Author: soundersalliance

SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC ALLIANCE COUNCIL

MEETING MINUTES

November 6, 2018 – 7:00 PM – The NINETY

Present (13 of 17): Lisa Angeles, Nicholaus Biela, Nick Biesold, Martin Buckley, Cameron Collins, Todd Cowles, Alex Eagleton, Roberta King, Darla Langdon, Jerry Neil, Stephanie Steiner, Molly Wagner, and Jeff Williams.

Via telephone (0): None.

Absent (4): Michael Dollard, Jesse Kilgore, Gilbert Ko, and Daniel Roe.

I. Call to order: Martin Buckley

II. Roll: Cameron Collins: 13 of 17 Present

III. Farewell to the 2017-2018 Council: Council President Martin Buckley thanks all of the Council Members who are attending their final Meeting for their service. There are three current Council Members whose terms are up and they are hoping to get their votes to return next Council year.

IV. 2018-2019 Council Voting Procedures: Voting rules laid out for Council elections that will occur next month, the first Meeting of the Council year. These rules were first developed by Council Member Daniel Roe and then laid out by Council President Martin Buckley.  Here is a brief outline of the procedure for the vote:

• The order of elections will be 1. President, 2. Vice President, 3. Secretary, 4. Treasurer (if required) and 5. At Large positions.
• Nominations may be made advance or at the Meeting where voting is to take place. Alliance Council Members may be nominated to self-nominate for any of the positions upon which the Council will be voting.
• Two Council Members who are not standing for election to the Executive Committee will oversee the elections as the Election Committee.
• For positions that are unopposed, the nominee is elected unanimously. For positions with two or more candidates, each nominee will be given two minutes to speak to Council about as to why Council should vote for that candidate. If a nominee is not present, another Council Member may speak on their behalf.
• Whomever receives the most votes will be elected to that position.

A question was raised in Council about the role of the Treasurer. This position is not currently voted upon by Council and exists in the Constitution in the event that Council has a budget to manage. At that time, Council will elect a Treasurer.

A question was raised about the role of the At Large members of the Executive Committee. Council talked in the last several months about making the At Large members responsible for specific tasks. One of the At Large positions should be the social media person. The second At Large position will focus on Outreach. The goal for this person will be to focus on the Season Ticket Members in the stands, helping them to understand that they have more than a commercial relationship with the club.

V. Sounders Player Recognition: Player Recognition workgroup had a phone call to further discuss how to develop this. The voting process would take place by the Council as a whole. The rough plan is having the framework for how to enshrine people in place and once that is set and have Council has elected its inaugural class, a presentation will be made to the Front Office laying out the entire plan. This project needs to be put on a fast track to make sure it gets done.

VI. Other business

Alliance Stories: This project seems to have stalled. On a recommendation from Stephanie Steiner, the content that was written will be posted as longer form blog posts or stories on the Alliance Council website.
Community outreach: Darla gave an update on her conversation with the Front Office regarding this topic.
Garage sale: Four Alliance Council members supported this event.

VII. Adjournment: Moved. Seconded. Council votes unanimously to adjourn.

 

SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC ALLIANCE COUNCIL

MEETING MINUTES

October 2, 2018 – 7:00 PM – The NINETY

Present (12 of 17):

Martin Buckley, Cameron Collins, Todd Cowles, Michael Dollard, Alex Eagleton, Jesse Kilgore, Roberta King, Gilbert Ko, Darla Langdon, Daniel Roe, Molly Wagner, and Jeff Williams.

Via telephone (0):

None.

Absent (5):

Lisa Angeles, Nicholaus Biela, Nick Biesold, Jerry Neil, and Stephanie Steiner.

