Sitting (semi) Pretty In The Emerald City

Okay, where did July go? As I write this I see August peaking its head around the corner and demanding some attention – I’ve got sights firmly set on 2 dates right now though.  Brad Smith’s loan is up at the end of this month (if you’re reading this in the Future please adjust as necessary) and the Secondary Transfer Window closes on August 7.  Right now we’re sitting 2^nd in the West but it’s an uneasy seat to hold; with recent injuries and the new single elimination playoff schedule I think we’re all a bit anxious to see what shakes out.

We had a decent amount to get through in our Alliance Council meeting in July – starting with a really great conversation with Mikaela Purvis – the Director of Fan Relations for the Club.   She walked us through the STH survey results and shared where we have opportunity to help with communication of Alliance Member benefits.   For example, did you know that if you’re an Alliance Member and you can’t use your tickets to a game you can arrange ahead of time to trade them for seats at a future game?   (I didn’t).  That’s cool.   We should be talking more about those sorts of things.  Spoiler alert – we’re going to do that.

We also talked about the fan celebration happening the afternoon of August 25^th , how last year went, and what ideas we all had for making the most of the time that we will have with players.

Next – Round Table and General Updates… so here’s the lightening round version:

• Have you noticed our social media ramping up? Kudos to Kelsey for driving that engagement. Look for us on Twitter and Facebook!
• Scarf vote time! We completed our review of the scarf designs and sent them to the FO: look for your opportunity to vote on next year’s most fashionable neck warmer!
• A couple of months ago we did an internal survey about the Alliance Council and our own feelings/experiences as part of that group. Martin will share more detail and thoughts with us in the upcoming months.

Lastly, we talked about our #CallingFowl campaign to drive awareness of our perceived disconnect between a proposed league wide sponsorship deal between MLS and Chik-Fil-A.   You can read more about it here:  #CallingFowl.   This subject has garnered some of the highest levels of engagement on Twitter, Facebook and our website in Council history.  We’re proud that we’ve driven conversations around this topic within the fan base and the Sounders Front Office – we stand by our beliefs that soccer is an inclusive sport and should be welcoming to all.  We will keep you up to date of any additional feedback or actions here.

With that – we adjourned into a warm July evening in Pioneer square looking forward to the second half of the season.  Scarves up, everyone… it’s run time.

June will break your heart. I can see it already. She’ll shatter you into a million pieces. Marie Lu

*sigh*  Hello June.  It’s been a bit of a month, hasn’t it?  In the midst of a struggling run of form (nice timing, International Break) the Alliance Council had our monthly meeting on June 4  where we talked about all sorts of positive and creative things.   Let’s focus on that, shall we?

First, we said think you to Molly as she stepped away from her role running the Social Media aspects of the Council and had a vote to fill that position on the Exec Team.  We’re happy to welcome KELSEY as our new Media Queen – look for her to rally us cats and get us all sorted with things like hashtags.  I hear they are a thing now. #Hashtag

The next order of business was a serious one – positioning on the rumored Chick-fil-A/League sponsorship deal.  Most of the conversation was around our role as voices for the Alliance and if it was our place to speak up regarding business decisions.  There is a very clearly defined line around our responsibilities in our Charter; when it comes to how the Club is run (and business decisions in general) we don’t have a vote.  This is a good thing – we should be leaving the running of the Sounders (and by extension MLS) to the people who are charged with running that.  HOWEVER… we do get to have an Opinion and we feel that it’s fully within our purpose to voice that on behalf of Alliance Members.  In the end, we agreed that we wanted to say something and created a targeted working group to pull together materials.  Look for that soon.

Our last, and perhaps funnest (yes, that’s a word) formal activity was to talk about our submission for the Sounders Best XI.  Since our vote counted for 25% of the weighting in the selection this was Serious Business.  .  There was a lot of “remember when” and recounting of personal experiences that influenced people’s thinking.  I think the only thing we agreed on was that we wished that we had a bench to fill because we’ve been pretty spoiled with some awesome players over the years.  Me, I decided that I would put in my choices based on their overall impact to the team trying to keep in mind that the teams of 10 years ago were doing something different than the team does now.  It was either that or go to my fallback – best hair.

We wrapped with a quick round table and update from the other working groups.  SEASON TICKET HOLDER SCARF SUBMISSIONS ARE COMING SOON!  Keep an eye out for news from the Club and get your crayons, pens, pencils, ready to be creative. Imagine all those scarves in Century Link with YOUR design on them. Need inspiration? ‘ Best hair’ is a valid theme…  just saying.

