Last night, a historic 2 hour conference call marked the peaceful transition of power from the founding committee of the Buggy Alumni Association to the 50% newly elected committee that will lead us forward into 2011.

We covered administrative details of course, but we wanted to take this moment to step back and appraise our progress towards advancing the five goals stated in our mission.  The questions we asked ourselves were, “How have we done in our first two years?” and “What ideas do we have to keep things moving forward?”

Preserve and make accessible the history of the sport
Grade so far : B+

Efforts so far
–  Created a database of buggy history, solicited data, and put it on the web
–  Created an online gallery of pictures and solicited pictures from the university and alumni
–  Helped to promote and facilitate the now-perennial History of Buggy presentations

Ideas for 2011
– Improve the integration between media and history [enable tagging of people / buggies]
– Create a data entry back-end so that new data can be quickly included and not sit in a queue
– Make it easier to contribute pictures and video
– Offer to help digitizing analog pictures and video
– Look into a physical space to archive buggy memorabilia Continue reading →

Seniors, sign up between now and graduation to get a year’s worth of members-only benefits for free!  Congrats on graduating, and congrats on making it 4 years without seeing a single day of races rained out, and congrats on joining the exciting world of being a buggy alum.

We need to prepare you for something difficult now: you’ll have to make it through next year without buggy.  It’s going to be tough.  Take our word from it, we’ve been there.  Let us help by offering you a year of Dues-Paying-Member benefits for free (a $10 value!).  Those benefits include:

• Fall 2010 Report – get in depth details about the fall semester
• Spring 2011 Raceday Preview – get the comprehensive coverage of each and every team so that you’re in the loop when you come back to your first raceday as an alum
• Raceday 2011 Reception – mingle with other alumni after the races
• Raceday 2011 Wrap-up – a look back on everything that happened

All you have to do is sign up before graduation:

http://cmubuggy.org/seniors

Two exec committee positions are up for election, and we’re looking for candidates NOW. This is a call to action for serious volunteers who want to see the BAA through the next couple years of growth. The two positions open this spring are President and Vice President. (Treasurer and Secretary will be filled in the fall so that we have some transitional overlap.)

If you’re interested, please comment on this news post with the position you want and, if you like, a campaign spiel. You can also send email to admin@cmubuggy.org if you’re too modest to speak out here.

Elections will be via an online poll early next week!

Here are some example criteria:

* Someone who has been vocal on the forum with good ideas and creative input.
* Someone who likes what we do and wants to be more involved.
* Someone who has plenty of time in the Spring to work on BAA stuff.
* Nominees do NOT have to be Pittsburgh locals.
* You can nominate someone else if he/she agrees.

Here’s a slice of what we do:
Continue reading →