Madison Motorsports - Officer Elections '15-'16

For archival purposes.

Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:21:16 +0000

Given the thread was posted and deleted in the span of several hours last week, figured I'd keep it posted for the sake of perspective, for those who are running for this next year's leadership roles.

Sam Spicer - President

Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:42:42 +0000

Hey everyone,

I'm sure you all know me by now, so I suppose I'll skip the regular bio.

Being President this last year certainly had a learning curve, but there was definitely some things we worked on from the previous year. The biggest thing we struggled with, was the car show. Which while it isn't an excuse, none of the officers had any experience with getting done, and the fact that it was just 3 of us to get everything done with (oh and also Dr. Borg was on leave for spring semester, which also didn't help). However, with all that being said, now I know exactly what to do, and when to get it done. Having me be president a second year in a row would drastically cut down on the learning what to do, who to call/talk to, and when to do it. That alone will fix 80% of what was we struggled with this year, and yes I know about Jake's "How to" document but if I'm not mistake only like 1 of the JMU employee's on the list is still relevant and in that position, plus all of offices have been moved around with the creation of the Student Success Center. Overall I'd be able to make the car show much more professional next year, real prizes, bigger attendance, more sponsors and bringing back things like the truck ramp and the sound lab which were unable to make it due to scheduling conflicts.

Another point I'd like to touch on is finances. Starting this year the MM account balance was nearly $0, and with the choices we've made as officers with events, sales, apparel, etc.. we should be leaving the MM account with almost $600. So I believe that would make us the most profitable officers in quite a few years, when you also consider we still ran the MM garage this year which cost $700~ish. So I'd say that is a huge win for us, making it drastically easier on the next group of officers, and with me leading the team I would expect to only finish even stronger. So basically what this means is, possibly cheaper karting, possibly karting twice!? and other events in general along with more apparel, etc.

For events, if I'm not mistake I believe Ray informed me that this past College solo was the largest ever for registered drivers, so while back in MM prime we may have had more bystanders, but this past year we had the most DRIVERS! Which of course I plan on only continue to grow upon. Also I'd really like to get attendance up to track days, and I felt like we had a pretty strong presence at the fall VIR event, but then after that it fell apart due to everyone being busy for the weekends of NASA days. I was also really busy this past year with going through COB 300(well actually all 3 of the officers did). So I plan on being more free this coming year, and with a full set of 4 officers we should be able to make a stronger presence and also rent buses again as Taylor has volunteered to be the DD bus driver for next year. For meetings I'm a huge proponent for parking lot meets more often instead of classroom meets, as no one is ever a fan of classroom meets (except alumni who randomly drop in, because then it's easy to know where we are) but classroom meets have always been a necessary evil. So cutting those meets in half with parking lot meets is a great idea.

Also I'd just like to note that I originally had no intentions of running for president again this year, although having been asked by several current students to run again as they felt it would be best for MM, I agreed to run. I'm only running to do what's best for MM, so if the general consensus is for someone else to be president then that's fine by me. I'm just trying to lend my time (only 6 classes from graduation and splitting them up for 3/3) and my extensive knowledge of MM as I've been very active since my very first klines meet as a freshmen and have been in the club as long as one can practically be for an undergrad.

P.S. You know you'd miss my emails :wink:

If you guys have any questions for me, feel free to ask on here through post or PM.

Thanks,

Sam Spcier

Chip Lowther- Treasurer

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:58:53 +0000

Hello everyone! My name is Chip Lowther and this year I will be a sophomore Accounting major. I would like to run for Treasurer for MM. I am the one with the 1995 Mustang Cobra (that unfortunately decided to break before the show last weekend lol). I met many of you alumni last weekend at the car show and autox, and am really looking forward to meeting the rest in the near future!

MM has really influenced my first year here. I love the members, and the gatherings are always a great time! However, the communication breakdown and member interest has dwindled a lot this year, and we now have barely 8 people show up to meetings sometimes. This is a major issue that needs to be addressed next year.
As treasurer, there are obviously things that need to be done to increase MM profit and have more money to do fun events (such as karting, vans to VIR/Summit, etc). In years past we have always been scraping the bottom of the barrel to try to do events, and this has been a real issue.

To raise money, I suggest we do more apparel orders, and have more options. I know that in the car culture (and even people who aren’t into cars), many people have lanyards hanging from keys. Why couldn’t we throw the MM logo on some and sell them? It would be a great way to support MM and could get our name out there farther around campus than it already is.

