me to a rather painful topic. It was brought to my attention today that some people in the community have created multiple twitter accounts impersonating PASS and also our management company. The tweets have been divisive and are an attempt to sabotage an otherwise healthy debate. In doing so, these tweets are slandering personal reputations of people that have worked so hard to build this community and PASS. I place my trust in you to help bring an end to such divisive behavior and help protect the reputation of individuals that work for you.
 
In closing, I have one more thought – PASS is supported by an amazing management team that many of you interact with regularly, a volunteer board, and hundreds of volunteers around the world that work very hard with a single goal in mind– to build a stronger SQL Server community. We may not always succeed or make the right decisions, but we promise to keep working hard. All of us deeply appreciate your support and encouragement.
 
If you have questions, always feel free to send me a direct email at rmehta@sqlpass.org. I promise to do my best to answer your questions.
 
Sincerely,
 
Rushabh Mehta
President, PASS