Hi all,

I’m writing today to post about our open officer positions in the BAA this election year, Vice President and Graphics. Our incumbent officers, Jeremy Tuttle and Ethan Gladding, have done a fine job but aren’t able to run for re-election so we need new folks! If you have someone you think might fit the bill, you can nominate them with this form. Here is some additional info about those positions:

Vice President:

The Vice President assists the other officers in their projects, and coordinates with Sweepstakes as necessary. While the President is often concerned with big picture planning and direction, and most other officers have fairly specific duties, the VP is a flexible role that can change to support the needs of the BAA and express the skillset of the person holding the office. During my time as VP, I took part in many different projects: I wrote copy for the Raceday preview; I researched historical data and did a bit of coding to improve our history database; I worked with Sweepstakes and other BAA members to help several new organizations set up buggy teams; I attended Raceday chairmen’s meetings to get fast, accurate information about schedules and DQs (for our community and for our historical records); and I threw countless ideas into officer discussions about what the BAA should be doing. None of these examples are specifically prescribed duties of the Vice President—they’re just some of the ways I chose to use the role. In truth, a good BAA VP candidate is someone who wants to improve Buggy, or Raceday, or the BAA in some way, and has some ideas for how to do it. If you read the BAA mission’s 5 stated goals and think, “I know how we could do some of those things better,” and you are excited to commit the time to make that happen, then the VP office is right for you.

Jeremy Tuttle, BAA Vice President

I’d like to add to Jeremy’s description that we are interested in having the Vice President also participate directly in the transition of leadership between Presidents in the future. This will be clarified in a revision of the bylaws (a summer project, stay tuned) as the officers work out the best vision for the VP position going forward.

Graphics:

This position is to provide design support for the various activities of the BAA. In addition to assisting the Communications and Reporting officers with graphical assets for Rolls Reports and the Raceday Preview, the Graphics officer is on hand to help out with projects like merchandise, video editing, and other communications, like social media. Although currently our Treasurer Bryan Arsham is doing a bang-up job of spreading the word on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, we’re looking to transition these responsibilities to the Graphics officer in order for each role to have more cohesive duties. The Graphics officer would also have opportunities to collaborate with CMU staff in Marketing and Communications, Media Tech, and potentially other departments working towards unified messaging to our supporters. Recently the Graphics officer has provided above-and-beyond support by collaborating on an open source Build Book to help new teams get off the ground.

Mike Darcy, on behalf of Ethan Gladding

We’ll post later this week about the other officer positions, but these are the two we need nominations for! Feel free to ask questions in the comments, and thanks to everyone who has already nominated someone.