I also liked the idea of Stadium/ Convo cleanups. If we could get 20-30 people to help, we could net $500 or $250 respectively for each event. We do one of each of those as a club, and there is a large chunk of karting for the year. We could even tailgate before the game and perhaps gather after the game to celebrate.
Another money making option would be a car wash. Personally I love to detail my car, and if we could help out the local community, we could be making an impact in the Harrisonburg area, not to mention getting our name out outside of campus.

This last year we very rarely had wrench days where we could come together as a club. I would love to see next year some MM wrench days like in the past, where we could all bond and help people out in working on cars. I plan on having a garage next year, and would be happy to let people use this garage if need be to work on their cars.

Those are just some starter ideas. I feel like the officers should communicate as a group to more efficiently manage the money this year, and a lot of the money should be put toward events where the students and alumni come together as MM. This year, the car show wasn’t organized until a couple weeks before, and if we were to get on that before winter break, we could effectively organize sponsors to bring in money and funds to make the show bigger and better than last years. The MM Facebook chat was good for the current students in the club, however the alumni were excluded and this needs to be addressed in the future to keep the alumni involved with the current students.

I have also thought about perhaps organizing an MM summer event. I know many of you aluMMni live in NOVA, which has a great event called Great Falls Cars and Coffee. If we could organize a weekend when many people could attend, would anyone be interested in having a small MM meetup in Great Falls one weekend to look at some cool cars? I have always wanted to go up there after seeing what Richmond Cars and Coffee has to offer. It would also be very cool if we were to do this on a Summit Point weekend, and thus make it a full weekend of cars and racing for MM, just like the show and autox was last weekend.

Overall, this next year needs to be focused on better planning, communication, and getting more people involved in track and autox. We need to be more proactive in getting and retaining members, and making them stay up on the forum to know when events are going on, not just relying on the Facebook chat/posts. I would love to see more gatherings, such as the Kline’s meets or Top Gear nights at someone’s place, or even a wrench day at the MM garage. This could keep us active as a club, and keep member interest as well at larger events, like VIR and autox.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Thanks!

Matthew Walker - Public Relations

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:10:40 +0000

Hey everyone!

I'm a super senior Geology major this year at jmu and this will be my final year. I transferred in to jmu after my freshman year elsewhere and I have loved it here ever since. Especially in the spring, nothing beats quad chillin' in the spring after winter. Of course, when I came to jmu I joined MM and it was quite possibly the best decision I've made in a long time. MM is very near and dear to me and I have learned alot in the last 3 years of being a member. I think I'm ready to throw my hand at MM leadership and carry on the MM tradition that has left such a positive impression on me and set a precedent for future years to come.

Although I am running for the office of Public Relations I intend to help out and improve MM on all aspects. I'm going to break down the post into the following sections: Organization, Events + Student involvement, Fundraising, Forum and Where Will I Stand In All This?

Organization
To preface all that I am about to write I don't believe any members should be tied to specific responsibilities for the year, so all things done by the execs should be a collaborative and cohesive effort with clear communication among all members with decisions being agreed upon by all members. We should also take it upon ourselves to present the club members with full and detailed plans that are open for discussion and adjustment as necessary by the group as a whole. I have learned from the past that having too many brains brainstorming at the same time = a wreck. So I would love to have a plan ready for action that we can receive feedback on. The most important factor I think that will really help us to have a successful year is timeliness. We can achieve this by laying out a tentative year plan with as many solid dates for the fall as possible. This can be planned over summer and would be shared in the first 2 weeks of the fall semester. This applies for the spring semester as well. I think these will help the club to flow more efficiently behind the scenes and allow everyone to feel more secure in the work being put in for us.

Events &Student Involvement
All of our other typical big events have been pretty successful recently so I won't beat the bush on those. I say we carry on with Klines meet, deck meets, cruises, top gear nights, car shows etc and we can plan to the same/higher caliber. Feel free to ask specific questions here in the comments if there is anything extra you would like to know. The biggest improvements with events that need to be accomplished are freshman involvement. It's clear that most freshman feel left out without a car and feel discouraged to join in on things such as cruises. Or getting off campus can be a little inconvenient via buses. I think this may also be because they aren't comfortable with MM just yet. So I say we off campus living folk make our way on campus for some virtual fun There are large conference rooms in the basement of festival that are open for reservation by clubs/orgs, we can rent one of these rooms which have tv's, someone can bring along their ps4's/xbox's and we load up forza or whatever game of our choice and just hang out. Pizza can also be provided. We could also just combine this with a meeting. It would be a great way to get everyone involved. The other idea I had, after observing one of the meetings this year, was to have one of our regular meetings off campus. Such as someones apartment, I'll gladly open mine to this. Not every meeting but once in a while. Normally when we have meetings a good bit of us just mill about the classroom and clearly we want to hangout and chill for a bit longer, however a Wednesday afternoon on campus doesn't really facilitate that. So we could hold it on a Saturday at one of the officers apartments, share our updates and let the evening take itself away It's a good casual way to attract everyone out and keep them out.

