Homecoming Conf. Call Minutes, 7/18/08

Homecoming Goals:
– Launch Buggy Alumni Association and get as many alumni as possible to sign up
– Educate Freshmen and student body about Buggy, visibility boost (including awareness about HoB)
– Prime seniors and underclassmen to join BA
– Gather missing information for archives
– Networking with other University Community and organizations

Needs:
– Volunteers to take shifts at Freerolls, Welcome Table & Display, and Launch Reception
– Some seed $ for merch and marketing expenses
– Email distribution of Homecoming schedule and BA launch plans (rely on active people on pikabuggy.com)

Promotion:

[Alumni]
– Listed in Homecoming Registration hard mailing that went out
– Listings on Homecoming website with event descriptions
– Send info to your local, regional alumni clans and organizational alumni lists (will provide info)
– Targeted email or mailing (TBD) to 1,400 people registered as Buggy Alums with Alumni House
– Email to anyone we can get to sign up to officiall BAA site between live date and Homecoming

[Students]
– Post to Sweepstakes chairmen’s d-list and Sweepstakes website (note: PiKA chairman is active head until Sweepstakes chair is elected)
– Homecoming event posters around campus (2 weeks, 1 week, and 1 day prior)
– Flyers @ UC desk, dorms, other locations
– Personal invitations to key community contacts (Student Affairs, CMUtv, WRCT, Tartan, CMU Today, Library, etc.)

ACTION ITEMS:
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Homecoming Launch Event – Conference Call 7/18 @ 6pm ET

Hi all, here is the info for the call. I’m posting the dial-in info here, in case there are any lurkers who would like to join us.

Date: Friday, July 18
Time: 6pm ET

Conference Dial In Instructions
1. Dial:  (888 ) 311-9051 or (877) 246-9080
2. Enter Participant Conference Entry Code: 41268 (followed by the # key)

FOR DISCUSSION
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Great News!

I just got the update from the administration’s meeting about Alumni Interest Group spending from Sarah McMullen. The bottom line is that we will soon be able to accept tax-deductible gifts and donations, and spend that money to fund our buggy-related programs. Whereas before buggy was not considered an educational activity, we now have the go-ahead to sponsor team startups, buy equipment for Sweepstakes, etc.

There will be two accounts; one non tax deductible account for dues, merchandise income and the like, that doesn’t expire at FY end; and another as I described above, with the only catch being that the funds will expire at FY end and go into the University’s coffers.

The latter account hasn’t been set up yet, and this may take a couple of weeks. I’ll keep you posted.

Minutes, week of 6/23

Three calls happened recently. Here are the results.

Alumni Interest Group Leadership Meeting (6/25/08):

Attending: Aiton, Carsen, and members of AB Tech’s Alumni group, with Sarah McMullen.

1) Carnival recap included attendance figures for various events. Tom Wood believes the figure of 62 for HoB is pretty low. Carsen suggested that a form be available every year during Carnival and Homecoming events to add yourself to a club or activity listing. This way, graduates from the past 9 years will be included in our mailings the year after they graduate. Currently this form is sent out only the year before your 10th reunion and (I think) every 5 years after that.

2) A call for nominations is out to join the Alumni Association Board. There is a meeting in June, and a new Alumni Interest Group Committee will be active. If you are eager to voice your opinion or represent us in the committee or Alumni Association in general, please contact Carsen.

3) We discussed the Homecoming schedule briefly. We are currently not on the schedule. This is a topic for the next phone call…

4) A meeting on the 30th of June will hopefully give us good news about our tax deductible gift status. Currently the definition of “educational purposes” does not include buggy, and Anne Witchner is lobbying for our cause. This meeting I believe will include Jenn Church and possibly Mike Murphy.

East Meets West brainstorming session (6/26/08):

Attending: Carsen, Aiton, Abby, Dani, Chris

1) Homecoming. Set up a table and/or pass out fliers advertising HoB and BAA kick-off during freerolls and around the UC during morning reunion activities. Merchandise to be included at table. Possibly have an old buggy displayed?

2) History of Buggy. We will encourage undergrads to attend and grab as many passing alums as we can during the weekend. A mailing will go out by the end of August to buggy alums with a letter, a link to the website, and possibly an “I heart Buggy” sticker.

3) Web site. Lots of ideas came out, and these will be passed on to Sam and Adam in the next couple days.

4) Chris has already put out the call for a logo on the Facebook Buggy Alumni Assoc. group. If you are not a member, think about joining, or DESIGN A LOGO! … and send it to Chris Stengel.

