Tyler M - PR/Secretary

[Tyler.M]

However, I am a student too, and so far I have always had a class the night of a meeting anyway. Would you be open to posting minutes, notes from the meeting, or a general rundown of what went on?

Absolutely, and I intend to do this. I think it'd be a great way to keep track of our meetings and give the meetings a bit more direction. I'm surprised minutes of meetings haven't been implemented in the past (to the best of my knowledge) but it's a great way to keep things nice and organized. Which is good. I like organizing things.

Secondly, there was mention of a potential fundraiser at VIR, providing quality (instead of not so much quality) meals for workers, etc... I haven't heard anything else about it since the discussion in the paddock in March so I don't know the status of that, but how would you help to see that there are enough people there to properly staff an operation like that (or a coffee and doughnuts table at VMP) seeing as how it is a good distance from JMU?

You know, that's a great question, and I'm not privy to the specifics of what happened there or why all of that fell through. What I do know is that a main reason that a lot of our "travel" events have suffered from a lack of adequate transportation, so this would be a good first step. We're going to have to bring back the MM van. If we put the burden on transporting people there more on us and less on club members, there will be more incentive to come out to those events. On top of this, there would have to be an incentive to staff these operations. My thinking is that since we would work collaboratively, everyone who comes to event and is a paid member must volunteer to run a coffee and doughnut table (or anything really) for an allotted amount of time.

Of course, this will take some brainstorming among us execs, but it's a thought anyways. If we can get more people out to these events, a lot of these problems will be taken care of

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I've always wanted to see MM more involved in the local community. How do you feel about that / do you have any plans for that kind of involvement?

I'm glad you mentioned this. Community involvement is always key to any club or organization, and I don't think MM has really done enough of it. I would love to see us volunteering locally at say a soup kitchen, or do an adopt a highway, or establish a scholarship of some kind. I'd love to see us open more of our events to the public and really expanding advertising beyond JMU, and interfacing with local car groups and clubs. More than anything, I'd really like us to extend our networking across the Motormile too involving them in more of our events. I'd also like to establish better connections with the 3 other college campuses around us, too, I think it's a great untapped potential for collaboration.

What if we did a fundraiser for a group that promoted safe driving (like MADD)? What if we tried to establish some type of relationship with one of the local school systems or somehow supported Big Brother/Big Sister? I'm just spitballing here, but I'd really like to see the club do a lot more philanthropic work. One, it's a great thing to do, and two, it's a great way advertise and get our name out there. I know that sounds skeezy, but if we offered students the opportunity to volunteer and do a bunch of self-less work, we can really change our public image for the better. The focus would be less refuting the fact that we like to drive fast (which some of you mentioned, JMU administration hates us for) but that we drive fast for a reason.

So yes, I'd love to see the club involved in more things around the local community. I'm a townie and proud of it, and I think the local population would be attracted to a car club that's friendly, and has a heart. Cliche, I know, but still prevalent nonetheless.

One thing to get the FB page out there more often, then not.
Post up a cool pic from the hot and bothered thread or w/e. Everyday I see a pick posted up from PAS or some other car related FB page on my news feed. Hell it could even be one of our own pics from the track or an AutoX. Anything to get MM up on the news feed EVERYDAY.

I agree, news freed prevalence is really important. Hell, if we could get some sexy high-res photos to post up on FB daily, all the more incentive to like our page. If we get people to like our page, then we have an even BIGGER audience when we recruit and when we do special events. Good idea, I'd definitely like to do this. We probably have enough high-rez photos on the forums for several years worth of postings anyways :thumbup:

The larger the club gets, the more "clicks" you will find. Its a historical trend. There are always people that transend those groups and can bounce around between them all. Even at our "best" gatherings there were still circles of people scattered about. Sometimes its hard to get people to open up.

True, and to be honest, this will be something that we'll have to handle at every step of the way. It might be difficult to juggle them all, but I think it'd be great to have them too; it'd be impossible for MM to really represent auto enthusiasts without having subgroups. Yet, the can be problematic because strong cliques can bring down a group. So we'd have to manage that, but I don't think it's impossible. As long as we offer enough things for us to do together, I think this should be easy to avoid.

I think if you focus on getting the word out and communicating as effectively as possible, the viral bit will "just happen" as it should.

Yup! Substance. Primary goal of FB is recruitment and easy dissemination of information about events to those who are MM-forum foreigners. If we could post highlights from the forums (cool project threads, pictures, funny stuff) on FB, to get more people interested in the forums, that could help too. And it'd have to be consistent.

Good questions!