Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club

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President Update – 14th May 2018

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Introduction – The Home Straight:

During the Retreat at the Icicle Resort in Leavenworth, there was a moment when it dawned on me that we have some truly passionate past presidents in our club.  More importantly, many of them were present at the Retreat to play their role in helping to shape the future of our club for Rotary Year 2018-19, when Chris Boland steps up to take the mantel of President for the BBRC.  We are indeed a lucky club to have such loyalty from this cohort of esteemed Rotarians.  A group that I will be thrilled to join in the not too distant future.  My hope is that I can also hold the same passion and commitment to Rotary as these past presidents demonstrate regularly.

We have also completed our major fund raiser for the club.  An effort that the majority of our members were involved with in helping to deliver a success on the day.  My thanks to Chris Boland and his team for coordinating the many areas that are involved with meeting the promise of the All in for Autism 5K/10K event this year.  The final numbers are still being tallied, but I think it is safe to say that we will have improved on last year’s race and this allows us to plan for another year in support of our community service projects.  Just marvelous!

As a club, we have accomplished a lot this year in the areas that matter: supporting our communities locally and internationally through service; making our commitment to the RI Foundation; told our story to others; changing the governance of our club; and delivered on our commitments to increasing membership.  It should come as no surprise that our club has been successful in meeting the goals set by RI President, Ian Riseley, to secure the Presidential Citation for this year.  My congratulations to each of you, through your service above self, in helping secure this recognition for the club.

Tell Our Rotary Story:

We have met our goal for postings on the website and social media channels for this Rotary year with 673 postings against a goal of 500.  We have seen six stories published about our club in the local press, which allowed us to meet our goals.  Our followers have increased across Facebook (336), Twitter (750) and Linkedin (97), which continues to help us increase our reach across the community – I hope that each of you will also follow our club across these services.

We picked up four press articles, predominantly on the race, but one from Antigua as well:

The great thing about the race articles is that we only submitted one release and the other outlets picked up our event through the buzz.  This is something we can continue to build on for next year.

Grow Membership:

We are on track for adding ten new members to our club’s membership this year.  We set a goal of securing one new member for each month of the Rotary year.  It is an ambitious goal and we are only two new members shy of reaching it!  That is amazing.

Our club is currently at 90 members.  Our two most recent inductees are Caitlin Devaney and Kevin Klustner.  I hope that you have all taken the opportunity to welcome them into the fold and get them engaged in some of our projects.  I know that they are both ready for the challenge.

This being said, we have seen some members depart from the club as their circumstances and needs have changed.  I am sorry to say that we have had say good-bye to the following members: Joellen Monson, Lenny Lutes, Paul Osborn, Dan Sullivan and Chris LeRoux.  They were all wonderful Rotarians and we wish them well in their journeys outside of our club.

We also completed our work with approving the new membership categories: Family, Young Leader and Corporate.  This will allow us to pursue other avenues for expanding our reach and engaging our community in a manner that supports our mission.  I am excited for our future possibilities as a result of these changes to our membership categories.

Our membership committee continues to find ways to improve our onboarding processes and make sure we have our new members quickly engaged with our club’s activities.  It is this willingness to not stay still and to find new ways in which we can make our new member experience second to none.  Please thank Tim Leahy and his team for the wonderful work that they have accomplished in our membership recruiting and onboarding this year.

Retreat:

Dennis Newell, Chuck Kimbrough and John Schwager took up the challenge to lead the effort in organizing our Retreat at the Icicle Resort in Leavenworth this month.  It was by all measures a success.  We had wonderful opportunities for fellowship (wine tasting, golfing, dinner and gaming), while still finding time to participate in a planning session for Chris Boland’s Presidential year.  The ideas, passion and desire to keep our club’s ethos alive was apparent to all who participated in the Retreat.  My gratitude to all members of the Retreat planning committee is beyond measure.

We have received the majority of surveys back from the participants and they were overwhelming positive about the experience.  We will be using the feedback from this survey to help us plan for next year’s Retreat, which is now a requirement of the club’s bylaws.  Our President-Elect Nominee Designate (to be chosen) will own this responsibility each year going forward.  This is good news for the club and its membership.  It is my hope that we will see our Retreat become the key component for engagement of our members in the planning of our clubs future activities.  I hope that more of you will be a part of this amazing event next year and beyond.

Closing:

A suggestion was made at the Retreat that the Annual President Report provided to the District Governor should be shared with the club membership.  To this end, I have attached it with this note, so each of you can reflect on the work accomplished over 2017-18.  I think you will agree that we have been a busy club, in many areas, and it is thank to you and other members for helping to translate ideas into action – more importantly, this is our story at the BBRC.  Please share it with others!

President Update – 11th February 2018

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Introduction:

I have just returned from the slopes, after skiing this Sunday, and enjoyed a thoroughly wonderful day, where the weather was brilliant and the trails were in pretty good shape.  Add to this the fact that their weren’t too many people on the slopes letting you move quickly up to the start of each run on fast moving lift queues.  A well-oiled machine was in effect to make this an awesome day!

As I reflect on the past three months, since my last communication to you, it is with some pleasure that the same can be said for our club.  We are experiencing improved engagement, as measured by attendance, by our members.  We are also seeing continued growth in our membership.  In some ways, our club is also becoming a well-oiled machine, which is best illustrated by the charts below:

We are seeing an encouraging trend that is reflective our strategic focus defined in our M3 Vision, where we are renewing our focus on mission and membership engagement.  As we are only just embarked on what is a 3-year strategy, then I think it is good to see such early progress and my thanks to all members for their support.