5) The psyche reel has got to be done well, and soon, to be included on the website and advertised before Homecoming mailings go out. Dani will be giving this a boost.

6) Carsen will meet with Tim Seidel of Alumni Relations to set up email addresses for BAA execs, and we’ll address combining forces with their resources to tie our database in with theirs.

Call between Tom Wood and Carsen(6/26/08):

1) History of Buggy presentation will be condensed to about 45 minutes and focus on years ending in 8s and 3s for reunions happening this year. A teaser version may also be produced.

2) A flyer advertising the Buggy Alumni Assoc. will be handed out during HoB and at various locations during the weekend.

3) The preferred time for the presentation, followed by our kick-off event, will be between 11:30-2, hopefully in the UC, on Saturday, October 25.

4) There might be a panel of speakers talking about their years in buggy through the decades. This is still in its infancy, but a few members of the class of ’73 have expressed some interest.

Conference Call Minutes, 5/22/08

I noticed things are awfully quiet on the message boards these days. However, your fearless leaders have been going full speed ahead on getting us recognized as an official Alumni Interest Group. We have a lot to do this summer! Committee MFICs, get ready.

Please read on and comment/volunteer where you can.

We had a conference call today to clear up some questions with Alumni Relations. On the call were Sarah McMullen, Carsen Kline, Abby Sullivan, Dani Barnard, and Chris Stengel.

Donations/Accounting:

An account has been set up through Annual Giving for all donations to the BAA. Other methods of accepting donations will be in place eventually, but right now you can go to https://www.cmu.edu/giving/give.shtml, designate the donation as “Other” and under “Comments” write “Buggy Alumni Association.”

All donations will be ours to keep. There will be no overhead to the University or “dues” to Alumni Relations for their support. Sarah will assist us in making payments for our programs and clear up any matters of spending restrictions.

On top of operating costs, the money raised will help us be a foundation able to support student programs, buggy team startups and others. We will try to tie in strongly with Sweepstakes to make funding available for improvements to to freerolls and races, e.g., more scoreboards, big screens, timing devices.

We’ve put out the idea of having tiered giving levels with incentives to go with them. Repeating monthly gifts might be a possibility, too.

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Contact lists and Web integration:

Tim Seidel in Alumni Relations is the gatekeeper of contact lists and website info. We will have to review his lists and compare them to what we know already, and fill in blanks where we can. There is already a large base of registered users on their site, and we would like to tap into that resource and share that information. It would take away a lot of the headache of creating all new contact lists and keeping it updated.

For anyone who isn’t registered with Alumni Relations, we could have our own subset of contacts. This would be useful for city neighbors, keeping with our non-exclusive take on membership.

Abby is going to be talking to Tim initially to get the ball rolling with him. Actual contacts, who have been tagged as buggy people, can either be given to me as a big paper list or mailing labels, or they can be emailed via Alumni Relations whenever we want to get a mass mailing out. We cover postage at a bulk rate.
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Programming and Advertising

The things looming largest on our radar are Donations, Website, Sweepstakes interfacing, and Homecoming. In order to get the word about our kick-off event, we’ll need some funds. To get the funds, we’ll need to start spreading the word, starting here, and continuing with the website. We’d like to work with Sweepstakes potentially in an advisory position, and we’d like to offer them something as early as this fall, whether it’s timing or video of freerolls, or something else that would help them out.

The plan is to have a kick-off event for the Buggy Alumni Association at Homecoming. We’ll have a captive audience at the History of Buggy presentation, so we’ll target that afternoon to have the meet-and-greet wine-and-cheese social. Lots of memorabilia, pictures, handouts, stickers, tshirts, etc., will give us a big start and hopefully build our community in a big way.

We’d like to put out an ad in an upcoming alumni publication; more on that later.

Discuss, volunteer, donate.

Committee Heads & Participation

Hi guys,
I hope you’re all willing and able to help get the Carnegie Mellon Buggy Alumni Association off the ground. If you have time to offer in any of these areas, we want to work with you, in any capacity! It doesn’t matter where you’re located, you can help.

The Executive Committee has roughly filled in people to head up these committees, but they may shift. We still have a couple “leadership” vacancies–and we need a ton of people to be part of these teams. So, if you have the time, skills and interest, please let us know. And please pass this on to other alums from your organizations.

*If your name is already listed under a group (you previously expressed some interest), but you don’t want it to be, please let me know and I’ll remove your name.

Some of you have already offered help in general, so now is the time to sign up for specific tasks.

