This year has been difficult for most of us, and it’s almost over. The lives of people throughout the world have been turned upside down. Many of us, myself included, already worked remotely, but now face a multitude of new challenges.

When confronted with the looming crisis in March, Redgate thought first about the safety of employees. We also came up with ways to help the Data Platform community and started Community Circle. Here’s a list of some of the community activities from the Advocates Team (Steve Jones, Grant Fritchey, Kendra Little, and myself) and others working at Redgate:

• Free training courses from the Advocates Team
  • DAX and Power BI
  • SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
  • SQL Server Reporting Services
  • T-SQL For Beginners
  • Introduction to Version Control
• A Byte of Redgate cookbook, favourite recipes from Redgate
• Redgate Coding Club for Kids from our developers
• Daily coping tips from Steve
• Grants to 3D printer hobbyists for printing ear-savers
• Support for Data Platform Discovery Day and New Stars of Data events

The Community Circle projects were given high priority, but we also did many things on our own to volunteer our time and skills to the data platform community. Kendra has been creating training courses for years, including classes and challenges about performance and T-SQL. This year, she has made all 30 of her online courses available for free. The Advocates Team presented and moderated sessions and mentored new speakers at several conferences (New Stars of Data, Data Platform Discovery Day, Group By, SQL Friday, DataWeekender, SQL Bits, SQL Saturdays, user groups, and PASS Summit to name a few). I taught three free beginning T-SQL workshops for people transitioning to tech careers at my favourite non-profit organization LaunchCode. Steve  is the organizer of T-SQL Tuesday, an excellent way for the community members to share their blogs.

The community has always relied on Redgate to sponsor user group meetings and events and provide speakers from the Advocates Team. We want you to know that you can still count on us to provide support in the future, especially after the recent news from the PASS organization. Please reach out to communities@red-gate.com if we can help in any way.

We also did a few things that are way outside the data platform. After not donating blood for several years, I realized this was a great time to start up again and donated one unit of whole blood and seven units of platelets. Donating platelets takes a couple of hours each time, and there are a few mild side-effects, but every unit can save someone’s life. I encourage you to donate blood if you can. (If you happen to be a Covid-19 survivor, convalescent plasma is in high demand!)

Grant took his love of ham radio and supported his community by becoming the Local Community Coordinator for ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services). His group trains and practices to be ready to provide communication for emergencies. During typical years, they also assist with community events like road races. He also volunteered with CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) assisting with health and safety at town meetings and elections.

This has been a tough year for everyone, but we can all find ways to help each other and get through it together.