In the last six months, our board has been diligently working on areas that is putting in place a foundation that will support our club’s ability to deliver on the M3 Vision.  I want to acknowledge and thank the board for their active involvement as we have looked to strengthen the Club’s governance and the extra burden this has placed on them.

Here are some of the noteworthy changes that have happened in the first half of our Rotary year:

  • The first half of this Rotary year has been focused on putting in the necessary tools and controls to support the governance of the club. This includes some considerable effort on the part of Ann Norman to make sure all of our club records are digitized on Dropbox.
  • We have also established better practices with respect to our communications through the use of our Microsoft tools and thanks to Paul Osborn we now have role-specific email aliases. This allows us to track all communications in support of succession between our club officers.
  • We established the M3 Visioning working group, who delivered on their first goal of updating on our club by-laws, which our club approved last Friday. We will be further optimizing our club’s organization under the M3 strategy for the remainder of the Rotary year, which will set us on path for success for securing our club’s future within the community.  I want to acknowledge Wendi Fischer leadership in this area, especially in making sure we deliver on our promises for this Rotary Year.
  • We are signed up for the district initiative to support the Sustainable Rotary Club project, which is a program that has clubs committing to growing its membership for three years. We have submitted our M3 Vision and we will be using this as a control mechanism to support the execution of the plan for the next three years.

With this in mind, let me provide a quick update on the four areas of our “Back to Basics” strategy – Tell our Story; Engage our Community; Grow our Membership and Improve our Brand.

Tell Our Rotary Story:

We have almost met our goal for postings on the website and social media channels for this Rotary year with 495 postings against a goal of 500.  This helps us to communicate our story within the community, while showing the energy and dynamism of the membership.  We are seeing our reach being extended as others, including our members, Like and Retweet items with the result that our audience is also growing.  Please continue with this support.

Our relationship with the Bellevue Reporter continues to deliver articles on our clubs activities.  We continue to get stories published and we have plans for upcoming activities:

We continue to look for support from members in our marcom efforts, so for those of you who want to engage with social media or work with our press campaigns please reach out to Paul Osborn.  We also want to encourage members to help with promoting the club’s activities by taking pictures and publishing them to our social media sites or website.  It is easy and quick to do; and allows us to quickly Tell our Story to the community.

Engage our Community:

The outreach with our community continues.  This helps us get noticed and also allows us to build sustaining relationships for the long term.  Notably, we have been active in these areas:

  • New Generations: We supported our Rotaractors with their Sock project over Christmas, and we were able to help them with the fund raising by helping to secure $500 courtesy of Clint Merriman and Insperity.
  • Thanksgiving Turkey funding: We raised more than $6,250 over our necessary goal. We used the additional funds raised to support RFH and to recognize Michel Carter within RFH.
  • Issaquah Food Bank New Box Truck Project ($78,500): Our campaigning with district allowed us to secure the full $12,000 match. This is added to funds from BBRC of $24,500; Sammamish RC of $2,000; Issaquah RC of $1,000; Issaquah Food & Clothing Bank of $9,000; and a promise of $30,000 from King County (although it will be met from other sources if not delivered on).
  • Every Rotarian Every Year: We achieved 100% contribution from each of you in support of the RI Foundation. We are forecasting an increase of 8% over last year’s contribution, which will put us at approx. $33K.  We also saw a 10% increase in individual member contributions, which will place us around $363 per member.  This places us in second place within the District for both Annual Giving Totals and Per Capita Giving.  Congratulations to everyone in the club for making a difference!  We are clearly punching above our weight.
  • We continue to see a really strong attendance at RFH each month, as Colleen Turner has made sure to get us engaged with this monthly activity. Laura Cosacchi has also made sure that our Interactors are strong contributors to the RFH work parties, which is a wonderful way for us to partner with this young group of Rotarians.

 Grow Membership:

We have grown our club membership to 92!  This places BBRC in second place for membership growth and we are only one member shy of the fastest club in District 5030.  Please pass on your congratulations to Tim Leahy and the membership committee, while continuing to bring more guests to our meetings.

Congratulations to Mark Buick and John Hall for being our newest additions to the member rolls.  We continue to see more guests coming to our meetings and we are actively pursuing some of them in conversations about joining the club.  Well done to everyone who has brought in guests to experience our unique brand.

We also had a wonderful Black and White Wine Evening for the annual party this year.  It was oversold, which was a good problem to have although we did have to turn some of our members down due to the room restrictions.  We will make sure to have a bigger room for next year.  Thank you to Carmela and the Fellowship committee for making this a great evening, including the wine tasting.

A big announcement is that we are going to have our Club Retreat this year.  It will happen in May, and the plan is to hold the Retreat at Icicle Village Resort in Leavenworth.  Dennis Newell has kindly taken the lead on this effort for our club and he has an active committee working on the details.  Make sure to keep 4-5 May open.  It is sure to be an event that cannot be missed!

The M3 Vision working group is now starting to work on new classifications of membership that will help us be more in tune with what we believe people are looking for from Rotary membership.  It is our hope these changes will allow for younger professionals, family members and others pressed around our attendance restrictions to find ways that will allow them to be a part of our club.

The working group is to present their findings to our board shortly and then we will share with our membership.  Our goal is to get these changes approved, so we can take quickly apply them in support of our club’s longer-term legacy in Bellevue.