I. Call to order – Martin Buckley

II. Roll – Cameron Collins: 12 of 17 Present

III. Council Work Sessions

Retired & Notable Player Recognition:

• Key questions include: Who do we include? (1970s to the Present?) How do we honor them? Where do we honor them? When do we honor them? What is the process for deciding who to honor?
• Nicholaus Biela submitted a framework. Dan, Nick, Jerry, Roberta, Alex, Molly, Cameron in the group. Discussion was held in the Facebook group on how the recognition should be carried out. The group liked the idea of a Hall of Fame type structure that would be presented by the Alliance. The group looked in to how the other local teams deal with honoring players. Council will start off developing the process and then sell the Club on recognizing what we are working on once we have decided on procedure.
• How is this different from the golden scarf? How do we differentiate between this and what the club does? What is the dream scenario? Ideas the Council put forth included: a ring of honor similar to the Seahawks, stars on a walk of fame type thing, bricks honoring the individuals. The key ideas are to look in to big ideas, find a solution that is accessible and visible to the Sounders fanbase. Another option mentioned was bricks from the March to the Match to the stadium where you walk over the names of the legends, making them a part of every march.
• Council can make opinion statements honoring players. That provides a level below a Hall of Fame type honor.

Alliance Business Meeting 2018:

Council President Martin Buckley had a call with the Front Office to start working on the meeting. The Club is currently looking at other potential venues that are somewhere in the 200-300 person capacity range. It will likely be held during the FIFA break, most likely the 13th or 14th of November due to the other events going on that week.

2017 meeting: At the end of the year, everyone received a survey from the front office. It had two questions…. 1) did you attend and how was it? 2) if you didn’t attend, what would make you attend? 5% very satisfied, 10% somewhat satisfied, 80% did not participate, 3% were somewhat unsatisfied, 2% were very unsatisfied. Last year we primarily streamed it and had some in people present in person. There were 70 seats for the general public that were given out by a lottery. Every single person who applied was offered a seat, yet there were people who didn’t show up, leaving open seats. The #1 complaint was that people wanted it in person, but the people who complained either didn’t request a seat or didn’t show up.

The only exception in the attendance numbers year by year was an uptick in the year of the Schmetzer announcement. At that time there were also locker room tours, autographs, and other such events. Those types of events are now separate, as they have become part of the summer celebration. The Club has committed to doing that event moving forward. The Alliance Business Meeting is now just about the business of the alliance. The fun event is during the summer.

Questions for the Council and Club to consider: how important is in person attendance? How important is streaming? 3x to 4x the in person attendance watched online. Streaming is important because people can also watch it after the fact. What if there is a memento for the people who win the lottery and get to come to the meeting?

10 Years of the Alliance:

Interest from the Council in moving this forward seems to have dried up. If there are multiple articles, there can be a longer form text with photos/videos in a timeline. Molly Wagner will still be interviewing former and current Council Presidents. She has been interviewing Paul Cox. Next, she will interview Stephanie and Martin. If any Council Members have input or comments, engage on the TEAMS site. If we do not get more content, we will not be able to carry out the project, so the Council must lean in to get it done.

Recognition of Council Members:

One of the things to propose for the new council come December, we need to start finding a way to reward those who do work. At that time, Council will revisit some of the previous ideas proposed to do this.

IV. GM Vote:

A lot of people voted online and in person when the vote launched. Voting then slowed down, but jumped again at the next home match. Council wants the club to push the vote before the next match and during halftime, as well a use a push notification on the app.

V. Next Alliance Council Meeting:

The next Council Meeting is the week before the Annual Business Meeting. Should we have a meeting or reschedule like we have in the past? The Council says yes, there will be a meeting next month. It will be the first Tuesday of November. The following week will be the ABM. December is the start of our new business year.

VI. Adjournment

Moved. Seconded. Council votes unanimously to adjourn.

Alliance Council Meeting November 6th 2018

By: Stephanie Steiner

The meeting started with Martin Buckley, President, acknowledging those who are leaving council (Nick Biesold, Mike Dollard, Karl Picard, and Roberta King) for their contributions to the Alliance.