I made it out to almost every track event last year and had a blast. I think I missed 3 and all were due to school. Otherwise I would have been there. I will be there for Hyperfest and will be at all events for the rest of the year. You can typically find me working on grid. I believe on two events last year, maybe three - excluding hyperfest - we were able to get a bunch of new students out to the track. Sometimes people left a little early, however, I think the initial effort is what counts! :thumbup: It was a great time and I enjoyed having everyone come out and experience. I was glad when a few of the members also decided that working events was a good fit for them after spending a weekend. This is something I plan to continue and I would love to the be students liaison for info on track events and even for communication with alumni since I've had the chance to get to know so many better this last year. I think there will be a positive increase in student participation at these events.

This may be a more far fetched idea but I'm gonna throw it out there. We all want to enjoy a nice cars and coffee, however, nova and rva can be a little out of reach during the semester, so I say we start our own here in town. The Madison Motorsports Cars and Coffee. There aren't a TON of exotics in the 'burg but there are a few in the area and with good advertisement we may get a surprise visit. On top of that this gives us a chance to interact with the community. We could possibly have all the officers rotate each mornings as well so that at least one of us will be present. Just an idea. If elected I would develop this idea more completely.

Fundraising
I agree with everything Chip has said in his post for raising funds. I'm still brainstorming on more ideas than just this one so you are all welcome to ask questions and pick my brain. If I recall correctly we have a solid amount of MM stickers left over from last year, so I think it would be a good idea for everyone to buy a new color and allow new members next year to buy from the current batch so that we can finish selling what we have. However, over summer, if elected, i would look into running a "special edition" sticker. This one will have a different design and have the option to be more personalized. So far I've thought about including the year an alumni graduated on the sticker and if it is a current student we can put the students current year. Possibly initials, your cars emblem? Maybe even for our esteemed members we can put what your official position was along with the dates you were said position, as we have them listed on the forum. These would be ordered in small numbers and cost more but I think would be well worth it if I can find a feasible printing option for us. More development to be done here as well, if elected.

Forum
I've read the concerns regarding the forums and this is a tricky one. Here are the factors the way I see it:

Some people simply aren't into forums. Not many people get off on the idea of talking to internet strangers who are a close knit group of friends, with inside jokes and who all know each others names etc. It's not a matter of the forum being old outdated tech, just... an awkward way of communication for someone who has never done it before. Alot of you guys sit infront of computers all day so this is a no brainer but we don't, most of us are on the fly and don't have time for this. To put it in perspective, would you rather get on your phone on tapatalk and respond to a stranger about what ferrari is gonna do next or text your friend to meet you at festi and have real life instant engagement?

SO WHAT DO WE DO? Fix that disconnect of students not knowing alumni. Put some faces to names so it can feel more personal and give them a reason to care to respond and read. I think it would be amazing if as many as alumni could make it to our initial Deck-Klines meet as possible and talk with students. Jake surprised us last year and it was a good move, people remembered you. From here we should all include our names and a relevant photo (our cars) on our profiles here (i know some of us have already done this). Unfortunately I will have to let Pumba go. Hopefully this will make it easier for forum n00bs to feel like they have an idea of whats going on and who is saying what. Along with having every event linked here and such I think this could help increase student participation on the forum. If the Klines-Deck meet isn't enough of an event (which i completely understand its a 2 hour drive) for it to be worth for alumni to make it in town, I figured since football is early in the year, this will be a great time for alumni to come down and tailgate and watch the game with us and allow some stronger student-alumni personal communication. The main goal here, whatever the event, is to push for personal student-alumni interaction early on the school year!

Where Will I Stand In All This
So I can tell you now that I won't be at every single event or happening, that's unrealistic. I will be assisting with summer planning, working on creating good relationships with jmu faculty for future years, ensuring timeliness execution of all updates, I'd be glad to watch over the FB page and email communication, strong forum communication, any community or organizational communication that would need to be handled (i think these fall more directly under my PR title) building relationships with members and making sure everyone feels at home and getting people to the track. I'll be willing to go the extra mile for MM as I have done in the past. In general, pretty much all my goals could be summed up as striving to foster a stronger sense of community and increasing student participation.