If you want to help out, but prefer not to post on this forum, you can email any committee head to get involved.

Committees:

DONATIONS

WEB DEVELOPMENT

HISTORY & PRESERVATION

COMMUNICATIONS & EVENTS

EDUCATION & MENTORING

CORPORATE SPEAKERS & SPONSORSHIP

SWEEPSTAKES REGULATION

Proceedings from 5/7/08 Meeting

Goals for the first meeting were to elect officers, lay groundwork for bylaws and formalization as an official Alumni Interest Group, discuss committees, and brainstorm ideas for the upcoming official website.

Attending: Tom Wood, Carsen Kline, Sam Swift, Aiton Goldman, Chris Stengel

Your fearless leaders are:

Carsen Kline, President

Aiton Goldman, Vice President

Chris Stengel, Treasurer

Sam Swift, Secretary

Tom Wood will be an advisor and guiding force for history and preservation efforts. Sarah McMullen will be our connection to Alumni Relations.

The official name of our Alumni Interest Group, pending approval of our formalization request, will be the Carnegie Mellon Buggy Alumni Association, or BAA for short. We generated ideas for a first draft of the bylaws, and following some polishing by Dani, some brief discussion, and approval by Alumni Relations, will be posted here.

The general goals and purpose of this group will be to grow the sport, bring alumni like us together, and get the community more involved and educated.

In turn, membership is planned to be non-exclusive, generally open to anyone who loves buggy or wants to know more about it. Dues were discussed, but no official rulings have been made. They will likely be nominal to encourage greater membership.

Committees and tentative heads will be posted here soon.

Ideas that we could help fund or support: more trophies/categories for races; better scoreboard; more tv screens around the course; activities for kids (e.g., safe buggy ride) at Carnival and Homecoming; design comp prizes to encourage more participation; Buggy Graduates Job Placement Network (recognize talent and experience instead of GPA); stream more events (like HoB) on the web for far flung alums; voluntary chip timing for freerolls in which only participating orgs have access to the data

Website ideas: Forum, history, rolls reports, team profiles/home pages, individual profiles, how to support buggy/BAA, social network tie-ins (Facebook, Linked-In, etc.), Hall of Fame, polls, calendar of buggy events

Meeting time approx. 3 hrs. Next one planned for early June.

First Executive Committee Announced

Hi all,

We have six terrific, dedicated volunteers in Pittsburgh who will serve as the initial Executive Committee, and work with Alumni Relations to get our Buggy Alumni group established and recognized by CMU.

The next immediate step will be to identify Committee Heads (who don’t need to be in Pittsburgh) to lead individual projects outlined in the group’s proposal. We will open this up to everyone, and reach out to people who have already volunteered help and/or expressed interest in specific projects — either to head, or work within, these sub-committees.

In the meantime, here is our fearless Executive Committee:

Carsen Kline – Fringe 1997-1999 (Chairman 1998-1999)
Aiton Goldman – CIA 1994-1995 (Helped CIA return, as Chairman 1997-1998 )
Adam McCue
– KDR Chairman 2005; Sweepstakes Safety 2006; Head Judge 2007
Sam Swift – Fringe 2001-2004
Chris Stengel
– Sweepstakes Asst. Chair 1992-1993

Advisor: Tom Wood – PiKA 1969-1971; also Sweepstakes Safety (was the second and third person to hold this position); Head Judge (4 years); Helped revise Sweepstakes rules 1986-87; History of Buggy

Fearless Leaders Wanted

From Abby:

One thing that we need in order to set up the Buggy Alumni Group is identified leadership. We must have a President, VP and Secretary/Treasurer. If anyone wants to volunteer for these positions, please let me know.

I think the best thing to do to start would be to get Pittsburgh-area alums who have a reasonable amout of time and a high level of commitment to this as volunteers for the positions. Then, when there’s a more established membership and organization, we can hold elections.

If anyone has a better suggestion, let me know, otherwise – volunteers wanted. Email Abby Sullivan or post here. If there are LOTS of volunteers then we’ll put it up for discussion.

In Other News…

The Alumni Office is super excited about the idea of Alumni Interest Group. Anne Witchner is on board to do whatever she can from the Student Affairs side of things. So things are moving forward from that perspective, which should allow for the structure needed to do everything else we’ve been talking about.

A bunch of people have sent emails to me and Dani through the site letting us know that you’re interested in participating, and until we have the web forum in place (which looks like it will happen through the Alumni office, if anyone cares), that’s the most ‘official’ way we can keep track of people, so go ahead and do that if you want us to know who you are.