We then discussed recruiting for council members: we need people who are doers, project manager type people.  Does anyone know people who could be good candidates?  Martin and I have both reached out to Supporter Groups and other volunteer organizations (this year and in the past), and they are challenged with the same issues we have: lots of people join, but few people contribute effort. Martin followed up on those conversations recently: no change. If anyone knows of people who would make good candidates: Gary Wright has volunteered to be a closer (and he’s amazing – we are so very lucky).

Election process for Executive Committee: Dan Roe began this, Martin has finished it. The process includes a committee just for elections: if you’re interested you can volunteer that night. To qualify, you must be able to count votes and you can’t be running for any of the offices.

Executive Committee At Large Positions: we need them to focus on social media and outreach.

Treasurer is listed in the Constitution, but we presently have no need for the position. If there were a need for the position, we’d add it.  There are no changes to the roles of president, vice president, and secretary.

Updates from work sessions:

Player Recognition (Nicholaus Biela):

• the group had a call and decided that the whole council would vote on the process.
• Rough plan: create the enshrinement inaugural class and then bring the whole plan to the front office.
• Martin: we need to hustle, this conversation is three months old.  The front office is looking to do this next year and if we don’t present them with a solution they’ll create one without us.
• Nick: We’re discussing similar possibilities as what other stadiums have: glass plaques, bronze, etc.  Figuring out which, and how to do things is still in conversation.
• Martin: We’ve got to get ideas in front of the F.O. now. Include them in the idea-building.
• Me: Be open to change and creativity. It’s possible they have access to things we haven’t seen, like perhaps something museum-like that is interactive and teaches, or is mobile and can move to an expanding location.  What if it’s a touchscreen and can teach people about a player instead of just a static image?

Annual Business Meeting (Martin Buckley):

• Meeting is November 13th.
• Format is live and streaming from The NINETY.
• As of 11/6/18 RSVPs are full and there are ten on the waitlist.
• RSVPs went to a form and waitlist clicks through to an email address.  Highest attendance at a meeting ever was for Brian Schmeltzer’s promotion to Head Coach, the worst kept secret ever 🙂
• Approximately 1300 attended that meeting.
• There were 2500 on the live stream last year (2017), plus additional views later.

Discussed complaints about visibility of the meeting. One person attending the meeting had received the Beyond the 90 email with the meeting announcement (previous week).

• No one had received any notification of the meeting prior to the going to waitlist.
• Several examples of the communication being inconsistent across platforms.

Annual Business Meeting Flow (subject to change):

• GM Vote Results
• Alliance Council Review
• Adrian – Owner’s Review
• Bart – Business Review
• Garth – Team Review (might also include coach Brian Schmetzer)
• Questions and Answers

Ten Years of the Alliance Project (Stephanie Steiner):

• we need to give up on this as a rich content project, we simply don’t have enough content and buy in.
• What we do have is really good: thank you to everyone who contributed their work.
• We need to take all of that content and post it into the “stories” section of our website and come up with a different hash tag.
• Nicholaus: what if we set tickler reminders for the social media team to repost “on this day…” kind of tweets and stuff?  <- brilliant idea, we should do that.
• By setting this apart from a ten year anniversary, it can continue to grow and then just keep going with stories in the future:  it’s no longer one anniversary, it’s representative of any moment that’s meaningful.

Community Outreach (Darla Langdon):

Darla reached out to Kimberly Aigner to see if there was a list of Community Outreach events for 2019 yet.  We know it’s early. We’re not going to pressure her to reply.  We don’t expect any list until next year.  Martin Q: did any AC members participate in their events?  Darla: no.

Garage Sale (Jerry Neil and Cameron Collins):

This went very smoothly, council members greeted and helped guide Alliance members.  Line was around the corner.  Limit of five items per customer.

Recording of the Live Stream of the 2018 Alliance Annual Business Meeting.

This event was held at The Ninety on 13th November 2018.

18 October 2018

By Martin Buckley

Alliance Council are reaching out to the broad Seattle Sounders fan base to look for insightful questions that you want to be asked at the Annual Business Meeting.

Representatives from Club Ownership, Front Office, Playing Staff and Alliance Council will be present at the meeting.