Improve our Brand:

We have launched our new banner for the Paul Harris Fellows this past Friday, after the 100% EREY announcements.  This is in keeping with our banners being displayed at our meetings.  To aid us in making sure that the banners are setup before each meeting, we have secured Corey’s services in the morning in assisting us with this effort.

Chuck Kimbrough has been actively involved in promoting the Adoption Party across Rotary far and wide.  It is great that he has been able to leverage the BBRC brand and banners in this effort.  It is great to see the branding used so effectively.

Our next big effort is the All in for Autism event.  Not only is this our biggest fund raiser; it is also our largest platform for promoting the club and leveraging our brand across the community.  Chris Boland is going to be looking for our support in this project and please heed his calls to action, so we can make sure it is both successful in raising funds and our visibility.

Closing:

Please keep your ideas coming through to me.  I have been thrilled with the feedback and support so far from each of you.  I continue to commit to each of you that we will bring value to your membership and involvement with BBRC.  I hope you can continue to help us keep this well-oiled machine running at top notch!

President Update – 23rd October 2017

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Introduction: 

Since my last missive, it is wonderful to see the involvement of members in bringing our M³ Vision to life for our club.   With this in mind, I want to provide my update to our members on how we are progressing  in delivering on our Back to Basics strategy.

The number of members wanting to participate in our morning meetings has made my decisions around the agenda tougher.  There is only a finite amount of time in the mornings, and some members have to be turned away or delayed.  This is a good problem to have and it helps reinforce one of the cornerstones of our club’s appeal.  By improving our experience in the morning meetings, we can raise the energy and enthusiasm of our members, and those we want to attract. 

This leads me to observe how our club is seeing a good and healthy influx of guests and many are coming in from you telling our story – keep it up.  Many of you may have heard me say it: “if we cannot tell our story, then who will?”  It is critical that we keep telling our story to those we meet and encourage them attend the meetings.  We have calling cards that we can hand out to invite new prospects to have a breakfast on us – Chris Boland’s point about us “not running out of food” is on point, so let us make sure none of it is wasted.  

Our social media and PR is helping with promoting our outreach that helps us tell our story to more people within our community.  We regularly posting on our website, social media channels and getting picked up by the local media.  We need to be more proactive in this area, and with the ease of access on our technology platform we have an opportunity to all become comfortable with using it to tell our story. 

All in all, this is good progress and helps to explain why our club seems to be the fastest in membership growth within our district!  With this in mind, let me provide a quick update on the four areas of our “Back to Basics” strategy – Tell our Story; Engage our Community; Grow our Membership and Improve our Brand.  

Tell Our Rotary Story: 

I have been tracking our postings on the website and social media channels for this Rotary year and we are making good progress against our goal of 500 postings – we currently stand at 304 postings, so we are clearly on track to meet the goal.  This is great outreach and our followers are increasing on both Facebook and Twitter accounts, especially as we remain active in our postings. 

We now have a new relationship in place at the Bellevue Reporter, who has been very supportive in publishing our press releases – here are the two that were published: 

One of the calls to action that I do have is for someone in the club to become our PR/Media relationship manager with the press.  This is going to be a critical role for us in the next few months as we promote the Race and other activities in the club.  This is a great opportunity for someone who wants to learn how to work with the media and create buzz that will translate to your own business.  Either let Paul Osborn or me know if you want to take this on. 

You only need to go to our website to see the activity around our club to appreciate how much more we are doing to promote the work of our club.  This being said, we do need to find a way to get more support around taking pictures and publishing them to our Facebook or Twitter account.  This is an easy thing to do and the more we publish, then the wider our reach with outside parties and the broader community.  The good news is that we have cross-linked all of our accounts, so if you post to one then you are posting to all. 

Engage our Community: 

The outreach with our community continues.  This helps us get noticed and also allows us to build sustaining relationships for the long term.  Notably, we have been active in these areas: 

  • New Generations: We have made regular contact with our Rotaractors and Interactors.  They are enthusiastic and keen to be involved with our club’s activities.  Please consider them for your upcoming projects. 
  • Kindering: were thrilled with our contribution to their cause this year.  They have been great partners in promoting us through their own network and acknowledged the leadership award we gave to Mimi Siegel. 
  • SOWA: they are also strong advocates for us through their channels and will continue to look for opportunities to work with us.  We can draw on their network for the Race next year. 
  • King County DSHS: with our Family Festival we have once again demonstrated how effective BBRC are at working with many different organizations to help children and teens find their forever family.   
  • Bellevue City Parks & Recreation: we have partnered with them on two occasions through our Preserve Planet Earth projects.  Our most recent effort has allowed to plant over 94 trees, which is at least one tree for every member of the club.  Allowing us to do good in our community, while meeting the global challenge set out by RI’s President – Ian Riseley. 
  • District 5030: we have played our part in district events.  This includes supporting their fellowship events, the Peace Day Proclamation in Seattle, the Elk Farm visit, hosting our district governor and Rotary First Harvest. 
  • Rotary International: we have actively used RIs new promotional materials in club meetings, promoted the World Polio Day Celebration (we will also have a BBRC presence at B&MGF live event – 10/24) and we are about to embark on our EREY program this coming November.  We have many other relationships with Rotary clubs through our joint projects and these continue to pay dividends around our activities to do good in our community and globally. 
  • Our conversations with Cascade Designs and others continues, while we find the right opportunities to successfully partner with each other.   

