Ilana Wapniarski

How will you work to acheive the current vision and mission of the NSMBA?

By organizing race events, I will engage the mountain bike community to become and stay involved with the NSMBA.  This will increase our membership and visibility in the community, helping the NSMBA have a stronger voice in terms of advocacy and be a stronger organization in general.  This is vital for having trails for and trails forever!

List one threat and one opportunity you see for the NSMBA in the near future? What will you do to mitigate that threat and realize that opportunity on behalf of the organization?

The current economy is a threat.  As government spending is cut and private organizations are running leaner, it is going to become harder to come by funding.  This is an opportunity in disguise.  Because funding will be harder to come by, our race sponsorship will have to come from smaller amounts given by a larger amount of sponsors.   Having more sponsors giving us less money each will strengthen relationships that we have with local bike shops and the relationships they have with each other.  Community co-operation will increase and that is beneficial to us all.

For the position you've applied for, please describe how you will develop and manage a team to accoplish the directives/goals of your department.

Last year I built a team of volunteers from a list of people that signed up to help at the last AGM, from soliciting the boards on NSMB.com and by twisting the arms of my friends.  Many of them became repeat volunteers.  I would contact these previous volunteers and help the director of volunteers and membership solicit new volunteers.  I communicated with the volunteers by email whenever new information was available, held meetings in the begining of the season and had equipment organized for the volunteers for when they arrived at events.  Some required some training and this was provided.  Apres pub meetings provided a forum for feedback and a place to have a beer and wind down together.  Their efforts were always appreciated and I made sure this was shown through prizes and beer.  I hope that next year, we will have repeat volunteers from last year that will help lead the new volunteers.  I will delegate as is appropriate and repeat volunteers that are now familiar with the toonie events will be asked if they would like to take on more tasks next year.

Illustrate why you are capable and qualified to lead our organization in the coming years.

Last year was my first year as a director.  I started out not knowing where I fit in, not knowing any procedures and not knowing the personalities on the board.  I have successfully navigated all of this to find my place in organizing the toonies.  Needless to say, the learning curve was huge. I did this successfully, as measured by racers saying they had fun, volunteers saying they had fun, having at least 20 new paid members that are directly attributable to toonie race participation, having race costs covered through sponsorship, and having forged successful working relationships with the District of North Vancouver, Metro Vancouver and everyone else involved in the race series. I come in to the next year with the knowledge and relationships to grow the series from an experiment in to something that will grow year after year.

Beyond last year's experience, I hold a Bachelor of Commerce (International Management), have studied management in the non-profit sector, ride bikes whenever I can, and was heavily involved in the successful strategic planning that the NSMBA did two years ago when they started turning their fate around. Most importantly, I have a boyfriend who understands the time commitment and supports my efforts!