The call for questions was closed just prior to start of the the Annual Business Meeting.

SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC ALLIANCE COUNCIL

MEETING MINUTES

September 4, 2018 -7:00PM- The NINETY

Present:

Lisa Angeles, Nicholaus Biela, Nick Biesold, Martin Buckley, Cameron Collins, Alex Eagleton, Roberta King, Darla Langdon, Jerry Neil, Daniel Roe, Stephanie Steiner, Jeff Williams

Absent:

Molly Wagner, Mike Dollard, Gilbert Ko, Jesse Kilgore, Todd Cowles, Peter Buck

I. Call to order: Martin Buckley

II. Roll: Darla Langdon: 12 of 18 present

III. Guest: Alex Roldan

Alex Roldan spent the first part of the meeting with Alliance Council. Council members were able to ask questions and spend time with Alex.

IV. First order of business: Peter Buck Announcement

Martin had been in communication earlier in the day with Peter Buck, it was announced that he would no longer be able to continue with his Alliance Council term.  Unfortunately for us, a change in his work load prohibits him from taking on any additional tasks and commitments- he will be missed.

V.  Second order of business: Celebration of Players

Dan Roe had posted on Facebook floating out the idea or questions of why or what could we do for a players recognition of service to the Club at their retirement or in honor of them, similar to Seahawks “Ring of Honor”, lots of input was given, ideas were being thrown around including:

• Where
• Who
• Potential requirement of contribution to Club
• Golden Scarves
• Timeline (include FO/ownership Sounders)

Committee was formed and will get ideas/ suggestions on paper and come back to October meeting to present/ discuss as a group further.

Committee will be comprised of: Daniel Roe, Alex Eagleton, Nicholaus Biela, Molly Wagner and Nick Biesold, Jerry Neil

VI. Third order of business: 10 Years of the Alliance/Participation

Martin Buckley started off discussing at our last meeting how each Alliance member present stated that they were excited and committed to putting in the work for the celebration of the 10 Years of the Alliance.  To date, he knew only five people had logged on and / or contributed.

This brought up the conversation that has been had in the past- it’s fun to get the fun stuff- the surprise player visits, the meetings with ownership, the inside scoop and unprecedented access to the Club for our opinions, concerns and feedback.  None of this however can happen if we don’t continue to put in the work and make a conscience effort to make it mean something.  Do the people that take meeting minutes, volunteer for special projects, work the events, take on additional tasks get what the people who show up the first Tuesday of every month and do the bare minimum?  Do we start doing a “frequent flyer” type of recognition for those that go above and beyond the minimum so when it comes down to special events or access to the Club those get picked first?

There were a few comments about having access to the Teams site – Martin stated that he’d help those that need to have access but reminded us all that we need to commit to The Alliance otherwise the “why’s” we came up with last meeting mean nothing.

VII. Motion to adjourn meeting and seconded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC ALLIANCE COUNCIL

MEETING MINUTES

August 7, 2018 – 7:00 PM – The NINETY

Present: (12 of 18 present)
Nicholaus Biela, Martin Buckley, Cameron Collins, Todd Cowles, Mike Dollard, Alex Eagleton, Jesse Kilgore, Gilbert Ko, Darla Langdon, Dan Roe, Stephanie Steiner, Jeff Williams

Absent:
Lisa Angeles, Peter Buck, Nick Biesold, Roberta King, Jerry Neil, Molly Wagner

Phone: none

I. Call to order – Martin Buckley

II. Roll – Cameron Collins

III.  Council Working Session:

a. Council Structure

President Martin Buckley opened the conversation by asking members how we see Council as the Alliance grows in numbers:  50,000 members?  60,000? Close to 70,000?

Open dialog regarding future structure:

• Nicholaus Biela: doing the math, brings up that Council Members presently represent about 1500 Alliance Members. He is interested in new ways to reach Alliance Members: digital town halls, AMAs (ask me anything), etc.  Give people opportunities for communication with Council Members.  Jesse Kilgore: what about a quarterly newsletter pushed out by the Club?
• Suggestion: what about the originally suggested format of the current Council plus the ‘one mayor per seating section’ that meets quarterly?  Cameron expresses concern that the Council could become too elite.

