Zach Gordon - President (WALL OF TEXT)

[Gordonovski]

Some good points in here, Zach. I'm on a conference call but let me see how much I can process and nitpick

Van Rental
As Matt said, we are absolutely 100% allowed to rent vans. But, there is a cost involved. When I rented one for VIR, we had six of us in the van and I believe each person contributed $20. That was cheaper than people driving separately, and we were all working, not driving, so no need for our own ballersauce cars.

Fall Car Show
We've batted this idea around before and the last time a fall show went on was sometime when DJ was in school (maybe his sophomore year?). I would rather see more effort put in to making the spring show as absolutely kickass as it can be (go look at the last show that Goodspeed & co put on for an example) and use the fall to get members out to every track event and autocross that you can.

Student/Alumni Connections
A lot of us are really out there already. I like the idea of a Google Hangout but as Matt said, keep in mind that some of us spend most of our workdays on calls/Webex meetings and may not want to go home and have one more.

I'd recommend focusing on getting students onto the forums, as we can check those at our leisure throughout the day, on the Metro, etc. and keep in touch. I'm happy to chat with whoever on Gchat, Facebook chat, or email as well.

This is also where the "group Facebook chat" idea could come up, but I know I can't have Facebook open all day for chatting. Forums look a lot less like I'm goofing off, but everyone knows what that blue Facebook header bar looks like from a distance.

Track Weekends
What are your ideas for getting more students out to VIR and Summit with us? HPDE is an expensive hurdle at $350-400.

Autocross
What are your ideas for getting more students out to participate in autocross? Do you think you could get students to autocross somewhere that was a longer drive compared to Verona? I'm thinking no more than an hour away, but the number of venues/events to choose from opens up dramatically if you can take a bit of a drive.

As for the vans: especially if someone isn't HPDEing or tracking their car, I think it's just an easy and cheap way to get a bunch of people down there. I'd be more than willing to put down $20 or more, plus it would probably give a few people a place to sleep.

The fall car show thing is something I thought would be a possibility because I heard grumblings about this past one and all I've heard about doing one in the fall is that it's not possible because it takes a lot of work. I just thought it would be a good way to attract some attention early in the year and hopefully get out name out. I really want the show next year to be kickass. This year felt like a big community get together, but I know a good amount of people around Harrisonburg that would probably be more than willing to help us out.

The Gchat thing was more of just a once a week/bi-weekly thing, certainly not all day or everyday, but a periodical checkup. I think the hard part about getting people on the forum is just getting them to find something they can post in. Also, would it be possible to take off the part of registration where you have to be accepted? I know Paul was/is stuck in that part for a while.

I don't think anyone should have to feel like they need to HPDE to come to a track weekend. When Paul and Kate came for their first time, they had no idea what it was going to be like, didn't get to drive, but had a blast anyway. It's just a fun weekend to ride in some fast cars and have fun with other car people. I think when people get out to an autox, that's when they decide they want to drop the $300+ to drive HPDE (as evidenced by this weekend).

I think by getting them to Verona just once then seeing how much fun/easy/cheap it is, that will convince people that the longer drive is worth it so that we can participate more. I would have no objection to driving up to an hour, I think the hard part is getting students to drive those without fear of seriously breaking their car.