Ryan Allen - Secretary

[allenrj]

Hello all,

I am running for the officer position of secretary for the 2016-2017 school year and hope you will all consider me when placing your vote.

A little bit about myself:
My name is Ryan Allen. I am currently a sophomore at JMU in pursuit of a B.S. in Geographic Science with a dual concentration in applied geographic information systems and environmental conservation, sustainability, and development. I also have a minor in humanitarian affairs. I am scheduled to graduate next year but plan to attend JMU for two more years to enjoy the college experience and community with the added pleasure of not having to take six classes a semester. I am a very sociable person with great organizational skills and like everything to be planned and organized in advance to minimize headache, frustration, and unforeseen consequences.

My automotive career began a while back when I lived in California due to my dad’s military career. The base allowed for me to ride and race dirt bikes which then led into my interest in cars once we moved to the east coast. I picked up my 86’ Camaro the summer after my first year of high school and that’s where the adventure began. The car has now been completely worked over with no bolt being left to itself. It currently sits with a ls1/4l60e awaiting a t56 swap when the finances allow it.

Why me?
I joined Madison Motorsports at the begging of this school year through coincidentally seeing a MM sticker on a white mustang of which peaked my interest. I did not know the club existed before this point and became highly interested. I am unsure of if this oversight was my own doing or if the clubs presence on campus was less than adequate at the time. Either way I hope to increase our outreach to the JMU and Harrisonburg communities.
I hope to bring an organizational and supportive presence to the club, which can allow the other officers to focus more on their responsibilities while allowing me to keep them and the club organized throughout the school year.
I have led class projects in nearly all of my classes and have been selected for program awards throughout my career. I pride myself on being timely, organized, and a leader for my fellow peers.

As far as improvements for the club, I am hoping to advocate the use of the google calendar and take a poll of who use it or would like to use it as a clear way to have everyone in the club on the same page for events, meetings, and any other club functions. I have been noticing that many of our less formal events such as cruises and meetings are more on the fly rather than organized. I feel that if we could schedule these in advance, alongside little afternoon cruises here and there, we could provide members with more of a heads up so that they could provide insight into the amount of people we can expect to show up. I also plan to provide a forum that will provide minutes for all classroom meetings so that those unable to attend will be able to know what was discussed.

The ideas stated above are merely the begging of what I hope to achieve in the position of secretary with Madison Motorsports. If anyone has any questions or concerns please let me know and I will answer promptly. The forum, email, phone, or Facebook messenger are all great ways to get in touch with me. 540-323-1782

P.S. I am going to be more active on the forums in the coming months seeing as the school load will lessen. Currently six class projects are providing constant work and stress, which will be alleviated soon.

[Gordonovski]

coincidentally seeing a MM sticker on a white mustang of which peaked my interest.

Paul does love to PTC

As far as improvements for the club, I am hoping to advocate the use of the google calendar and take a poll of who use it or would like to use it as a clear way to have everyone in the club on the same page for events, meetings, and any other club functions.

Do you want to use this for every event or just what day of the week works best for meetings? I can see using it once, but there's no way everyone is going to take a poll for every event.

[allenrj]

I would use the poll at the beginning of the year in order to see if the club as a whole would be interested in using the calendar. The poll would be a one time thing just to judge interest. The poll could be used in the future to help coordinate with the club to find the best possible dates for events that fit with the majorities schedule. As far as using the calendar from then on it depends. We can add all our scheduled events which can then be downloaded to your phone allowing for those who want it to have the dates already set and available for viewing.

[Senor_Taylor]

You mention class load. How busy are you going to be next year? This is a time consuming position.

[allenrj]

Class load from here on out will be perfectly sustainable with plenty of time for extra activities such as being an officer for the club. I am ready to make the commitment to fulfill my duty as secretary and feel there will be no issue dedicating myself to the position.

[Senor_Taylor]

Great. Good luck!

Sent from my SM-G900R4 using Tapatalk

[ScottyB]

hey Ryan, nice job laying out your introduction and proposed initiatives. a couple questions from an old MM alum and former secretary:

• an important part of being an officer is leading the charge for the club in motorsports event participation and attendance. most colleges have a "car club", however what has allowed MM to stand out since its inception has been a specific aim beyond simply hanging out and cruising around...but to also compete and raise our skill levels through motorsports participation. I see that you "hope to bring an organizational and supportive presence to the club"....but i did not see anything regarding what i would call your approach to "wheel time". what motorsports or similar gatherings (such as wrench days, tours, or shows) interest you, and what events do intend to work at, or compete in either with a shared car or your own? with the large amount of free time coming up in your schedule i hope this allows you the opportunity to get out to these events and by doing so, encourage and lead by example to help the other club members do the same.

• i have not seen much of you on the MM forums, which are an important hub of communication not only for current students but also as a means of keeping a large, active, and knowledgeable collection of past members (if i do say so myself) in touch with current club status. i'm glad to see you intend to be more active here; are you also active on the MM facebook communications? that seems to be a very critical nerve center for current MM student communications and being well connected there may help to solve the organizational issues that i'm glad you're hoping to attack.

• you mentioned that you didn't know the club really existed until you saw a sticker on a random car. what, in your mind, would be an improved approach from the current state of things to bring better awareness to other JMU car guys out there that might be oblivious to MM's presence? be it events, flyers, sponsorship of campus activities, bigger stickers :lol: , etc? many of these things just mentioned would fall under the responsibilities of a secretary or supporting officer as a PR initiative so i expect you may come up on these challenges if elected.