Council Structure Group: Martin, Todd, Nicholaus

b. Workload

President Martin Buckley moves to the next topic: workload and rewards vs. incentives. ‘Frequent Flier Program’ was developed previously.

• Too many incentives and we attract people who only show up for the incentives
• Work is falling to the few – too little is being accomplished: people agree to do the work and then just don’t do it. Same problem that has been going on since Council started.
• Group participates in questions about what motivates them as individuals, why they came to Alliance Council.

c. Ten Years Project

VP Stephanie Steiner covers Ten Years of the Alliance project

• Little movement since beginning of the year, when we thought we’d have Club support.  Kyle Sheldon quit and Taylor is covering his job.
• If this project is to move at all, we have to get assignments done.
• Everyone in the room agrees to participate in Ten Years project
• Jesse will create an outline of how to write a blog for the project
• Stephanie has a skeleton outline of topics
• The Visibility group has discussed the project and has additional topics
• Roberta completed a piece previously, but it was removed from the website because it needed supporting content in context.

IV. Adjournment

Moved. Seconded. Council votes unanimously to adjourn.

SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC ALLIANCE COUNCIL

MEETING MINUTES

August 2018 – 7:00 PM – The NINETY

Call to Order

Call to order 7:00 PM

Attendance

Present: Nick Biesold, Jerry Neal, Stephanie Steiner, Roberta King, Darla Langdon, Lisa Angeles, Daniel Roe, Nicholaus Biela, Alex Eagleton, Jesse Kilgore, Martin Buckley, Gilbert Ko, Jeff Williams.

No one on phone.

Strategy Session

Season Ticket Member Celebration and Renewals – Mikaela Purvis

Welcome back Mikaela!

Renewals: Front Office survey of Season Ticket Members showed that 13% rated some degree of overall dissatisfaction: team performance is first priority and second is match day experience,

Inconvenient scheduling and resell are the new challenges for this year.

Value concession items: the Club is working on concession deals to offer fans at each match, similar to the hot dogs/drinks/popcorn deals that have been offered in the past.  It’s possible that there could be a variety.  This conversation is in progress

Other

• There are no resell fees through SeatGeek for 2019 for Season Ticket Holders
• Sounders offer AAA services on match day.
• STM can purchase discounted season parking pass
• STM may opt out of scarf and make RAVE Foundation

Working on:

• 12 month payment plan
• Sounders are looking for a transportation partner
• Some other cool benefits surrounding 10 Years of Sounders in MLS

Green Zone (Hawk’s Nest, North End of stadium) Rows S and higher will be closed next year. Covered in tarp.

Pricing:

– weighted average 1.5 % increase.

– 42.1% of seats sold are decreasing in price or staying flat
– 26.7 decreasing
-15.4 staying flat

There are no increases larger than 3.8%.
Edit preferences 1 August
First payment 4 September

Suggestions from council.
– Allow the fans to know the final price.
– The payments can be adjusted if seats are different price.

Season Ticket Member Celebration:

Save the date STM Celebration August 19 11AM to 2PM
Number one request from fans are photo opportunities and autographs.
Scarf vote: will present the final 5 at STM Celebration – samples of the scarves will be there.

Scarf Vote update (for 2019 scarf)

The plan is to get the choices of scarfs from 42 to 5.
The scarves will be gifted to the final 5. Voting in person through the phone at the event. Trying not to compete with GM vote and cause voters’ fatigue.

Some open brainstorming from council to get more participate:

-links to software to help design.
-student version of Photoshop
-5 finalists get to keep the scarves
-Larger window of time to design
-provide the logo, Sounders FC fonts, etc.: make it easier for non-professional designers without access to that art
-important that it remains ‘from the Alliance Council’ and not commercially sold

Martin showed all 42 entries on-screen.