Grow Membership: 

We are continuing to trend positively in terms of membership and we have had five new members join the club this Rotary year.  This puts us ahead by 2 against the goal we have set ourselves for one new member each month of Rotary Year 2017-18.   This is a fantastic result that we want to continue with your support. 

Keep inviting people to the meetings.  Let them experience our vibrant club and the rich program that we have to offer.  Our SAA will continue to encourage you to bring guests, although I believe that you will only be thrilled to do so without Curtis’s helping hand.   

The M³ Vision working group is close to completing their work on the by-laws and new classifications of membership that will help us be more in tune with what we believe people are looking for from Rotary membership.  It is our hope these changes will allow for younger professionals, family members and others pressed around our attendance restrictions to find ways that will allow them to be a part of our club.   

The working group is to present their findings to our board shortly and then we will share with our membership.  Our goal is to get these changes approved, so we can take quickly apply them in support of our club’s longer-term legacy in Bellevue.  

Improve our Brand: 

You will have noticed over the last three months that we are using Rotary’s new branding co-laterals in everything we do to help connect our own strategic plan with the bigger initiative being executed by Rotary International.  We believe that we can share in the benefits that come from this effort and in partnering with RI we can remain consistent in our messaging and narrative. 

We have been deliberate in tying our program back to Rotary themes each month and making sure that we take advantage of the opportunities these themes present.  They allow us to tell our story across the service areas and with the things that matter in Rotary, whether this be New Generations, Community/Vocational Service or EREY.  In structuring our activities in this way, we are enhancing and developing our product in such a manner that it will appeal to our members and future members.  Being consistent in the approach will allow us to continually enhance and add value to our club membership – I hope you are seeing the difference. 

We have also completed a lot of heavy lifting in the club administration, to allow for us to be nimbler around daily decisions.  The board has set up Standard Operating Procedures that allows our Club Admin to handle more of the daily activities without direct board involvement.  We have also, thanks to Ann Norman and others, setup our electronic records on Dropbox, where we now have a complete archive of all of our club documents and decisions.  Furthermore, we had addressed some of the niggly regulatory reporting needs around our charitable status that will allow us to remain in good grace with the State.  All of these activities, positions us well for better governance and execution as a club going forward. 

We will continue to optimize our club’s organization, so that we can demonstrate our value to our members, new prospects and the community at a large.  Our board and the M³ Vision working group are key into making sure we accomplish this during our current Rotary Year, so that the club can be ready to embrace the changes in 2018-19.    

Closing:

Please keep your ideas coming through to me.  I have been thrilled with the feedback and support so far from each of you.  I continue to commit to each of you that we will bring value to your membership and involvement with BBRC.  In return, I look to you to each find a way to make a difference – if not you, then who? 

President Update – 27th August 2017

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I wanted to send out a quick update with respect to the progress we are making our “Back to Basics” Strategy (also known as the M³ Vision).  Our goal is to reach a level of sustainability in our club by refocusing on our Mission, growing our Membership and securing the Money that will help support our work in the community and beyond.  We will accomplish this by aligning with Rotary’s brand changes and tell our BBRC story.  This will allow us to share our lessons and, with demonstrated gains, we can inspire our club and others to be a part of the success – Together we can make a difference.

My update will be broken into four areas: Tell our Rotary Story, Engage our Community, Grow Membership, and Improve our Brand.  Please refer to the Back to Basics action plan to refresh yourself on the details behind each of these areas.  I hope to send out regular updates, so the club can see how we are doing in our pursuit of M³.

Tell Our Rotary Story:

We have made good progress in this area.  Our PR Committee is executing on their plan to create more outreach through our social media.  Paul Osborn is working hard to help make sure the club has the tools in telling our story through the website, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.  The PR Committee is also working on tools to help us measure our effectiveness in communicating our stories to the wider community.  Here are some great examples of this work:

The call to action for everyone in the club is to use participate in these mediums and help tell our story.  Many of us our on social media and own mobile phones.  Take advantage of these channels by taking pictures, so we can share them with the wider community.  We will also be looking to all committee members to post updates on their activities to the website, so that interested parties can see what a dynamic club we have at the BBRC.  Remember, if not you, then who will tell our story?

Engage our Community:

We have an opportunity to connect with others in our community.  We need to do this to capture the opportunity presented by the changes in our area.  We have made some encouraging progress in this regard:

  • New Generations: Alex has been reaching out the Bellevue Boys & Girls club to see how we can better partner with them for the future.  This group has also been effective in staying close with Interact (thanks Laura), Rotaract (Alex and Chris), DECA (Paul) and RYLA (Madeline), which is a great way to make sure the next generation see the value of Rotary.
  • Thanks to Jenny Andrews, a connection was made with the Speerha Community (https://www.facebook.com/spreeha.org/) who are aligned in many ways with what we do at Rotary.  I am in contact with the chapter President and hope to find ways we can work together as part of our outreach to a wider audience in the community.
  • I met with Cascade Design and entered into a conversation with them to see how we can align with their good work in Global Health – with a particular emphasis on local education in the community around clean water for emergencies.  I know that Steve Roberts has also engaged with them for his Haiti project and I am sure there is more to come.
  • Naturally, we still have great connections with other partners and will continue to find ways to engage with them: Kindering, RFH, SOW and others

Grow Membership:

We have started with great gusto in terms of membership this Rotary year.  Since July we have inducted four new members and our plan is to try and bring in one new member each month.  There is no reason why we should not all be actively seeking opportunities to bring other guests into our club and show them the opportunity of membership.