• given a choice between a pristine 1989 IROC 1LE or an 3.8 turbo firebird, which is best?

thanks and best of luck!

[allenrj]

Hello Scotty,

Sorry for the late response first off I have been in class since 12:30 and still have another class starting soon.

To answer your first point I am in full support of getting more seat time for the entire club as it was my hope when joining to improve my driving skills with the added presence of a supportive and fun group of people. I am highly interest in having wrench days to help other members on their cars and possibly mine, I say possibly mine as I wont have it on ground till next year and the work that needs to be done is not minor (such as a transmission swap). As for group events and such I am in favor of working more autocross events and participating in them; the first one i attended with the club sparked a new passion which I had not had before and hope to introduce and have many many more people participate. I am also interested in trying a few HPDEs but am a little hesitant as I haven't done much on a track other than a circuit cross at summit point with Josh, Chip, and a few others. Seat time in my opinion is the key to better driving and in the next year I am hoping to gain a ton of experience and hope others will join me. I am already looking to sign up for the autocross in Verona on may 1st despite finals week and am looking forward to participating in the BRR-SCCA points events through the summer. I am also interested in going to hyperfest and such but just haven't gotten out to those events yet.

Your second point: I agree that I have not been very active on the forms and this will change in the near future.I have became a more involved student in the club through the past events that I have participated in and have allowed me to become more than just a member but part of the whole. The relationship between alumni and students should be full of communication and full of constructive criticism of which we can all prosper from. Keeping the current, past, and future members up to date and informed of activities, projects, etc is key to maintaining the club and allowing for a prosperous future. The up to date information can easily be organized through the fourms and through updating our website information on a more regular basis. As I poked around I noticed that none of the officer information is posted in the "Contact" section. As for the rambunctious facebook group I am highly involved and talk to the club on a daily basis.

As for events and such to help promote the club one key idea has been in my mind for a while. As you may know the commons by dhall always has some group out there promoting whatever it may be that day. Maybe we try to grab two cars from the club some fliers and speakers and just have people there promoting a small car meet/interest event/ or something of the sort. I have not looked into JMU's policy and the coordination behind making such an event but that would be involved in the process before anything is set. A second idea is simply to have some more small events around campus. These ideas haven't quite been established in my head yet but if a few people host a small event here and there every once in a while the JMU community could see and hear our name more to allow for better recognition.

For the cars......this question ugh....

In my opinion I think it depends what you want be it performance vs collectible vs are you going to drive it?
I would personally have to choose the turbo firebird due to the limited production just like the 1le but also because its just such a unique vehicle that was produced by GM in the late 80s. Additionally if im correct it had the 1LE package that the camaro had with the brakes, driveshaft, and suspension upgrades. Again just to hand it to the uniqueness of the firebird and its ability to produce around 300hp in the late 80s, when emissions and such were still a hindrance, is pretty outstanding not to mention that you get the grand national powerplant that is sought after to this day.

Thank you for the thoughtful questions and I hope you will consider me when voting

[ScottyB]

:thumbup:

[*insertusernamehere*]

As you may know the commons by dhall always has some group out there promoting whatever it may be that day. Maybe we try to grab two cars from the club some fliers and speakers and just have people there promoting a small car meet/interest event/ or something of the sort. I have not looked into JMU's policy and the coordination behind making such an event but that would be involved in the process before anything is set. A second idea is simply to have some more small events around campus. These ideas haven't quite been established in my head yet but if a few people host a small event here and there every once in a while the JMU community could see and hear our name more to allow for better recognition.

Can't take cars onto the commons, last we checked. I don't know if you were a freshman here but we always lack in freshman activity, I wanted to get rooms on campus and have pizza + racing videogames night this year but that didn't work out. What do you think you could do to spread outreach to freshman and get them to come out and be active. The classic complaint year after year is "oh but I don't have a caaarrrrrr"

[allenrj]

See this is how the more experienced member and alumni can help guide me and inform me of what has been tried tested and such so that I can help organize and create new events for people to come out to and such. I know when I was a freshman the issue was trying to find my niche at JMU and I finally came across MM which allowed me to have a group of people with a common interest. I dont have a set idea but I think creating such an event that would allow freshmen to just simply hangout and relax to have a good time and such to help them feel like more of the community would be a great place to start. Next year I will gladly pick up people and taxi them around to events if need be it doesnt bother me, I like driving my car :lol: . I think the overall issues with the freshman and their ability to be active is simply them adjusting to the new environment and if we can setup just simple get together or meet ups similar to your video game night and provide the freshman with this friendly get together it may work out well. The thoughts of events are all still culminating in my head and ill try to get them down on paper as they pop up so shoot them at the club.

[*insertusernamehere*]

See this is how the more experienced member and alumni can help guide me and inform me of what has been tried tested and such so that I can help organize and create new events for people to come out to and such.

you or whoever is in office next year can feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or are taking on an event you don't think has been done before or if you want to know what we have discussed in the past. I tend to have a slightly different opinion, sometimes useful, other times not so useful. I'm here to help! Good luck man!

[allenrj]

I feel that constructive criticism and different viewpoint are key to being successful. Viewing an issue through a few different peoples eyes will provide a better solution then simply attacking something head on individually. If i can learn from previous officers and members about all that we have done, tried, failed, etc. I think that I can provide the best support and organization for the club as a whole. Help is always appreciated and considered thank you!

[EclipseTurbno93]

I feel that constructive criticism and different viewpoint are key to being successful. Viewing an issue through a few different peoples eyes will provide a better solution then simply attacking something head on individually.

Yaas, this. Agreed Ryan :thumbup: