Hello Members of DC Metro MINIs,

As you all may know, this afternoon was the club’s annual business meeting. The main item on the agenda was the election of members to the Board of Directors to fill various open positions on the board. The members present re-elected John DaCrema and me, and elected Katie Williams and Tom Clark to fill those positions. Following the meeting, the Board of Directors held a separate meeting to select the officers for the coming year, they are:

Michael Babischkin – President
John DaCrema - Vice President
Jonathan Miller- Secretary
Mark Vaughn- Treasurer
Mike Whitley- At Large Member
Katie Williams- At Large Member
Tom Clark- At Large Member


I’d like to recognize all of the members of the board from the past year, it was the hard work of Mike and Donna Kacmarcik, Jonathan and Carolyn Miller, Mark and Deb Vaughn, John DaCrema and Mike Whitley that got the club off the ground. While some of them are still serving on our board, the truth is this club wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for their efforts, and for that I wish to say thank you and extend my appreciation to them. I also would like to extend a special thank you to Jonathan Miller who stepped up and took on the role of President after Donna convinced Mike that they would like things better in California! Thank you Jonathan for all of your hard work over the past 7 months.

I’d like to share with all of you where the Board and I would like to take the club over the course of the coming year.

First the Board has established several new committees. Bruce Pancoast has been named Webmaster and Chair of the Web Committee. He is currently looking for volunteers to assist with revising the design of the dcmetrominis.org website. If you are interested please e-mail Bruce at webmon@dcmetrominis.org .

Jennifer Oakes has been named Chair of the Events Committee. She is currently working on getting the committee together and should have more information about the committee in the coming weeks. We also expect to have an e-mail address established for her and the Committee soon. One of the first tasks of the Events Committee will be to come up with a set of guidelines for successful driving events. The club depends on our members to organize drives and other social events. If any of you have ideas on possible drives, or even destinations, and even more importantly are willing to organize an event, please let us know. Right now you can do so through the Yahoo! Lists.

We are working diligently on Club Insurance, this insurance is needed to protect our board, and our event organizers in the unlikely event of an incident at a club function. This is not automobile insurance, it is intended to protect the club in the event of a lawsuit stemming from one of our functions.

Mike Whitley and I also had a meeting with Crystal Waddy who is the General Sales Manager for MINI/BMW of Sterling, and formerly the MINI Sales Manger for Sterling. It was a very productive meeting, and I hope that in the next few days I will be able to share some important news from that meeting. Based on the news from Sterling over the next few days, I hope to be able to send representatives to have similar discussions with Tate and Towson MINI as well.

The news I can share is that Sterling is very aware of the problems in Service. Not only will there be a new MINI service writer in the next few weeks, but there will also be a new Service Manager as well. There is also a new MINI Sales Manager. Sterling was number 4 Nationally in MINI sales volume for 2003 (down from number 3 in 2002), and with that success as we have all seen they have suffered some growing pains. Crystal assured us that they are working to overcome them. Sterling now has 3 MINI techs (including the number 1 MINI tech in the Nation) and 1 “helper,” and Parts which recently expanded, may now be moving to a new building altogether. Sterling also continues to be one of the few dealers to offer aftermarket parts and installation. Crystal assured us that while they have yet to have a failure based on something they have installed, should something happen and it was due to something they installed, Sterling will make sure your warranty is honored no matter where your car is.

That’s all I have for now. Here’s to a successful year for you and for the club. If you have any questions for me, feel free to e-mail me at mikeb@dcmetrominis.org . Also make sure you check out the club’s Café Press Store at http://www.cafeshops.com/dcmetrominis , expect to see the other items the club has for sale our website soon.



Regards,

Michael Babischkin

President, DC Metro MINIs

 

:smile: Congrats to all the new Board members and to the ones returning, you already know how much hard work and fun it all is.... :smile:

Chow!

Donna

 

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Donna....we miss you bunches and bunches.

Hugs,
PB