This was a long one but I wanted to cover all my thoughts. If you guys have any questions feel free to ask! Thanks for the consideration, ladies and gents!

EDIT:The little globe under my avatar actually links to my FB.

Zach Gordon - President (WALL OF TEXT)

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 02:39:32 +0000

Goin' out with a bang.

Hey everyone, I'll be a senior this next year (or more) and am intending on running for president of the club.

A little bit more about me:
-English major/creative writing minor
-Drive a tornado red mk4 VR6 Jetta
-Learned that I loved pickles for the first time after trying them at Jack Brown's about 6 months ago

If you want to know more, PM or email me and I'd be happy to talk. I just don't think an extended bio is what the people want in a pres thread.

First off, I'd like to say that I'm slightly disappointed in myself for not have being as active as I have been in the club the last semester and a half, but due to an opening in my time commitments, I've been able to devote much more time to this club that I have a ton of fun in and a lot of respect for.

I can tell from the responses of alumni, current members, and even non-members who were at the car show that there needs to be some work done on the club. Not that I am disappointed with anything we've done these last few years, but there was certainly a golden era or glory days back before '11 came around that I want to regain within this next year.

I think this needs to start with organization and communication. There needs to be a bit of restructuring, I'd like to set guidelines for each office and its responsibilities and duties, for I felt that there was a bit of an overlap this year. This is good to a point, but you've gotta remember that too many cooks isn't always necessarily a good thing. In my opinion, the club should adopt what is pretty much the standard model for exec boards of a lot of other clubs and organizations in that:

-The president is responsible for running meetings and external communications. Right now, the meetings that take place could be done over email and I think there needs to be some benefit to coming to a meeting besides pizza. I'd like for members to be much more included in the decision making process, which would hopefully happen at these meetings. Along with becoming more democratic, I think that by doing so would show that we have faith in the current members and their decision making process, but also allow them to become more involved in the club (along with hopefully having most people remember when events are happening, because they made that decision.) I also think it is absolutely necessary for the president to be able to go out to JMU administration, members of the community, and alumni to put on a face for the club and present us well. The simple fact of the matter as to why we haven't had vans to go to VIR or as many sponsors as we wanted for the car show lies solely upon the club not going out and talking to these people and giving them a reason WHY they should support us.

-The vice president would hopefully be able to stand in for the president in his/her absence. The VP should also be responsible for the clubs inner-workings, as external communication would rely mostly on the president. This would come about as any conflicts between members or between members in the club. I would also hope to see the VP responsible for the organization of meetings and have it as his/her responsibility to establish a meeting place and time.

-As for treasurer and secretary, this will be more short and to the point, but the treasurer should be solely responsible for collecting dues and having a budget secure at the beginning of each semester to show how much money the club has and what our plans to spend that money on would be. For secretary, they should be able to keep an accurate account of current members and means of contact, as well as alumni. I would also appreciate it if the secretary would keep a record of what happens during meetings and share those with alumni, hopefully through the forum.

So that's what I believe to be important for the organization of exec. Secondly, communication. Currently, I feel as if I have no idea what the current exec is doing (though this doesn't mean they aren't doing it well). If I were elected, I would hope to open up to current students and alumni what we would be planning and what kind of processes we were going through to get those things done. It's as simple as keeping everyone updated and I think a big piece of keeping people active. You don't want to give money to something and feel as if nothing is getting done with it.

I also think that a huge part of keeping this club going is promotion, which I don't see a lot of happening on campus and feel is vital to our health. Exposure is what keeps us going. I also heard some grumblings that this past car show didn't have a benefit a charity and only was a source of income for the club. A possible remedy to both of these problems is a fall car show. It provides us a second opportunity to raise money for a charity as well as get early promotion out at the start of the school year. With the current car show happening so late in the year, it's my belief that some people come out and then forget about it once summer comes around and they don't come back to school for three months. A fall car show would attract a lot of freshmen and hopefully allow more people to become aware of the club. Planning on this would have to get started almost immediately, but I believe it can be easily accomplished if everyone does their part.

Going off of that, I'd like to see many people doing a part. Right now, the planning is almost restricted to exec, but I think that by giving non-exec students responsibilities it would promote their worth in the club and also keep them having some vested interest in staying around. This could be as simple as having Student X ride over to Blue Ridge Tire and ask them if they would like to participate in the car show, or have Student Y reach out to his friends in another club and have the two clubs participate in something together. This shows that the exec trusts and respects the members and also builds future leaders of the club.

Besides these things, I'd like to see much more participation in car events throughout VA and the surrounding regions.

-I was very disappointed by the turnout for VIR and am hoping that this past weekend encourages students to go down to more trackdays and experience the fun that that is. I'm already planning on going down for Hyperfest in May and the NASA event in July and hope that others will plan accordingly to make it down there. Once school is back in session, if I am elected, I plan to march to JMU transportation and get us a van for transportation down there and will make the strongest argument they've seen for us to acquire one of those again. A simple "x happened 6+ years ago with the club" is unacceptable to me and a ludicrous reason to not at least try to get one of those vans.

-Verona autox. Holy shit I had no idea what I'd been missing. These events are so close and so cheap that it is a crime that we haven't had more people going down there. Even if you aren't driving, it's still a great way to experience autox and learn about how they tick, so that hopefully in the future students won't be so...afraid to track their cars down there.

-Campus events: these are simple - hang out in TDU, get dhall/ehall, simple hangouts to get members around each other in an accessible location for freshmen to promote the friendship aspect and getting to know each other personally. Also, campus events like the classic Kline's meet shouldn't be restricted to the beginning of the semester. This is something so simple and easy to organize (and cheap), to a point that I think we could have something like this every month. All these take are simply putting the time aside to get a group of people able to say "YES, I can make this event," setting a time, and meeting people there. There isn't any reason for more of this stuff to happen.

I would also like to see even more communication between alumni and exec/the rest of the club. Most of what we see right now is limited to the forum, but I would whole-heartedly support an open channel between exec and alumni through means of group chats/Google hangouts/group calls/etc. I think talking is much more personal and more able to perpetuate the creation of ideas. Realistically, it would be easiest for the pres/exec to handle this communication then relay it back to the rest of the club. Again, keep that communication open.

I'm going to bring this to a close now. I hope my ideas have been clear and concise enough to not feel like a bombardment, but sorry if it has been. I recognize that I haven't been as active in the past as I wished I could've been, but I've changed that this past semester. I also know my activity on the forum isn't much, but I do lurk the shit out this place and read most posts.

I won't be disappointed if someone else gets elected president, it is totally the club's decision. I just wanted to allow my ideas to get out there and hopefully considered for the future. I might/plan to add some to this thread, so expect more contributions. If I do get elected though, I will work my butt off to try to have the best year for the club and hopefully set us up so that trend can continue.

-Zach

email: gordonzj@dukes.jmu.edu
PM or email me if you want my cell number to communicate that way.

Taylor Johnson - Vice President

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:39:13 +0000

Hey everyone! I'm going to be a Junior this upcoming year and I want to run for VP.

I feel as though I have a lot of good ideas for this club going into the next year. I am very punctual and getting things done early is very key to me. I know practically everyone in MM right now and stay in contact with all of the members more than anyone else.

I am really passionate about MM. It is honestly the coolest thing I've ever been apart of. I'm very proud to tell people about MM and all of the great things we do. I love having such a connection to alumni and hearing all of the great stories. I love learning by their mistakes and hearing their advice (even if I don't take it.) I want MM to thrive and grow and I want others to feel the same way about it as I do.

Next year I plan to have:

More get-togethers. We had a lot at my house this year but I want even more. The one Top Gear night was a success.

Retaining more members. We did very well this year with getting Freshmen. We've had 6 extremely active ones and they're definitely a part of the family now, but we started out with like 50 people at the first meeting and I haven't seen 15 of them since. We can do better.

I want to get JMU vans more. I'll drive, and that way, we can get more people to the track and karting and all over.

I also want way more people at Auto-crosses and Track days. Hopefully I'll have a Miata by then, so I'll be there. I'll drag the new guys along.

I don't necessarily want to do MORE things, I just want to do everything better and communicate often and clearly to all members. That's where the problem lies. Everyone needs to know what's happening.

How this works.

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 16:23:17 +0000

Alright, hi.

It's about that time of year where officer elections start getting discussed. Naturally, all of us aluMMni want to see who's running as we do get a vote in the election process.

So! Post up with your name, who you are/what you do, what you're running for, how you want things to change/improve/remain the same/etc for the upcoming school year, and be ready to answer questions.

I have no idea when elections are this year, but presumably someone else will post up with that date so we all know when to have our e-votes in by. Or maybe I'll have to hunt someone down. Either way, get to it!