The guys are back in action here in a couple of weeks so get those voices ready and stretch – it’s almost scarves up time!

Meeting Minutes: June 4^th,  2019

SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC ALLIANCE COUNCIL

MEETING MINUTES

June 4th, 2019 – 7:00 PM

The NINETY

Present (11 of 18): Cameron Collins, Carmen Hall, Dan Roe, Duane Nakamura, Jeff Williams, Jerry Neil, Kelsey Gallo, Lisa Angeles, Martin Buckley, Nicholaus Biela, and Stephanie Steiner.

Absent (7): Alex Eagleton, Ben Slager, Louis Garcia, Molly Wagner, Darla Langdon, Chris Urquart and Todd Cowles.

Via telephone none

I. Call to order:  Martin Buckley 7:02 PM

7. Roll. Jeff Williams:  11 of 18 present at 7.00pm.

III. Executive committee At Large Position Vote: Social Media
Cameron Collins and Nicholaus Biela were elected to voting committee.

Four candidates self-nominated. After short nominating speeches a paper vote was taken.

Kelsey Gallo was elected to the Executive Committee At Large position. Kelsey will report on her plans next meeting.

1. Chick-fil-A and potential league-wide sponsorship.
   Alliance Council is aware of long running rumors regarding a League-wide commercial sponsorship with Chick-fil-a.

A long conversation discussed multiple concerns around this. The main concern is that the League has promoted various campaigns and awareness activities to support inclusion and diversity (Soccer for All, Don’t Cross the Line) – while Chick-fil-A, the Chick-fil-A Foundation and other associated entities have historically shown behavior and funding which is in opposition to these goals. In addition Alliance Council recognized that Seattle Sounders FC, ownership, players and front office have repeatedly shown behavior which support diversity and inclusion.

A secret ballot was held amongst Council to determine whether this was a conversation we wished to bring to the league. There was unanimous support for this from Council.

A workgroup was formed to create a letter, talking points and a social media campaign – to land before 25^th June 2019. Cameron, Carmen, Nicholaus, Dan will do the wordsmithing on the formal letter.

1. Outreach update
   Nicholaus is looking for information to support outreach.
2. Final wrap up of Player Recognition
   The final notes from the Player Recognition project were reviewed – and will be minuted for future activity.
3. Working session: Best XI
   The Alliance Council Best XI process was discussed. The voting site will be open until close of the week.

A long conversation regarding individual selection criteria for Best XI was entertaining. Noted thanks to the Club for including Alliance Council.

1. Other business

Carmen will talk to Front Office on Friday about scarf vote. Process and timeline will be posted on Teams. Similar to last year – designs submitted, Council selects best five, Alliance wide voting, prototype scarves for final five, scarves on display at fan event in August.

No date for the fan event yet – likely to be late August.

Surveyed the council 16 of 19 responded

The business meeting is to be streamed at a venue for about 500 towards the end of August.

Cleanup on bylaw 9, part of the law was not posted but is updated now.

Molly Wagner is now ex officio status

Adjourn: 8:48 PM

Meeting Minutes: May 2019

SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC ALLIANCE COUNCIL

MEETING MINUTES

May 7th, 2019 – 7:00 PM

The NINETY

Present (16 of 19): Alex Eagleton, Ben Slager, Cameron Collins, Carmen Hall, Dan Roe, Duane Nakamura Jeff Williams, Jerry Neil, Kelsey Gallo, Lisa Angeles, Louis Garcia, Martin Buckley, Nicholaus Biela, Stephanie Steiner, and Todd Cowles.

Absent (3): Molly Wagner, Darla Langdon, Chris Urquart

Via telephone none

I. Call to order:  Martin Buckley 7:00 PM

Jessie Kilgore offered his resignation from Council, which was accepted.

Duane Nakamura is newly voted onto Council. Duane was welcomed and introductions made.

II. Roll. Jeff Williams:  16 of 19 present at 7.00pm.

III. Martin review on Player recognition wrap-up.
Wrap up workgroup on player recognition. Molly to send the email out with the wrap-up.