However, it is not just about bring in new members.  It is about making sure we continually challenge ourselves to demonstrate the value of membership in Rotary.  We do this through our activities and initiatives, where we work hard to enjoy our involvement to the fullest, by expressing love for the mission, calling people we care about and checking on how they are, being more forthright and strategic in our club’s activities, while learning from our mistakes and growing from these experiences.

This will make it much easier to tell our story to others, enjoy each other’s company in fellowship and develop the trust that will allow us to build strong, lasting relationships both personally and in business.

Improve our Brand:

By now you will have heard about our own effort to secure a sustainable future for our club.  Morris Kremen, Chris Boland and I have committed to supporting our Back to Basics plan for the next three years.  We recognize that it is critical for us to engage in the opportunity to make lasting change for the benefit of the club for many more generations that will follow us in the future.

We will achieve this by being more effective in directing the strategy and policy of our club through the board of directors (we have made a lot of changes in terms of organizing and optimizing the efforts of our board), where Ann Norman has led the charge to gather all of our club documents over the last 15 years and make sure we can access them through Dropbox (thanks to Paul Osborn for helping us with the technical transition).  We are building discipline into the governance of the club and making sure this supports our plans for sustainability.

We have also launched the M³ Vision Committee (M³VC) to review all of our by-laws, club organization and activities to see how we can best optimize our organization for the future.  This committee reports to me and will make recommendations to the board that will help us shape the club to the benefit of its membership.  This group is headed up by Wendi Fischer and its members are: Dick Brown, Steve Lingenbrink, Desiree Yuzawa and Girish Bahtia.  Please lend them your support as they work through the challenging portfolio of tasks ahead of them.

In closing, I want to thank all of you who have come to me with ideas, suggestions and thoughts about the future of the club.  We all have an opportunity to make a difference in our club and, by doing so, I guarantee that you will very quickly see the value in your membership realized.  Be the difference and embrace that opportunity.

All in for Autism: 2017 Wrap Up

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Earlier this year, the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club (BBRC) organized the All in for Autism 5K/10K Run/Walk in Bellevue. The event is in its eleventh year and took place on April 23, 2017. This event has become Bellevue’s premier running event that caters for enthusiasts and families alike and we successfully attracted over 2,500 people to the race. We raised over $135K from the event and these funds will be disbursed to our partners: Kindering and Special Olympics Washington, plus Rotary projects that benefit children and families locally and internationally.

BBRC’s Run was well organized with over 300 volunteers, police and city workers making sure all aspects of the event were nailed down to ensure participants had a smooth experience. Many of the participants were complimentary of the well managed operations that covered the smallest of details from registration to getting around the course safely. The City of Bellevue Mayor, John Stokes, took the opportunity to declare April Autism Month in support of the event. We were also supported by local celebrities Zach Scott (Sounders) and Dennis Bounds, formerly of KING5 news.

The involvement from our sponsors was one of the corner-stones of the events success and, we were pleased, the following companies provided support: Bellevue Collection, Escape Outdoors, Starbucks, Amazon, Overlake Medical Center, City of Bellevue, Acme Foods, Advance Renal Tech, GLY, OfferUp, Parallels, Brazen Family, Atlas Informatics, Bellevue Optometry, BSD Foundation, Eagle Beverage, Monger Properties, Microsoft, Nintendo, Uwajimaya, TM Investments, Hutchinson & Walter CPAs, Davis Wright Tremaine, and Costco. We also had incredible support from the many booth sponsors on the day and we are grateful for their involvement in our eleventh year of the run.

On 8th September we are planning to donate $20,000 to our primary beneficiary, Kindering and this will be made to Mimi Siegel, the Executive Director of Kindering. The presentation of the check will take place at the Glendale Country Club, during the BBRC breakfast meeting, which is scheduled to start at 7:30am. We extend an invitation to you to join us for breakfast this coming Friday to report on the presentation and learn from the BBRC and others about our commitment to Autism and the community in other areas of Rotary Service.

All in for Autism Run: Weekly Meeting – 14th April, 2017

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Weekly Key Metrics:

  • Registrations (Goal: 2,000): 1102 – up 14 %
  • Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,000 – down 0.7%
  • Volunteers (Goal: 299): 232 – up 7.4%
  • New Members: 0

Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $111,184 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)

Summary

We are in the home straight.  The hard work accomplished by the team over the last few months is now coming to fruition with momentum starting to show in registrations.  We secured the front page of the Bellevue Reporter print edition, which went out to 35K households this Friday.  The weather is improving and our social media outreach remains active.  Now we finish the remaining tasks to ensure a great race day on the 23rd April.

Registrations (Howard’s Analysis)

We are just a week away from the big event on April 23.  The attached registration summary at this “one-week out” point shows we are 542 short on “# of registrations” compared to a year ago but up $4,112 on the “dollar value” of these 2017 registrations.  We are particularly short in this 2017 year on runners in the 10K event, with only 330 signed up right now with a week to go.  This is less than half the 705 10K runners signed up one week before in the 2016 year.

Just in the past week, we registered 134 new runners/walkers compared to 145 new runners/walkers in the same week a year ago.  Yet, these fewer new runners brought in $1,125 more dollars ($5,263 less $4,138) than the comparable group a year ago.  Overall, we stand at $37,405 in dollars raised in registrations with a week to go compared with only $33,293 at the same point in the 2016 year.  This advantage of $4,112 in registration dollars for 2017 should hold up in the final week as the price of registration increases $5 per adult registrant this next Thursday at midnight.  This $4,000+ increase in the 2017 year is good news financially as it should more than pay for the extra cost of shirts incurred for this year’s event.

