For archival purposes.

[Senor_Taylor]

JMU-la-la-land where the beer is free

Hey, I take offense to that. Please show me where the free beer is and I'll be happy to move there.

lest any of you think it's wise to Snapchat your naughty bits or something.

Yeah, uh... yeah.

[Gordonovski]

lest any of you think it's wise to Snapchat your naughty bits or something.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

See you at VIR, son. :wink:

[Jake]

lest any of you think it's wise to Snapchat your naughty bits or something.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

See you at VIR, son. :wink:

<drunk>
I'd swipe right for all of you, the whole lot!
</drunk>

[Gordonovski]

lest any of you think it's wise to Snapchat your naughty bits or something.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

See you at VIR, son. :wink:

<sober>
I'd swipe right for all of you, the whole lot!
</sober>

ftfy

[rherold9]

Yeah I'm posting again whatever. Thought I'd get this off my chest since things seem to have gotten taken out of proportion. Tbh, it's just crazy to me to think why this is such a bad thing I did and why it needs to be some example.

Anyways, I had pretty much decided I wasn't going to be an officer. Then I really thought about everything and in the end I thought I want to help the club. So I talk to Taylor that day before I posted here and didn't go so well just an argument so I was like okay don't care for a title and I know Taylor wants it and would be a good officer. Then I think to run for other positions and I realize I don't want the same thing to happen just rather not fight with someone. So then I decided time to post here. I knew I didn't stand much of a chance so I'd thought I'd try to stay positive then two immediate no's that looked like there would be another argument which I didn't want to deal with. And Jake's last statement I just fuck it I should have just never posted this because obviously that's what everyone is going to think. I put it together hastily and all. So, I just deleted it. Thought Oh well should have just listened to myself. I'll just help as a student. And then it turned into this for some reason. I have no problems with answering questions though Jake. I tried texting you, but I guess you are asleep.

I'm actually done posting now tonight though lol.

[Sully]

Damn really? I don't even remember that. Was that like an advisor position? If I didn't do anything that's probably why I have no recollection!

Yea, you kinda posted a similar thing to this but no one ever followed up with it and said yea let's do this. It kind of just died and everyone forgot about it. :thumbup:

I told the gang who was elected in after me/Joey/David/Cabell and they didn't take it to heart... and they largely were not successful.

Not entirely true. Our problem was largely a united cohesive front. I think it's fair to say, I consulted with almost every alumni I knew about the situation especially you. I was catching so much resistance for trying to be proactive and do things without "asking permission" when it was just taking so long to get approval from someone (I'm not talking about alumni). I will agree we were not greatly successful. But I will also say Lincoln sucked as an officer, and that's not a shot at him. He was and is one of the closest friends I made at JMU, but he lost the motivation and I pretty much handled all the finances after the first month. PR was also pretty much completely absent that year because the person in the position was mainly here for the friends (You, Joey, Ken) they had made and once you guys graduated, they didn't care at all. And no shot at him, but the president had been in the club for 2 months before running and becoming president...and that was partly my fault for not running against him when I should have because I wanted to avoid competing with someone who was passionate about it. My philosophy was to not fix what wasn't broken. I wanted to copy Jake's administration for all the events and things that I thought went well and ran smoothly while tweaking and adding new things also. My hands were tired most of the time due to backlash from the president at the time.

I'm mainly sharing all this because I don't want to see it happen again, and although I wasn't perfect by any means, I hate being lumped in with that association and is part of the reason I became a grumpy alumni while I was still a student.

I will say, I(we) still pulled off two Full karting events (a 40person 2 hour and a 20 person 1 hour), the college solo (with attendance from a good amount of other schools), and we still had a car show so the year wasn't completely wasted but we definitely could have done better and encouraged more bonding between our members which is definitely hard to do when the officers aren't even getting along.

TL;DR
1.The officers definitely need to be a cohesive group that gets along and works together and project that to the members.

2.My time as VP is part of what made me the way I am on the forums. (being unemployed isn't helping either) :lol: :beer:

[*insertusernamehere*]

That is a DASHING new avatar photo, Sully. It's very nice, suits your profile well, good choice!

[Riice Cooker]

After it is all said and done. We all make mistakes and we learn from them and can hopefully pass down that knowledge to future officers. I'm gonna leave this here just as something to think about for everyone not just the new officers. I've been apart of this club for three years now and I've been to every type of event at least once even if I didnt say a word. This year at the beginning of the year we had roughly 40 people pay dues and in past years we have had great turnout at the beginning of the year. But as the year goes on our numbers fade to maybe 10 if not less consistent people. Why is that? I'll be the first to admit I went to literally everything my freshman year and each year since then my attendance to events has fallen. Why is this, I'm not exactly sure. Maybe its the been there done that factor but whatever it is I have seen it each year.

I have also noticed that the past officers that haven't graduated and moved off rarely ever attend anything the next year. Again why is this? I've done some sifting through threads and it seems there is usually at least one issue a year where officers catch flack for something. Are the officers tired at the end of the year of what they have to put up with to the point where they don't want to come to anything anymore? I think Dan did a great job as president my freshman year along with his officers and as busy as Garrett was last year he along with the officers did a very good job. We continually refer back to the golden days when Jake and whoever else were officers, sorry I don't know who were, but why not build off the positive of the few recent years? For me it would be more relate-able since I actually participated in the things.

