Greetings, Central VA Section Members:

Many of you have emailed to ask about our annual Tech Session at Brown Mercedes-Benz in Charlottesville.  Well, this was the first year it didn’t take place in a long, long time.  Unbeknownst to me, our dear friend and Service Manager, Julie Troyer, left the company in late 2008.  Her departure is a great loss to our section, as she did much to foster a continued relationship between the dealership and us.  She is succeeded by Service Director Mark Goyne.  Please drop into Brown to say hello to him and our friends on the sales floor if you find yourself on Pantops mountain.  We’ll need to work with him to put together a new and improved Tech Session once he and his team get settled into a routine and feel they can take on an extra weekend event.  Stay tuned.

After an incredibly busy winter and spring I recently had the pleasure of attending the President’s meeting held in conjunction with the National Board meeting and StarTech 2009, in Indianapolis.  As my second StarTech, and my first governing-body meeting on a national level, the meeting really opened my eyes to some of the issues of membership, changing demographics, and branding that face the club.  Significantly, I came away from the experience with a much better sense of how our club functions on the regional and national level.  This helps to better contextualize where we fit in at the local level.  As the club faces declining membership and participation numbers, discussion centered on issues of branding and relevance, as well as a lively debate about what exactly constitutes a ‘youth’ demographic.  The recruitment of new, younger members is essential to maintaining a membership base.  A sentiment that was shared by section Presidents from around the country and Canada was that at the local level, sections are in need of further Board support; this holds true for us as well.  On the contrary, for our relatively small section, membership attendance at events has remained remarkably strong.  It must be the quality of the events we’re hosting…   Please be in touch with us on the board if you have ideas for events or if you would like to become more involved with your club.  Along those lines, please see the details for our upcoming events published on our website and in our June 2009 newsletter.

Future Events (in the works):

• Oktoberfest at Wintergreen Resort
• Joint section event at Mercedes-Benz of Fredericksburg
• Brown Mercedes-Benz event (TBD)

We can always use more help coordinating events; get involved! Contact me if you would like to help out with a future event.

Sincerely,
Justin Sarafin
President, MBCA Central Virginia Section