GM Vote update Martin, Alex, Jeff
– Alliance Council met with Adrian + Garth

2018 Alliance Council Projects                    

Food:            

Status and feedback from project leads and sub-teams keep the reviews coming.
Please take picture of food and send to Alex. Alex posted a picture of food on Facebook, and asked people to guess what it was. Different burgers in stadium: John Howie was the worst and cost the most. Alex will send reviews to Taylor and have them forward to First and Goal Hospitality.

Jersey: Jersey team was not given an update, but Stephanie and Martin had a little information. All are frustrated with the lack of creativity pushed upon us by Adidas and MLS.

Adidas is pushing MLS clubs to more and more similarity, yet promoting creativity and edginess but not honoring either. Both Council and Club are frustrated. Alliance Council is considering its next steps carefully.

Match day no update

Sitting vs standing: club making calls to season ticket holders. No one present had received such a call.  Council members expressed frustration over not being included in this conversation to solve sitting vs standing.

Travel: still working.

August meeting: will be a working/planning meeting.

Adjourn                    

SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC ALLIANCE COUNCIL

MEETING MINUTES

 June 5, 2018 – 7:00 PM – The NINETY

Present (16 of 18): Lisa Angeles, Nicholaus Biela, Nick Biesold, Peter Buck, Martin Buckley, Cameron Collins, Todd Cowles, Alex Eagleton, Jesse Kilgore, Roberta King, Darla Langdon, Jerry Neil, Daniel Roe, Stephanie Steiner, Molly Wagner, and Jeff Williams.

Via telephone (0): None.

Absent (2): Michael Dollard and Gilbert Ko.

I Call to order – Martin Buckley

II Roll – Cameron Collins: 14 of 18 Present

III. Strategy Session on RAVE Foundation with Ashley Fosberg, Executive Director of the RAVE Foundation, and Kinberly Aigner, Director of Community Outreach at Sounders FC: The strategic objective of RAVE Foundation is to  lead, serve, and invest in the community.

 → Lead: Drive awareness and engagement around key community initiatives through the sounders brand. This includes sustainability, Give Big, Pride, Special Olympics, and Kick Childhood Cancer.

SUSTAINIBILITY: RAVE is working with Washington Green Schools to aid in sustainability, as well as promote sustainability internally. WGS reaches out to 500 schools across the state and helps school with whatever they want to do to be more sustainable. Internally, the Sounders FO has started a green team that meets monthly with members from each of the Sounders departments.

GIVE BIG: They encouraged players, fans, and staff to select their nonprofits of choice and take action. Seattle Foundation will no longer be doing the Give Big event, this the Sounders FO and RAVE are looking at how to continue to work with nonprofits in a similar capacity moving forward.        

PRIDE: They are working to promote LGBTQ awareness and equality in sports. 90% of LGBTQ youth has not had a positive experience in sports. They will work with Athlete Ally to put on a coaching clinic on how to make the locker room and the team an LGBTQ friendly experience. They have also created a Sounders FC GSBA Scholarship, which will give $10,000 a year to their selected scholar. More information available here: https://www.soundersfc.com/post/2018/06/04/sounders-fc-announces-establishment-club-sponsored-gsba-scholarship-through-2020.        

SPECIAL OLYMPICS: The Special Olympics USA Games is in Seattle. RAVE will be involved in soccer events at Championship Field at Seattle university and one match at University of Washington. They are looking for volunteers to show up and support the players July 2-5. There are attempting to foster a culture of inclusion. They have a unified team that plays matched against other unified teams, including a match against Portland. More information can be found here: https://www.soundersfc.com/post/2018/05/25/sounders-fc-hosts-special-olympics-unified-signing-day.

KICK CHILDHOOD CANCER: RAVE is focusing on creating empowering & inspirational experiences for kids battling cancer and their families. This year, there is an honorary team captain that walks out with our team captain who is battling cancer or who has battled cancer in the past. Kick Childhood Cancer month is in September. Last year they did the Out for Blood campaign with Zach Scott to get people to donate to Bloodworks NW. They will be doing something similar this year. Sept 4^th they will be having blood drives. They will choose 4 Bloodworks NW locations outside of the Seattle area to run campaigns as well. September 29^th is our annual Kick Childhood Cancer match.

