Joe Silek - Secretary/PR

[joesilek3]

Hey everyone, if you don't already know me, my name is Joe Silek and I am currently in my first year here at JMU. I am a first year engineering major and I want to have a career in the automotive field. I am excited to get into and learn about track and autocross with the Miata that I am about to purchase and continue off-roading with y'all in my Frontier. 

The position of Social Chair hasn't been filled in this club and from what I can tell, there is a desire to mix with other clubs on the weekends. One issue with that is that we aren't a very known club. Obviously the Motorsport part of the club is more important than the social aspect, but other than meetings, we all really don't get together and as Social Chair, I'd like to fix that. 

 I have a couple ideas to get our name out there and possibly grow the club. One idea that I heard from a fellow member was to have a day during the week where we all or most of us park our cars somewhere on or near the quad. Someone would sit with a tent (also I think investing in an MM tent would be a good idea, black tent with Yellow logo) have plenty of flyers and business cards to hand out and also if people just see our cars they'll be intrigued. Another idea would be to make an event where we offer the "MM experience," whether that be offer people the opportunity to ride along when we go off-roading or autocross, or even just a cruise over the mountain. We just need to get our name out there as much as possible. Hosting an autocross here at JMU would be an amazing opportunity but trying to convince JMU to let us do that would be a challenge, I'd definitely be willing to try to get all of these things into action to help get our name out. 

Mixing with other clubs ---
So there's a small elephant in the room with this topic, We are nearly all dudes.... From my freshman experience in club golf (which is a club of 80 dudes) mixers are fun but can get out of hand and if there aren't enough females present it can be kinda lame. That being said, I would spend some time at the beginning of next semester branching out to clubs and working on trying to coordinate Mixers and day drinks. We need people who are willing to have mixers at their house/townhouse. I'm living in foxhill next semester and I'm okay with hosting but we'd need other places as well (my place isn't that big). The last issue is dues, our dues are relatively small for a club and if we start having frequent mixers than we would have to up our dues to support the cost of the "water." 

Other Social Activities ---
Car Meets. So I know that our relationship with the townie car community isn't the strongest and MOST of us avoid the sheetz meets because of the reputation of street racing/ street hooning and all the stuff MM DOES NOT stand for. Planned car meets are something that I really enjoy and I'm sure a lot of you enjoy them too. My vision for this would be a weekly occurring meet that happens on top of a parking deck (I believe that Grace street deck doesn't have speed bumps) where we all just hang out and talk about each others cars. If we could get most of the members out to a meet, I think it would be a pretty good time... A lot and I mean ALOT of the members don't come out to cars and coffee at the MAAP garage and to be honest neither have I. I haven't had my car here on the right weekends or I end up going home or sleep in. I would really like to go more and also get more current students there. MAAP is an excellent resource for us and I'd like to get more involved there as well as everyone else should. 

I have a lot of ideas for this club and really enjoy being a part of this community. So ask me plenty of questions.

[ViPER1313]

Club funds shouldn’t be utilized for “water” - at least they never were in my day.

[rherold9]

Something something grumpy alumni post about wasting club funds on booze.

I don't think mixers are a bad idea, but I would be sure there are funds for the car show and karting at minimum before plugging club money for it. As you can tell MM probably has one of the least expensive dues out there. Just expect to personally fork over money for the mixers or raise dues which comes with a whole other set of problems (this comes with a possible lower # of members in the club paying dues because of cost, they don't think we offer much, etc.)

[Eco_Boi_Stephen]

Parking our cars near the quad sounds like a good idea! Who was that fellow member?

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[joesilek3]

Club funds shouldn’t be utilized for “water” - at least they never were in my day.

Most clubs spend club funds on alcohol, but if that raises an issue with too many people we could host fundraisers to be able to fund our drinking habits.


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Something something grumpy alumni post about wasting club funds on booze.

