December Newsletter

If you missed the November meeting, I believe you missed one of the better ones of the year. Dr. Foroudastan, Associate Dean College of Basic and Applied Sciences, along with Jared Berke, Spencer Gottlieb, and Daryl White from MTSU joined us and lead a great discussion around their specialty vehicle program. Along with electric cars and a baja racer, the students also construct a formula 1 style race car each year for competition with 140 other universities. If you noticed the small blue race car at our September car show, then you saw the car they built for 2011. They are currently working on the car for the 2012 competition which takes place in the summer. We will plan on inviting Dr. Foroudastan, Jared, Spencer, and Daryl back in late summer so they can give us an update on their success.

Nick Perlick, Director of Development at MTSU, also joined us to describe their scholarship program. At the close of his discussion we finalized our documents and presented him with a check for $10,900 in order to start the Music City Mustang Club Scholarship Fund at MTSU. As we have discussed at past meetings, this is the start of a great partnership with MTSU.

On December 10th we had another very successful annual club Christmas party. The food was fantastic and every seat was taken. The big guy in the red suit made a visit and he handed out gifts to the kids that had joined us. Several people had their picture taken with Santa and you can find those up on our website. We played our usual game of “Dirty Santa” which is always good for several laughs and some family strategy to secure the favorite gifts. I would like to thank Milton & Delores Scott for once again providing the location. Thanks also to Karen Moore, Billy Harden, and Julie Myers for helping to organize the event and making it such a great evening.

We also held our annual elections at the Christmas party. All of the current officers and board members will continue on into 2012. I would like to thank each of them for their assistance and support during my first year as president. During this past year I feel like I was just “learning the ropes” and I appreciate Jim Chism’s guidance. If you look back over 2011 I would call it a resounding success for MCMC. We’ve had several great events, membership is up a bit, several new folks are getting involved, and we formed a partnership with the largest public university in the state of Tennessee. But we have some new challenges and opportunities facing us in 2012. With the closing of the Nashville SuperSpeedWay, our open track events are moving to Memphis. The continued success of this event will require a renewed commitment from the club to head over to Memphis to help out in May and September. These are our largest fund raising events and they have allowed us to make significant contributions to various charities over the years. I hope many of you will consider coming over to help us out. You might just have a great time.

We are also working to finalize the location of our annual September car show. We have narrowed it down to a couple of locations and should have a final decision soon.

Finally, I hope everyone has a safe and healthy Holiday Season and a very Happy New Year!

Take Care,
Jeff Billings