BAA Board Elections – Polls close May 29!

It’s time to vote in the new BAA board!
This year we have 3 no-contest races, and 3 contested. All terms are for two years with potential for one re-election to the same position for a second term.

Each position requires at least 20 votes or votes of confidence. Additionally, each position will have a write in option. For the Secretary position, we will use ranked choice voting per the new Constitution standards.

NO-CONTEST RACES:
-Treasurer – Wade Gordon (1st term)
-Vice President – Diya Nuxoll (1st term)
-Broadcast – Matt Galabrese (1st term)

CONTESTED RACES:
-Communications: Katelyn Smith (2nd Term), Bethany Bauer (1st Term)
-Quartermaster: Jeremy Tuttle (2nd Term), Katy Zapanta (1st Term)
-Secretary: Katy Zapanta (1st Term), Dave Singh (1st term), Sydney Baker (1st Term)

Cast your ballots here: cmubuggy.org/vote
Polls close at the end of the day on May 29, so make sure to get your ballot in!

Nominations for BAA Board are now open!

With a successful raceday behind us, elections for BAA board are right around the corner! There are several positions up for election, and each position has a two-year term. Nominees can be any graduated CMU alumnus who has not already served two terms in the position.
Nominations are open until May 11th, and nominees have until May 15th to accept.

Click here for the submission form

Current BAA officers and their contact information can be found here if you would like additional information.

Want to get involved but don’t want to run for the board? We have multiple committees that are open for members to join! See this post for more detail


We hold regular meetings throughout the year every month with increased regularity around Carnival. As an officer, attendance is not mandatory at every meeting so long as you continue to make an effort to support the mission and projects of the BAA.

Open Positions:

Vice President
The Vice President assists the other officers in their projects, and coordinates with Sweepstakes as necessary. 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.

Treasurer
Treasurer has 3 main responsibilities – the Financial Report, the Membership List, and the Lead Truck Auction. The Financial Report is an end-of-year (essentially) wrap-up of where we stand, and probably takes a couple of hours to put together, but there’s no real deadline (and there are years we didn’t put it out). The Membership List just requires pinging CMU from time to time (every few months or so) for a list of the people who have donated, and making sure we’re gathering names and emails. I’d put the time commitment here at roughly 1 hour/month, though it’s probably more like 0 hours/month in the Summer/Fall, 1 hour/month in Jan/Feb, and then a couple of hours/month in March/April as we make sure the list is good for the Raceday Preview. Last thing is the lead truck auction, which is the biggest time commitment, but it’s limited to the week of Carnival (you don’t have to do anything until Heats are selected). In total, that’s probably about 5 hours of work, between getting the auction set up, writing the auction news post, opening and closing, and then coordinating with the winners. Other than that, it’s just the BAA meetings which can vary in timing. But overall, it’s not a big time commitment (especially if you don’t want it to be, and you don’t need to be in Pittsburgh to do it)”

Secretary
Listed in the BAA By-laws as the person to coordinate distribution of meeting minutes to general membership as well as handle and maintain the membership list in partnership with the treasurer. The secretary’s duties overlap with several other positions, providing support across the main functions of the BAA. The secretary’s diverse responsibilities provide a broad variety of opportunities.

Broadcast
This position is to provide operational support regarding the Raceday Broadcast. The Broadcast officer interfaces with WRCT, cmuTV, and others in their critical role in collaborating with the BAA and Sweepstakes on Raceday and other operations.

Communications
The main job of the communications chair is to manage the BAA Social Media pages, as well as coordinate content for our website, and other outreach to the Membership. Keeping the community informed of and engaged with the BAA’s activities throughout the year is the priority, although it doesn’t hurt to sprinkle some memes into our content. Additional responsibilities include designing and sourcing merchandise for the BAA to sell on our website, on raceday and at other events held by the BAA, creating the vision for our social media channels, and developing reports of social media engagement and growth.