→ Serve: They are constantly working on how to create a culture of service. Last year they did monthly staff opportunities to serve in the community during work hours. This year they want fans to be involved, so there will be a fan call to action.

→Invest: Sounders invests in our community through RAVE Foundation. Their mission is to strengthen communities and build small fields for free play.

RAVE TARGET NEIGHBORHOODS: South Park, Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, Yesler, Lake City, White Center, Burien, SeaTac, Des Moines, Tacoma, and Tukwila. There will be one or more programs in all of these communities. The Yesler Field will open this August and the grand opening celebration will be in September. They are also looking in to futsal courts, one of which has already been created at Beverly Park.

RAVE Octagon: Eight sided play space where kids can play. There have funded 2 so far. There are opportunities for partners to be involved with branding.

RAVE Programs. They are planning soccer camps and clinics in communities of need. They will give as many kids as possible a soccer ball. They have also created a Sports Media Institute where kids from RAVE target communities apply to be involved. It includes 20-60 kids.  They have also created a Science of soccer program, which uses soccer to teach STEM/science and math subjects. It is a 12 weeks long and based on Washington state requirements and is designed as both an after school and in school program.

IV 2018 Alliance Council Projects

Scarf Vote: They talked to Front Office about our prosed timeline and alterations to the vote. The Club are going to run a traditional scarf vote with voting online and voting in person at the fan event. They are going to start sending out information on how to submit a design in the middle of the month and in early to mid-July the council will narrow them down. On July 19, the top 5 will be shown at the fan event. Announced at Sounders home match on Sept 19^th.

GM Vote: Council is meeting with Adrian Hanauer and Garth Largerwey this week to talk about the GM vote and express fan frustrations. Council members will then be able to go forth and speak their mind on what they think about the plans moving forward. We will have a four week voting window from end of September to end of October carried out electronically by a third party so that it is fully auditable.  There are two thresholds. For the vote to count, there needs to be a certain threshold of alliance members voting. For this quorum, it needs to be 40% of Alliance Members to be valid. For an action to be taken there needs to be a supermajority of the votes, or 66%. If quorum not met, no action is taken. If supermajority is not met, no action is taken.

10-Year Anniversary of the Alliance: Until the Front Office hires a new person to handle this, we are in a holding pattern.   

Away Travel: Nothing to report.

Community Involvement:          A few events coming up that line up with the RAVE pillars. July 2 with Special Olympics is one event we are all encouraged to attend.       

Food & Beverage: The group is looking for volunteers to taste food. Martin will get in touch with the Club to try and get this going. Anyone who eats the food on the council, please take a picture and write down 2-3 sentences about it.   

Jersey Group: We met with the Club and saw the two potential mockups of the 2020 jersey and gave our feedback.

Matchday Experience: No update.        

Outreach & Visibility: The group is putting together all of tehir ideas.They have been throwing them out and now need to create overarching goals and make asks of council and Front Office. They will work in tandem with other groups so as to not redo work already being done in other groups.

Youth Outreach: Todd talked with Ashley, Todd, and Taylor, and is working on a meeting with them on working with youth, getting butts in seats, and discussing how the Council can be involved with that. Molly was contact with the Reign and they may be interested in helping with some youth outreach. Summer is a good time to get involved with youth outreach.

Sitting vs. Standing: The Club has started to work on this issue internally. Council has anecdotes and real data and will meet with the Front Office to move it forward. Council Members want Questions about Sitting vs Standing to be a part of renewals. Council President Martin Buckley and Council Vice President Stephanie Steiner expressed their frustrations that Council has not been included in a collaborative conversation on this topic the Council has tried to tackle for many years now.

V Adjournment

Moved. Seconded. Council votes unanimously to adjourn.