Hello DC Metro MINIS Members

As you all know, we had our annual meeting this past Sunday. We kicked off the day with what I hope was a challenging but enjoyable scavenger hunt. Congratulations to team “accounting” consisting of Janelle Wolf and Paul Balestiri who won the scavenger hunt and now have to try and figure out how to split the prize of a $25 gift certificate to MINI of Towson.

The main item on the agenda for this year’s annual meeting was the election to fill the open positions on the Board of Directors. Following the meeting the new board met to determine specific positions. The DCMM Board of Directors for 2005 is:

• President: Michael Babischkin
• Vice-President: Katie Williams
• Treasurer: Marina Martin
• Secretary: Janelle Wolf
• Membership Coordinator: Jennifer Oakes
• At Large Members: Tom Clark and John DaCrema

I’d like to thank Mark Vaughn, Mike Whitley, Deb Sutliff and Jonathan Miller for all of their hard work with the board over the past year. Your hard work throughout the year has been greatly appreciated and has helped to contribute to the club’s continuing success.

You’ll notice the new position on the list of Membership Coordinator. In order to ensure the long term success of the club it is imperative for us to attract new members and to retain our current members, and that is the goal of this new position. Jennifer Oakes has enthusiastically taken on this position. Now that Jen has taken on a new position on the Board we are looking for a volunteer to take on event coordination for the club. If this is a position you are interested in, please send an e-mail to me at mikeb@dcmetrominis.org and also to events@dcmetrominis.org

Our webmaster, Bruce Pancoast is looking for assistance with the club’s website. If you’re interested please contact him at webmon@dcmetrominis.org

In the next few weeks you’ll also see some changes to the club’s website as well. Recently we started accepting payments via PayPal for our event fees. We are going to expand that capability to dues payments as well, which means that you will be able to pay event fees as well as renew your membership online with a credit card. However Pay Pal assesses fees on all payments we accept through them, and the membership dues are our primary source of income. To compensate for this, the Board has approved raising the membership dues by $1 to $26 effective May 1.

As I’m sure you already know the other big event on the club’s radar screen is MINIs on The Dragon 2005 in just 2 short weeks. If you’re still on the fence about coming, some key deadlines for the event have passed. You can no longer purchase the full registration package and the deadline for purchasing tickets for the welcome dinner has passed as well. For those of you who are coming down, your club needs you! DCMM will be raffling of a laminated panoramic photo during the welcome dinner and we need a volunteer or two to sell raffle tickets that night. In addition we need 1 or 2 volunteers to man a table during the chili cookoff and take orders for DCMM shirts. If you are willing to help out please send me an e-mail.

Don’t forget, this Sunday we’ll meet at Wegman’s Market in Sterling at 9:30 for a Sunday drive and brunch and wrapping up the day with a little wine tasting. For all of the details check out the thread in our forum on North American Motoring.

My last piece of news is personal. It seems that DCMM has a tradition where the club president needs to move to California. Our first president Mike Kacrmarcik moved to Southern California during his term as president, and now the Coast Guard has decided that we need to move to Petaluma CA this September. While I’m looking forward to the opportunities my new job will present me with, we will all be very sorry to be leaving the area. Thankfully we still have a few more months before we will be moving.

Now, you’ve spent enough time reading my latest missive. Spring has finally come, get out and motor!

Regards
Michael Babischkin
President
DC Metro MINIs