IV. Todd Presentation of the Rave foundation.

A summary of the plans the Rave foundation is planning. A small discussion on the great things the Rave are planning to Lead, serve, and invest. We were asking how the council can get more involved and coincide with the mission of the board. A request for the rave group to get up information sooner than later to help up plan. Darla went over some historical notes. Todd would help us bridge the partnership. The alliance can help promote.

V. Update: Social media plan and next steps.
Nicholas is heading the charge of how we need to use our tools to educate people on what is the council involvement. We will need to recruit additional help when the fan base increases to 30,000 season tickets. We brainstormed ideas to help drive the hits to social media.
Ideas: monthly mention in a magazine, content to include blogs, twitter, looking for material to regularly get information to the alliance members.
We need to educate people on the Yearly business meeting, scarf vote, fan event. Using these contacts for self-promotion.
We are looking for ways to get fan feedback and ideas to recruit more involved members.

VI. Working session:

We decided not to comment on the new code of conduct at this time. There was an open discussion on how it would be related to fan experience. We mentioned what items could be brought to the council for consideration.

Some of the ideas for driving awareness:

Scarf vote jersey planning, questionnaire.Fan appreciation day has the alliance council hand out the maps for signature places.
3 people can post to twitter, Molly can gather items.
Smaller events for the season ticket holders, example first day of practice.
Cards in the seats, information at seats.
Commit to every game to take fan pictures.
Pin and Pamphlet in the fan experience box.
Identify the council at games, bring awareness.
Promote scarf, jersey, garth visit regular parts of being a council member.
Partner with Rave at a bowling event.
Guest blog on Twitter.
Birthday acknowledgments.
Membership cards in the box.
GM vote and planning.
Branding Cups, napkins.
Some mention in the nightly pregame.

VII. Owner Meeting with Adrian and FO May 11^th.

We wanted to review how the council has developed and to what is in store for the council in the next 10 years. How does the alliance fit into the Sounders future plans?

Adjourn: 8:53 PM

Meeting Recap May 7, 2019

By: Carmen Hall

What potent blood hath modest May ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

A little later getting this in than normal.. so let’s take just a minute to appreciate that we closed out the transfer window with 2 new players (kinda… WELCOME BACK, JOEVIN) and are sitting 2nd in the West.  What is this… July??!

So, what did we do this month?  Glad you asked!

Clearing the Docket:  We closed out the Player Recognition workstream (for now) and sent out their final write up.  When the timing is right, we’re back on this like Brad Smith on Alberth Elis.

Making New Friends: Todd gave us a great presentation on the RAVE Foundation, their mission, and their current event calendar for 2019.  Whew, these folks are doing some awesome things out there using soccer as a medium and you should go check them out.  It would be really great if the Alliance Council could do more with RAVE and work together to help build that community – we’re hoping that Todd helps create that bridge for some partnership in the future.  No pressure, Todd.  We’re just watching you.

Let’s Talk About Us:  Our next chunk of time was spent talking about Alliance Council outreach.  See, we want amazing and diverse people to represent the Alliance Members and to do that we need to find ways to toot our own horn a bit.  We recognize that a certain percentage of the current Alliance don’t have the backstory on the creation of the Alliance so we need to work on getting better visibility into the Democracy In Sports concept in general.  If we get people excited in the Alliance, then we can get people excited about participating in Council.

Nicholaus runs this initiative as an At Large member of our Executive Team (aka: this is IMPORTANT) and helped lead the conversation including a roundtable brainstorm of ideas from the group for outreach opportunities.  We had a lot of ideas – some we’re already doing (spoiler alert… see you at the Fan Event this summer) and some that we need to work with the Front Office on to implement.  If we do this right, You Will Hear Us (see what I did there?)

One of the easiest things that we can do is to generate more, valuable content for this site.  It broke my heart a little bit to find that my recaps aren’t a big driver of clicks (I SWEAT OVER THESE THINGS, PEOPLE!) but I get it – who likes meeting notes no matter how they’re written?  So we’re going to work on doing better there.   If you DO happen to read this (HI MOM!) and have an idea on what sort of things you’d like to see leave a note in the comments below.

We wrapped up with a quick level set session for a meeting that we had with Club Ownership and Front Office folks before the Dynamo game on the 11th where we discussed the work we’d been doing with the Council of the Future.  We have some small working sessions to set up to keep that moving forward.  Stay tuned.

Schedule wise we’re looking at drought of home games until the end of June – pro-tip:  Scarves Up works from *wherever* you happen to watch our guys play.  You know what to do.