I don't think mixers are a bad idea, but I would be sure there are funds for the car show and karting at minimum before plugging club money for it. As you can tell MM probably has one of the least expensive dues out there. Just expect to personally fork over money for the mixers or raise dues which comes with a whole other set of problems (this comes with a possible lower # of members in the club paying dues because of cost, they don't think we offer much, etc.)

Absolutely. making sure that things like karting and the car show have their own set budget and then anything else we get could help fund mixers. And we could also host fundraisers to help us get more money. Also raising the price of dues would only be slightly because of the increase in the size of the club.


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Parking our cars near the quad sounds like a good idea! Who was that fellow member?

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Good shit. I couldn’t remember who said it lol.


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[ViPER1313]

When it comes to things like parties, drinking and 33w cruises, it is best that the club is not officially sanctioning the activity. If someone gets arrested or hurt at said party, especially if they are underage, and JMU or the police department become aware of the club’s involvement, that would be the end of the club (for at least several years.) It’s a lot easier to say the club is not involved with it if the club’s name and money are not directly tied to the event.

[Ken]

When it comes to things like parties, drinking and 33w cruises, it is best that the club is not officially sanctioning the activity. If someone gets arrested or hurt at said party, especially if they are underage, and JMU or the police department become aware of the club’s involvement, that would be the end of the club (for at least several years.) It’s a lot easier to say the club is not involved with it if the club’s name and money are not directly tied to the event.

Especially when said club is directly related to motor vehicles/driving.

[Senor_Taylor]

Yeah, +1 on not buying alcohol with the club dues or any money related to the club. It's not a frat. I did use club money to buy cups and mixers for the after show party which I think is acceptable.

If there is ANY money left over, it should he used to subsidize Autocrosses, pay for Vans to get people to the track, pay for cool stuff at the car show, pay for Vans to go to cool trips like factory tours and far away car shows, etc.

I hung with the golf club all four years. Even had golf club parties at my house. Don't try to make the two clubs the same thing, because they aren't. I don't think the club needs more exposure, I think the club needs more activities. Spend the money (MM has 4 times the money this year that it has ever had in it's history) on things for the students related to Motorsports, but not on alcohol. Y'all are friends, through parties for yourselves and invite your friends. Always worked for us, even if I had to foot the bill most times.

Btw, MM has a tent, which I bought last year. We also have huge speakers and tons of other cool stuff. Utilize it. Y'all don't need a fundraiser, that's what the car show is for. Y'all have so much money right now.

How can you have an election thread and not talk about the track?

[joesilek3]

Yeah, +1 on not buying alcohol with the club dues or any money related to the club. It's not a frat. I did use club money to buy cups and mixers for the after show party which I think is acceptable.

If there is ANY money left over, it should he used to subsidize Autocrosses, pay for Vans to get people to the track, pay for cool stuff at the car show, pay for Vans to go to cool trips like factory tours and far away car shows, etc.

I hung with the golf club all four years. Even had golf club parties at my house. Don't try to make the two clubs the same thing, because they aren't. I don't think the club needs more exposure, I think the club needs more activities. Spend the money (MM has 4 times the money this year that it has ever had in it's history) on things for the students related to Motorsports, but not on alcohol. Y'all are friends, through parties for yourselves and invite your friends. Always worked for us, even if I had to foot the bill most times.

Btw, MM has a tent, which I bought last year. We also have huge speakers and tons of other cool stuff. Utilize it. Y'all don't need a fundraiser, that's what the car show is for. Y'all have so much money right now.

How can you have an election thread and not talk about the track?

I’m not saying that we’re a fraternity or even comparing club golf to MM. I’m simply saying I’ve heard a desire to have MM mixers from current students and to do that we have make our club more known.
I’m fully supportive of having more Automotive events to spend the money on. And obviously things like the car show and karting take dominance in the budget. But as you’re saying we have so much money right now. So using just a little of it to have social events, isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Good to know that we have a tent and speakers.
I didn’t bring up the track that much because that’s not as relevant to the position I’m running for. I’m definitely on board with getting more and more people to the track.



