Upcoming NEQ Elections (long)

[Brett Dikeman]

This message mostly concerns list members who are ACNA members in the 
Northeast, and hence members of the Northeast Chapter (or NEQ as some 
of us still stubbornly call it!)  If you're not in the Northeast, but 
still an ACNA member, I strongly encourage you to participate in your 
local chapter's elections as well as the ACNA (national) elections by 
voting.  If you're not a member of the ACNA, I encourage you to join 
an evolving organization that will benefit more from participation 
than ill words typed online about gripes from years past- and many 
levels of participation are available, ranging from running in 
elections, volunteering, contributing to club publications, attending 
board meetings(they're all open, folks!) or voting.

For ACNA members in the Northeast, ballots should be arriving 
shortly.  You'll notice a record number of people running for just 
two seats on the board of directors.  Three out of the field of 
candidates for board of directors have been or are currently members 
of Audifans, I personally signed independent nomination sheets for 
two of them, and I'd like to briefly mention them and ask you 
consider them for your support.  That said, I think with few 
exceptions all the candidates are well qualified and encourage you to 
consider them as well.  These three, however, as members of Audifans, 
may be of the most interest to you folks.

I wouldn't normally "campaign" for an individual- heck, when I ran, I 
didn't even mention I was doing so!  This year is different.  I 
signed 2 nomination sheets, because like 9 or so other individuals, I 
felt it was time for the club to have some fresh minds- and we were 
willing to do so at some risk, as there are those in the chapter 
(some of them our friends) who look upon our actions as a threat or 
challenge to their authority.  That should give you an idea of how 
important we felt this was.

This message is entirely unsolicited by any of the candidates, and 
the 'bios' are purely my own work, so don't hold my horrible job 
against them :-)  You'll find the bios they wrote in the ballot issue 
you'll receive in the mail soon.  Also, I'm sure any of the 
candidates would be more than happy to correspond with individual 
members; their email addresses shouldn't be hard to track down.

Paul Krumins, a current board member, has been a member of the the 
Gripster committee, (the Gripster is the chapter's publication).  An 
experienced businessman in the field of public relations/media 
consulting, Paul has been a valuable contributor as a Gripster 
editor, has helped the chapter rekindle its working relations with 
the national organization, and has brought a cool, sound mind to 
board meetings.  Paul owned a 200q20v avant (he was one of the very 
early 200q20v list members) and currently owns an S6 sedan.  Paul has 
been an instructor for several years, and he has probably met a bunch 
of you at the Mt. Washington Hillclimb social event the club used to 
organize.  You'd know him online by 'Copley One'.

Ray Tomlinson is an avid participant on the S-car list and works with 
TJM Motorsports on special tuning projects; he is also a recent 
addition to the instructor base.  Ray has been an active participant 
for many years in the NE Audi scene; I first met Ray at a tech 
session at Chris Miller's house over 5 years ago.  Ray has owned 
several Audis, including a 90q20v and his current '95 S6.  As a 
talented lawyer, Ray's sharp mind, fast thinking and 
down-to-brass-tacks nature would prove very useful at chapter board 
meetings where it seems there's never enough time for everything.

Scott Downs and I have never seen eye to eye, as anyone who has been 
around on the lists for a while knows.  However, he's a great 
instructor and the most down-to-earth, fun-lovin' guy I know in the 
club; he is now famous for declaring, in a rented Impala at a 
Tracquest event, "Next time I'm springin' for OnStar.  'Help, I'm 
lost, I keep going around in circles!'"  He wears the coolest Audi 
jump suit I've ever seen, and I've never heard a bad word said about 
the guy.  Scott's fun-loving, spontaneous and straight-shooting 
nature would be an excellent addition to the Board.  Many of you know 
Scott online as "SuffolkD", and while his fleet is ever-changing, I'm 
pretty sure he has a 200q20v sedan and a 200q20v avant.

So, as the holidays wind down, if you're in the northeast, you'll 
find buried with all those post-Christmas sales circulars a little 
black and white booklet with the picture of an Audi grille dusted 
with snow and garnished with a holly twig, marked "ELECTION MATERIALS 
PLEASE OPEN IMMEDIATELY".

I hope you'll spend 15-20 minutes and go over all the bios for 
candidates for the Board (there are a large number!), pick two 
candidates you feel will do the best job, and drop your ballot in the 
mail.  I'm not sure which is harder- voting for just 2 out of a group 
of friends, or voting for 2 out of a group of strangers.  It's a 
tough decision, but like me, you can take comfort that you'd be hard 
pressed to go wrong with any of the candidates you will be presented 
with on this year's ballot.  Lastly, your vote WILL count- last year 
well under 100 ballots were mailed in.

Happy Holidays,

Brett
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