As for some of the forum issues. Aubrey I saw your comment which I think was intended towards me about trying to be a hero. I'm not gonna respond to it because almost every single thread this year with arguing has had nothing productive come from it. A simple question on my part about people's opinions on co positions turned into a giant argument like the t-shirt and car show thread. Aubrey also mentioned just joining and all he sees is people arguing over who has the bigger dick figuratively speaking. If I came on here and saw that, first off I would not come back on here again nor would I post anything. Second I know we all want what is best for the club but I think some of that previous officer mentality and wanting to control things is still in some of us. Everyone does things different ways. People may not like it but I think we all need to trust one another to do a great job as current officers. Yea if something comes up where the club might get in trouble yea you can step in but in my honest opinion I think we should let the officers do their thing and be like hey guys whether its through here or text or fb message, I saw success with this in the past consider doing it as well. If they choose to do it great if they don't it was their decision and they did what they thought was best.

All in all my point for the initial conversation of this thread was to see if I wanted to run for officer again. I was considering running for co with chip for treasurer to help out a little. Also since my name is on the account and in order for him to take over he needs Kevin Borg's signature who I last heard took this semester off to travel so I don't know when he is coming back. I don't want to run against him because I think he will be a great officer and being only a freshman this year could move up through positions if he so desired. If all goes to plans, which it never does, I'll be here for two more years finishing a masters. I will do my best to pass down things I've learned.

I do wish all the future officers elected next week the best of luck and sorry to Matt, Aubrey and whoever else I might have argued with or offended. Oh and sorry I am not changing my Ferrari to a Kia for my pic I can't bring myself to do it

[rherold9]

is part of the reason I became a grumpy alumni while I was still a student.

I'm 9/10ths the way there :wink:

[Samantha]

I have also noticed that the past officers that haven't graduated and moved off rarely ever attend anything the next year. Again why is this?

Chris pretty much stopped because of so much work. But I'll just throw out there that I stopped because it seems like 95% of all time is just spend bitching and it is entirely too difficult to do anything with you people without endless criticism and you guessed it...more bitching!!! I wanted to be that girl that could hang and let the "boys being boys" jokes just roll off, but honestly these forums have made me hate all of you at least once. (Except for you Anthony. :thumbup: ) I've had a ton of fun at actual events and I get the forum is a necessity, but most of my negative feelings about be club have stemmed from here. So maybe stop being so awful to each other and stop rehashing the same things over and over and over again? That's about the only constructive criticism I can offer. And sorry in advance if I never reply to anything after this....I rarely get on here for the reasons I've just covered.

[Senor_Taylor]

these forums have made me hate all of you at least once

It all stems from one thing. You can be a dick with a friend and it's funny. If you're a dick to a stranger, it's not.

Sure, new members may know who you are, but you're not close yet. It takes a while to get comfortable with someone. It also takes a while to learn what the alumni think are stupid things to say. I've been here two years and I'm just now at that point.

Plus, we're car guys. Car guys are never the most pleasing social people. Everyone has some quirk.

[*insertusernamehere*]

It also takes a while to learn what the alumni think are stupid things to say. I've been here two years and I'm just now at that point.

eehh, you sure about that? loljk

[Tyler.M]

Zombie thread and I'm late to the show, per usual, but fascinating none the less. This club faces challenges that few other clubs do and only a good leadership team can handle it. What does that mean? What that means is that following club members will face the scrutiny of a active alumni base that will judge your success off of their success and many, like myself and Jake, consider our time there to be successful. I mean, Jake has been out of school for 4 years and is still involved. I remain tangentially involved, but will stick around as long as people are still driving cars at JMU.

Why?

Because MM gave me an outlet and brought me out of a weird, self-imposed isolationism. I've always had difficulty with developing friendships at school because I'm naturally an A-Type. Yet, Jake and I shared a class my sophomore year and he invited me in, despite my slight interest in cars. I was too much of an anxious person to step out and just join a club, so that invite meant everything to me. Sounds corny, but I still remember exactly where I was sitting when he asked me to check out MM.

Bottom line future leaders/club members: All clubs, anywhere, serve the essential social purpose that are necessary to be happy, healthy human beings. We may be into motors, motorcycles and road-racing but if our leadership lacks the social inclinations necessary to build strong relationships, then it will always be a failure. Some people, like Jake, are naturally gifted at it. Some other people, like myself, have a more difficult time with it and have to develop themselves, socially. I never really did that until I started working in a professional environment and it showed. This club can provide you with an opportunity to test out your abilities as a leader and your abilities with relationships. If you aren't good at either but want to learn, then this a great place to do that. If you don't want to learn and you have no neutral self-awareness, then you'll get roasted, and rightly so. I think this may be the underlying cause of what happened this past year. We had people interested in the title but not interested in learning some important lessons.

My 2 pennies, but hey, the forums are still up and the club still survives. The nice thing about having a weird-ass year like this past year is that there are a lot of lessons that can be learned for the future. Jake, archiving this was an excellent idea as it can help future leaders realign themselves when they start to get off track. Not throwing shade, Ryan et.al. I hope you guys can understand we just want to make this a good opportunity for everyone to connect and we hate to see politics block that.

I hope you guys remain involved and keep your chin up, even if you've graduated. This club offers a lot of good things, even if its a tough lesson or two.