Quartermaster
Ideally they should have experience leading organizations and have connections to campus to understand needs of current teams & students
Seek out organizations that could potentially field new buggy teams, especially ones who have raced in the past
Identify organizations struggling with buggy
Create and make available programs/resources to help new and struggling teams
Work with sweepstakes and existing large teams to secure loaner buggies for new teams
Identify and assign mentors/advisors for teams as needed

Rolls Report – November 21

November 21, 2021

Sweepers clean up the mass of leaves left by the Ginkgo trees.

CIA: Aurora, Equinox

PiKA: Raptor, Banshee

Spirit: Kingpin, Zuke, Inviscid

SAE: Eileen

Fringe: Bumper, Blind Faith

DG: Brazen

Very uneventful day! The only delay was chores getting started (it was tree shedding day and there were tons of leaves all over the course) 

CIA: taking it light with two buggies out—six rolls for Equinox and five for Aurora

PiKA: , six rolls for Raptor, five for Banshee (Banshee didn’t get one for a last-minute goggles fogging issue. They also got called out by EMS for follow car-ring too speedy

Spirit: Spirit had one small stop today – zuke in front was going really slowly, so the flaggers threw stop flags for the back two to avoid any sort of a sketchy pass. Zuke had some time to get ahead, and mechanics from the follow car pushed the other two buggies through. They ended up with five rolls for kingpin and inviscid (lost one each from the stop) but only one the whole day for Zuke

SAE: It was SAE’s first day out! They ended up getting four safe and solid rolls ?

Fringe: Fringe never got more than one buggy out at a time. They ended up getting three rolls each for Bumper and Blind Faith 

DG: DG’s second day out! They seem to be doing really well, and got four rolls for Brazen. 

Rolls Report – November 14th

November 14, 2021

SigEp: Hydra

CIA: Kingfisher, Aurora, Tempest

PiKA: Banshee

Apex: Molotov, Solaris

SDC: Bane, Havoc, Vanity, Avarice

Spirit: KP, Seraph

Fringe: Baltic

DG: Brazen

SigEp: Ended up scratching every roll despite staging and dropping successfully D:

CIA: Accidental pass between Aurora and Kingfisher at one point, but otherwise smooth day with 6 rolls for Aurora and Tempest and 5 for Kingfisher

PiKA: Only one buggy out; Pike was only five rolls because one of theirs had a controlled top due to a Spin Scooter maintenance guy crossing the course

Apex: Didn’t stick around the whole day, but four rolls each for Molotov and Solaris with Solaris’ rubbing issues seemingly resolved

SDC: Dropped all four buggies, only rolled Avarice once, Bane got 6 rolls and Havoc got 5

Spirit: Six rolls for each of KP and Seraph

Fringe: 5 rolls for just Baltic

DG: DG’s first day!! 3 very smooth bagged rolls for their new driver today, lots of excitement to see them out on the course

Rolls Report – Mini Raceday!

Photos: https://cmubuggy.smugmug.com/2021-2022/Fall-Rolls-Nov-6-Mini-Raceday/

SDC: Bane, Vice, Avarice

Fringe: Blind Faith, Baltic, 

Apex: Pheonix, Firefly, Molotov

Spirit: Zuke, KP, Seraph, Inviscid 

CIA: Kingfisher, Emperor, Tempest, Aurora

SigEp: Kraken, 

PiKA: Raptor, Cleo, Banshee

View timing info here: http://timing.cmubuggy.org/

View live stream recording here: https://cmubuggy.org/live/

Congrats to everyone on a very smooth and productive mini raceday!! A special congratulations to Spirit for having the fastest time of the day. 

Congratulations to the winner of Fantasy Buggy: Dave Singh with a total time of 150.12. We will be contacting you for the best way to get you your Buggy Prize Pack.