As for the total number of runners/walkers to expect next Sunday, it is becoming a real challenge to hit the 2,000 target for “# of runners/walkers”.  The likely number of participants on April 23 may fall just a bit short of this targeted figure.  Good weather being predicted by some for this next week can hopefully reduce the size of this projected shortfall in runners/walkers.

Sponsorship

We have sent out one last reach out email to our sponsors, via our club members, to encourage more participation from them in terms of runners and volunteers.  We have included our Bellevue Reporter story to make sure they have something that demonstrates the impact that they will be making with their involvement in the cause.

Kendra Scott has agreed to turn the prizes into gift cards, so we can reward the winners from both the Men’s and Women’s races.  I will be picking these up in lieu of the jewelry initially offered.  Also, Costco has come in with donations of water, bananas and oranges that makes them an in-kind sponsor since these donations are in excess of $1,000.  We have their logo on our website now.

We are expecting Parallels to deliver their runners for the event this week, and they are paying for their participation, which is something that OfferUp has also done and is a generous way to encourage engagement with their staff as well as donating more to the cause.  Something to keep in mind for the future as another way we can encourage our partners to be more involved with us.

For those of us who have brought in sponsors, let’s follow up with them to make sure that they will want to have a booth in place at the race village.  This will help Colleen with her efforts in getting this set up.

We will organize an event after the race to thank our sponsors in the summer.  It will be a good opportunity to invite them to the club and get recognition for their involvement, while demonstrating the strength of Rotary.

Marketing

We are now at the end of the main activities in terms of the marketing efforts for promoting our event this year.  We have accomplished a lot and I want to thank the team for their involvement in this area.  Our reach has certainly expanded into new areas that leverage our community’s changing environment and this will not only benefit us in terms of the race, but also in terms of securing members in the future.  We must continue to build on this momentum.

Even as we draw to a close with our marketing and promotional efforts it is worth noting that we have still have some activities underway:

  • Bellevue Reporter: our press event made the front page (https://www.dropbox.com/s/16vgsozd8muiaws/Bellevue%20Reporter%2004-14-17.pdf?dl=0) of the printed edition that was distributed to the Bellevue residents on Friday, 14th This is over 35K households and perfectly timed with respect to our event.
  • Our Linkedin posting on the Mayoral Proclamation has garnered over 1700 views and more than 30 likes – this is significant in terms of a posting via Linkedin.
  • Other social media channels have also picked up our Bellevue Reporter positing and the coverage has been widespread, from Orswell Events all the way through to Zach Scott and Sounders channels. It continues to drive views and also donations, as well registrations.
  • Orswell Events launched an Easter promotion for this weekend to help drive registrants.
  • Geekwire highlighted our event as one of their GeekWire Calendar Picks: http://www.geekwire.com/2017/geekwire-calendar-picks-devopsdays-seattle-cannabis-tech-meetup/.
  • Amazon reached out to all its 11,500 employees through its weekly newsletter to promote our event and they will also be placing our poster in all of its buildings to help raise visibility. We have made one last reach out to our sponsors asking them to do the same.
  • Kindering has highlighted Mimi’s Leadership Award on their website: https://kindering.org/about-us/. This is something that we do need to retain for the future as it will help define our club as thought leaders in this space.
  • Club update (4/14/17) to bring the membership up to speed with our progress and the needs we have from them for the final stages of the event. Here is the presentation: https://www.dropbox.com/s/h5f00n0ue3xt6s1/All%20in%20for%20Autism%20-%20Club%20Update%204-13-17.pptx?dl=0.
  • Our banners have been setup across the bridges in the City, although a little delayed. However, we will see benefit from these as commuters travel back and forth under them for the rest of the time before Race Day.
  • Packet Pick Up – this will be another opportunity to drum up support for the event and I think we should think of an opportunity to use our internal banners and backdrop to raise our visibility, assuming this is allowed.
  • Uwajimaya – we have delivered the vouchers to Uwajimaya, so these can be packed into their customers’ bags and help us generate more participation for the race.

For the work accomplished with marketing this year, please check out the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gc1rxtqg0ulbwuk/Bellevue%20Run%20Communications%20Plan%202017.xlsx?dl=0.  We have a couple of closing out tasks and these will be accomplished once the race has been done.

Volunteers

We have 232 volunteers and we need 299, so we are shy of our target for volunteers.  We need to scramble to make sure we get these volunteers, so any assistance that can be lent to Dustin’s call for action here is very much appreciated.  I know that a number of us will be reaching out to our contacts with the Autism community, Kindering, SOWA, sponsors and others to ensure we do not fall short of the requirements that we have to meet with volunteers.

Booths

Costco has come forward with water for their booth at the Race Village and they are now an in-kind sponsor.  They will make up one of 32 booths for our event this year, so our race village is going to be a busy one.

It is not too late to try and find a couple more businesses to get involved, so feel free to continue your efforts in finding booth sponsors.  It is an easy way for us to generate additional income toward our goal for funds.

We will need to create a 10×10 space for the myTeam Triumph group, so they can get prepared for the start of the race as they will have wheelchairs and other special needs to be taken care of when they arrive.  I will work with Colleen on the details.

The plan for the race village is located here, so you can all get a sense of what it will look like on the day: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5yzi2tj6blni6zm/%2717%20AI4A%20Start_Finish%20Layout%20corrected.pdf?dl=0.