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[Test21]

I like these ideas for exposure and I think they’re important for the club’s continued existence and growth. Too many times I’ve heard, “JMU has a car club?” and I want to let more people be aware of this. It can A) get people involved who would have been if they knew we existed, and B) possibly spark an interest in cars that wasn’t there before.

I’ll echo everyone else, club dues shouldn’t be spent on alc when they can be spent on so many other motorsport oriented experiences. I think we can raise funds personally for this if we want to have parties/mixers which I agree is important. We don’t have the parties MM used to, sure blame social media, but also blame us for not taking initiative like every other club at JMU who manages to have parties.

Joe, what are your ideas for this MM experience? I like the idea of it if we can avoid liability incase anything happens, and make sure it DOES NOT give the club a bad reputation.

[GTBrandon]

I like these ideas for exposure and I think they’re important for the club’s continued existence and growth. Too many times I’ve heard, “JMU has a car club?” and I want to let more people be aware of this. It can A) get people involved who would have been if they knew we existed, and B) possibly spark an interest in cars that wasn’t there before.

I’ll echo everyone else, club dues shouldn’t be spent on alc when they can be spent on so many other motorsport oriented experiences. I think we can raise funds personally for this if we want to have parties/mixers which I agree is important. We don’t have the parties MM used to, sure blame social media, but also blame us for not taking initiative like every other club at JMU who manages to have parties.

Joe, what are your ideas for this MM experience? I like the idea of it if we can avoid liability incase anything happens, and make sure it DOES NOT give the club a bad reputation.

[Jake]

+1 to where the dues go.

What are your thoughts on running for Secretary and having that role include this social stuff? I feel like they are similar enough in intent (communications with members, alumni, prospects and others in the community) that it would make sense.

[Senor_Taylor]

+1 to where the dues go.

What are your thoughts on running for Secretary and having that role include this social stuff? I feel like they are similar enough in intent (communications with members, alumni, prospects and others in the community) that it would make sense.

Agreed on this. Let's focus on electing 4 solid people to the needed positions instead of making up positions. 4 is more than enough to handle running the club if they all pull their weight. Secretary should handle this.

Let us know if you want us to change the thread title.

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[GTBrandon]

+1 to where the dues go.

What are your thoughts on running for Secretary and having that role include this social stuff? I feel like they are similar enough in intent (communications with members, alumni, prospects and others in the community) that it would make sense.

Agreed on this. Let's focus on electing 4 solid people to the needed positions instead of making up positions. 4 is more than enough to handle running the club if they all pull their weight. Secretary should handle this.

Let us know if you want us to change the thread title.

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I stand by having a separate position for social events/reaching out to other clubs/organizing locations for events. Point of a new position is to grow the club, not keep it the same.

[Senor_Taylor]

Not that I want to start a debate here, but what does the secretary do that keeps them from doing social stuff? I was the secretary and I don't remember there being that much to do. Emails, forum posts, social media stuff, meeting notes don't take that long to do.

The title doesn't matter. Just do what needs to be done.

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[rherold9]

If title doesn't matter and people can create position's as stated, why does social chair title matter?

If these damn kids want to have fun. Let them.

Just realize you can't be spending all of MM money on alcohol which I would hope other officers would prevent aka Jackson (who seems level headed)?

I think socializing with other clubs brings awareness, but there needs to be some restrictions on drinking and driving. These need to be taken seriously or people will be kicked out of the club, etc.

[GTBrandon]

Who ever brought up drinking and driving lol

[rherold9]

It's slightly implied. Drinking and being a driving club is not the best look is all from what I thought I read?

[GTBrandon]

It's slightly implied. Drinking and being a driving club is not the best look is all from what I thought I read?

Eh no? Socializing on the weekends and driving are completely different, but in case that isn’t known to any future members it will obviously be made clear.

That being said, drinking and the chopping off of ones muffler/any form of wrenching are still fully supported

[rherold9]

That being said, drinking and the chopping off of ones muffler/any form of wrenching are still fully supported

Invite the old men alumn in Harrisonburg. I'm sure they'd be interested in joining