Also we’d like to recognize our top Front Hill / Buggy and Back Hill Times:

  • Best Front Hill / Free Roll: tie between Bobbie Chen and Dan Francis (86.56)
  • Best Back Hill: Andy Bordick (59.18)
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Rolls Report – October 30th

October 30, 2021

PiKA: Banshee, Cleo, Raptor 

Apex: Molotov, Solaris 

SDC: Bane, Havoc, Vice, Vanity 

Spirit: Zuke, Kingpin II, Seraph, Inviscid 

Minor delays throughout the day due to Scaife construction crane-ing stuff over the course as well as a Quiz Bowl in Porter Hall that saw increased numbers of pedestrians. But all in all a relatively smooth day of rolls given how few teams were out. After today, every caped team has at least one driver/buggy pair at full rolls carryover for the fall for 13 total pairings at full carryover. 

Apex: Four rolls for Molotov and two for Solaris—some brake and harness rope rubbing issues on Solaris that slowed it down in the chute, but other than that no incidents. 

SDC: Vanity’s axle fell off in the first roll (she had visibility issues due to the construction lights and clipped the outer chute bales) and was scratched the rest of the day, but the other three buggies comfortably got 2 rolls in each. 

Spirit: Unfortunately, Inviscid never hit the course, but Seraph and KP each got 3 rolls and Zuke got 2. 

PiKA: Three rolls for each of Banshee, Cleo, and Raptor with no issues or incidents!

Homecoming weekend and Mini Raceday events

We’re excited to be back in person and see your familiar faces out on the course! We have several Homecoming Weekend events and activities planned:

FANTASY BUGGY

Overview:

This year at Mini Raceday we will be testing your skills to see who can be the best chairperson! It’s time to prove you can build the best buggy team by participating in Fantasy Buggy. So, how does it work? The BAA will be timing each Hill time and free roll during rolls on Saturday November 6th. You will build your team of 1 Buggy and Hills 1-5 to aim for the best time. Your score will be an aggregate of your selected team. If you’re in town and interested in helping with timing, reach out to willyclark97@gmail.com.

Using this link, you will be able to fill out your team and compete to win a Buggy Prize Pack. Submissions are free, but if you’d like to donate to the BAA we won’t say no ?

Timeline:

  • Fri Oct 29, 11:59pm: Game open to entries at this link
  • Fri Nov 5, 11:59pm: All entries must be in
  • Sat Nov 6, 7:30-9:00am: Homecoming rolls and times collected
  • Sun Nov 7: Winner is announced and we will contact you for the best way to receive your prize

Rules:

  • A “Team” will consist of 5 hills and 1 buggy
  • Score to be calculated by best hill times of the day + org’s best free roll time of the day
  • Each entry will be allowed to submit an alternate in the case that the org is a scratch or choose to not run the hill on that day (i.e., PiKA chooses to start at hill 2 so the alternate will be used for hill 1 time)
  • Each org may only be represented once in the starting line up and once in the alternate line up (i.e., if you choose SDC for the Buggy, you CANNOT choose SDC for any of the Hills)
  • All submissions that do not meet the rule requirements will not be eligible for the prize

BAR MEET UP

Friday Nov 5th, 8:00 pm at Fuel and Fuddle

Some BAA Officers will be meeting up for drinks and to talk buggy at Fuel and Fuddle Friday night ahead of Mini Raceday. If so inclined, come down, say hello, share your favorite buggy story, and brag about why your Fantasy Buggy team will be the best.

COFFEE AT THE COURSE OR ONLINE

Saturday No 6th, 7:30 am on the Course and virtually at cmubuggy.org/live

The BAA will have coffee and donuts available for anyone coming out to see rolls. Come by to say hello, and enjoy coffee and a donut on us!

New BAA Subcommittees for 2021

New this year, the BAA is rolling out subcommittees to help us tackle our goals quickly and generate new ideas. Each subcommittee will be made up of BAA board members as well as alumni and current students. All groups are currently looking for new members so please contact the emails below if you are interested! Each subcommittee will set its own meeting schedule, but meetings will likely be held on a monthly basis. Many of the subcommittees will share information on our Discord server, which you can join at cmubuggy.org/chat. Additionally, our BAA discord is always a great place to hear from other members and share ideas and memories!

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