Please follow up with Colleen should you have any questions pertaining to the booth sponsors and race village layout.

Logistics

Some updates with respect to the logistics for the race itself that I think you should all be aware of this week. Clearly, there is always fluidity in this area right up to the actual start of the event and it is good for us to be aware of these changes.

Course – Due to incomplete road construction there is a revision to the start/end area of the race. We are working with Mazen and Sgt. Sanabria and Orswell Events is working with our team to make sure the specifics are managed accordingly.  It will add some complexity to the start/end of the race, as well as changes to the Kids Dash.

Vans – We will be renting one of the vans for the event.  I am closing the conversations with Eastside Prep to secure their two vans for the day.  By having a rented van we can mitigate their concern around availability for the school on the following day.  I will have Eastside Preps confirmation – one way or the other – this coming Monday.

Kids Dash – Due to the course change made above we will need to make some minor changes to the start and finish for the kids’ event.  I will make sure that Traci is in the loop, so she can sort this out on the day.

T-Shirts – I was anticipating delivery on the 11th April.  I have asked the vendor to confirm delivery and I suspect that they will probably arrive around the 18t April.  This will still allow us to get them in place for the packet pick-up on 22nd April.

Registration and packet pick up – Francine is leading the charge here.  She is working with Katherine’s team for the packet pick up on the Saturday (4/22) and Rogue will have the materials available for the day.  Some of us will be volunteering on the day.  Francine will also be looking for iPads to support the activity and will reach out to us in the event she needs more.  We have Orswell Events working on some laminated sheets that detail the course route for 5K and 10K, so we can share with the shoppers to encourage participation.  It looks like we have all the people we need for registration on Race Day and Francine will be taking point, starting from 5:30am on the day.

Logistics – We know that we will have to pay more for barricades, so this is an additional expense that we need to cover that is unexpected.  Our need for course volunteers is the area of risk that we need to close out in advance of the event and the call to action has gone out to make sure we get this taken care of for Dustin.  We will also have an earlier start for myTeam Triumph – Puget Sound, who are disabled and will be have someone helping them with the run, so they will require an earlier start and a 10×10 area in the Race Village to get prepared.  I will send out details to the respective parties on what is required this morning.  I am sure there will be other details that will crop up and we will handle over the remaining few days.

Communications on the day – I will be putting together a call sheet for the people on the ground next Sunday.  This will make it easier for the coordinators to use their cell phones as the means for communicating with each other on the day.  I will share this via email and try to get a small card made up as well.

Membership booth – Carmela and Wendi have agreed to support the membership booth, which we will setup in the same way as we did at the Seahawks 12K.  It is colorful and really does a good job of communicating what our club does in the community.  We will also have a couple of Interactors from Forest Ridge supporting the booth.  Finally, we will be handing out cards to interested parties that will invite them to join the club for breakfast to introduce them to our membership.  Finally, we will also be handing out the Kendra Scott brochures to encourage people to visit their shop, so we can secure the 20% from them on goods purchased at the event.

MC agenda – I will be working with Tim Leahy on Tuesday next week to go through the specifics in terms of VIPs, Sponsors and other guests (myTeam Triumph – wheel chair start).  We will turn this into the announcements for the day and communicate the order of ceremonies when completed next week.

Steve Roberts, Steve Luplow, Tim Leahy, Francine Weaver, Dustin Walling and Orswell Events are working through the remaining details for the plan on the upcoming weekend.  They will work with the rest of the Race Committee as and when they need our assistance, so please remain available to support their requests.  Adaptability is going to be the key to our success in this areaJ.

Finally

This will be my last weekly update for the team.  I hope that these have been helpful in keeping you all informed of the activities that are a part of this large project, while helping to support the cross collaboration efforts of our team.  My hope is that these updates will help to form the basis of a playbook that will allow future Race Directors to successfully operate the event going forward.

As this will be my last missive on the topic of the All in for Autism event, then I want to let you all know that it has been a privilege to be associated with you all in the execution of this endeavor.  It is no mean feat that we are able to make this the “biggest event” for Bellevue, according to our Mayor John Stokes.

You should all be proud of what you have contributed in terms of your time and results for our club’s major fund raiser.  It really is an example of “Service above Self” in so many ways and for this I, and those we will benefit, truly thank you for making it happen.  I hope you will all be able to join everyone at the 520 Bar and Grill for an after-event celebration that will include donuts, coffee and specialty drinks.

All in for Autism Run: Update Note – 9th April, 2017

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Weekly Key Metrics:

  • Registrations (Goal: 2,500): 968 – up 13.3%
  • Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,500 – 0.7%
  • Volunteers (Goal: 299): 216 – 38.4%
  • New Members: 0
  • Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $103,642 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)

Summary

We truly kicked off Autism Awareness Month with the Mayoral Proclamation and Mimi Siegel being awarded the All in for Autism Leadership Award on the 7th April.  We will have a story picked up by the Bellevue Reporter on Monday.  Registrations continue to show growth and revenue is still strong.  We now need to push our sponsors and other avenues to make sure we get more registrations.

