Thanks everyone who watched and participated in this year’s Virtual Raceday, helping create the most memorable spectator experience ever. While we were literally rewriting the history books, we also established the Buggy Endowed Fund, helped start multiple new buggy teams, and supported a fantastic podcast collaboration on Chute the Sh!t. I’m proud of all our officers and what we’ve been able to accomplish this year despite the circumstances.

I also want to specifically point out that this year has seen a huge surge of involvement by CMU staff. The spirit of Buggy has been so strong and it has been absolutely energizing to hear and see the enthusiasm for Buggy from staff and faculty at all levels. It’s hard not to expect big dividends from this involvement going forward as professional support enables us to do so many things that previously weren’t possible, like coordinated social media content, new Buggy themed events, and professional outreach. Huge thanks to Tim, Laurel, Annie, and everyone else for their fantastic work.

Although we’ve decided to hold back some of our projects for Raceday next year, we also were able to help design and prepare the widest selection of buggy themed stuff ever seen at CMU: from pins, 3d printed buggies, and shirts to shot glasses, banners, posters, and more, many of which will be available in the bookstore soon!

Lastly, it has been incredible working with current students this year. Seeing everyone come together in the face of these insurmountable obstacles has been inspiring. Although we won’t see the specific Raceday they envisioned, their impact will be felt for many years to come. For the graduating seniors, I hope that they can carry their camaraderie and spirit to every corner of the world as they start the next steps in their lives.

If you’re interested in participating more in this great collaboration, we’re currently accepting nominations for officer positions. Anyone more seasoned than this year’s graduating seniors is welcome to accept a nomination, and anyone can submit someone else for nomination. In particular, we are looking for a new Vice President and Graphics officer. You can read about the positions in the nomination form here, and we’ll have longer advertisements for individual positions later this week. We’ll also have recordings of Virtual Raceday content and updates on the other projects hopefully next week sometime.

Thanks again to all and see you next year!
Mike Darcy
BAA President

Hi all,

We’re excited to announce a Raceday Rebroadcast Livestream on 4/18 at noon EST! The event will feature live commentary, clips of races and hijinks of years past, and a few live events such as an alumni panel!

You can submit any heat you’d like to see at the link here!

Any segment or regular part of the broadcast (yes, even Squirrel Cam) we are thinking about incorporating, but I can’t share too many details yet. There will be a detailed schedule to come, but roughly speaking, the first two hours will be races and accompanying segments, and the final hour and a half will be an awards ceremony, an alumni panel like what we do at Design Competition, and closing remarks.

We’re hoping to get the community very involved through the chat, live video, and through submissions of all kinds. If you have any ideas, feel free to share in the comments or on Discord!

Lastly, thanks to those who have attended our small scale livestreams these past couple Fridays, they’ve been very helpful to try out new things.

Hi all,

This is the first follow-up update from the Town Hall (and consequently, housekeeping after the cancellation of Raceday). If you weren’t able to make it to the Town Hall, you can take a listen here.

1. Membership and benefits — Complete: All memberships and benefits from this year will rather apply to next year. There have been no concerns brought to us at this point regarding the delivery or postponement of rewards so we will consider this complete.
   
2. Consolation print — In progress: We have decided to send out a poster designed by Gregg Valley to Silver and above BAA members. There will be an email later this week to solicit your address if you would like to receive a poster, free of charge. You can see the design here and order additional copies, including high quality signed ones. The BAA print design previewed earlier will be used for future merchandise.
   
3. Budget — In progress: There are several large items which we still expect to spend funds and work on, so this item may be the last to close. I don’t expect to provide a substantial update on this until approximately July when the fiscal year closes and we can concretely say what our funding situation is. It is still accurate at this time that we (Sweepstakes, the BAA, and CMU staff) have spent very little of the Raceday budget, however some budget will not roll over and some items can be completed now for next year, so spending will be in constant flux.
   
4. Homecoming — Completed until Fall 2020: With feedback from the staff, we have learned that there is very little space in the Homecoming 2020 schedule for new events. The BAA will continue expanding support for Homecoming but as a separate smaller initiative rather than under the Centennial collaboration.
   
5. New content including livestream — In Progress: Chute the Sh!t has hit a technical snag this week and episodes may be delayed slightly. Also to report, we have completed the sound check and test stream for the livestream. All that’s left to do is collect videos from you all! We will write a post soon (this weekend?) about that.
   
6. Elections — In Progress: Positions up for re-election have been identified and we are working on the descriptions and ballot forms. Elections are currently scheduled near the end of April.
   
7. Gifts for students — In Progress: A poll has been sent to current students to collect ideas for what they would like. A few teams have responded already and the poll closes on Friday. Then next week we will meet to decide what to make! The ideas from the BAA were not unanimously received by the current students in the Centennial Committee so we wanted to seek more input before going forward.

Hi all,

We are holding a town hall meeting this Sunday at 2pm over Zoom, which you can download here ahead of time if you’d like. A recording will be made available after the meeting and follow-up posts written as necessary. The agenda will be roughly as follows, with time for as many questions and tangents as people want.

1. Review progress on the 7 items outlined in my previous post regarding Raceday Cancellation, see my post here.
   1. Membership and benefits
   2. Consolation print
   3. Budget
   4. Homecoming
   5. New content including livestream
   6. Elections
   7. Gifts for students
2. Updates on Chute the Sh!t and History of Buggy concerning adjusted release schedule
3. Questions for the audience:
   1. How should we recognize the seniors and/or students in general?
   2. How should we expand Homecoming next year?
   3. Anything we missed or could look in to?