Registrations (Howard’s Analysis)

We are now two weeks out from the event day and we are still behind last year (2016) in “number of registrants” but running ahead in “registration dollars”.  The attached file shows that we are at this point 531 registrants behind (1,499 in 2016 to 968 in 2017) but $2,987 ahead in registration dollars ($29,155 in 2016 but $32,142 in 2017).  This situation that finds “registration numbers” down but the “dollars raised in registrations” up is evident in the much higher average cost of registrations in the 2017 year.  Note that the average cost of all registrations (at this 2-week out point) is $33.20 in 2017 but was only $19.45 in the 2016 year.  It is interesting to observe that the average cost of the 114 registrations added during this past week was $29.51 ($3,364/114).  This is virtually the same as the average cost of $29.43 for registrations added during the same week in the 2016 year.

Projecting ahead, we should probably accept the fact that it will be extremely difficult to reach the 2,145 level of overall registrations which was reached in 2016.  We currently have 968 paid registrations which is 531 behind the pace of the 2016 year when we ended up with 2,145 total registrations.  A more reasonable goal of 2,000 registrations may still be possible if we kick it in strong in these last two weeks.  To get to the 2,000-registration mark, we must add another 1.032 registrations in these last two weeks including those occurring at the packet pickup on April 22 and the day-of registration on April 23.  Last year (in 2016) we added 646 during the 2-week period prior to the event so it will be a real challenge to pull in 1,032 registrations in the same 2-week period this year.

It is good to keep in mind that as we work to achieve this target of 2,000 registrations in the 2017 year, we should continually encourage people (including our own BBRC members) who can’t register for the event to donate to the cause.  There is some indication that our donations this year are running a bit ahead of last year and that can help make up for any possible shortfall in actual registration numbers.  The positive tone created at last Friday’s meeting along with some creative “donation solicitation” activities should help us improve the bottom line for our “All in for Autism” event.

Sponsorship

This is the time to reach out and connect with all of our sponsors and make sure that they are responding to our call to action with volunteers and participants.  To date we have seen responses from these sponsors in terms of registrants:

  • Acme                          17 runners
  • GLY                            14 runners
  • Amazon                       2 runners
  • Bellevue Collections 2 runners
  • Nintendo                   11 runners
  • OfferUp                     13 runners

Considering the number of sponsors behind our event, it is disappointing that we are not seeing more participation.  I can only comment on the ones that are signing up with the simple observation that we have Rotarians following up with them.  The call to action from Rotarians has the outcome of more sponsor registrations coming in, so we need to be engaged with this effort.

A couple of good examples are with (1) Neil Bretvick who was able to get his firm Hellam Varon to donate the funds raised from their Jeans for a Cause to our event; and (2) Girish Bhatia who has been able to take the lead at Amazon, after fruitless attempts to get them engaged, and is now driving the call to action for us across all their campuses and will also manage their booth on 23rd April.

I will be reaching out to all the people who secured us sponsors to ask them to more actively engage with the sponsors – reminding our sponsors of the discounts, and free registrations, that they are entitled to for the event.  It is also critical that we have our sponsors involved, since it is the best way for them to experience the event first hand (through their employees) and allow us to increase our chances of success for future support.

Marketing

Our 7th April meeting was a tremendous success for us last week.  We were able to bring together all the key parties from our business, non-profit and political community that are directly involved with the AI4A event.  The room was amazing with the colorful decorations, branding and layout – a huge shot out to the team for making this happen.

The energy in the room, from the greeters to the speakers was maintained throughout the course of the schedule.  We amazingly kept on schedule and in line with the agenda and our President Mike handled all the changes with impressive MC skills.  I know that many of our guests and members expressed their delight and appreciation for the program – again, my thanks to all of you who were involved in pulling together all the moving parts that happened in the short space of time we had.

Bellevue Reporter has confirmed that they will running a story on Monday around the personal stories of the two families present – Nicole Gooldy and Kirby & Katie Winfield.  This brings the human interest aspect to the narrative that will resonate with the community when it comes to supporting our event.  There was a lot of work involved in reaching out to the press (emails, press releases, video content, branding collaterals and planning) and there were a number of you who also contributed to this tremendous effort and I thank you as well.

We have the pictures from the gathering located in Dropbox at this link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/r0669jnyfo9b8xk/AADFguZ0NceqBCnalo1O_2RGa?dl=0.  Please take advantage of the content and push it out to your social media channels (Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook).  I can assure that there is tremendous pick up, based on the posts that I have already made this past week.  I encourage you to do the same as it will generate registrations and donations.  We can use both.

This being said, we continue to promote through other activities and for the past week this has included:

  • Bellevue Reporter will be publishing their story from our AI4A event last week this coming Monday – 10th
  • Eastside Marconi Kids have approached me about writing an article for the website in support of the Calendar submission made last month. I will be following up with them directly to get the valuable promotion that comes from this site in service to Bellevue families and their kids.
  • We launched an email/social media promotions this past week: Autism Awareness Month Proclamation and AI4A Leadership Award. Based on feedback that we heard at the Seahawks 12K event this morning, it is clear that people are seeing our emails and social media pushes (especially Facebook).  We must continue to recognize the value of the social media channel going forward, especially in pre-promotional activities around the event.
  • Seahawks 12K Event – Paul Osborn (a huge thank you Paul!) and I were at the Seahawks 12K event this morning. I was able to get there at 5am to secure a position between the two watering stations, which paid huge dividends at the end of the race, when runners came streaming past our booth.  We were able to push over 400 flyers out to the runners and answer their questions as they came up to the booth – we even had Rotarians come up to complement us on the branding.  We even met a couple of ladies who had already signed up thanks to Howard Johnson’s promotions on our behalf…way to go Howard!  A good start to the morning and we expect that we will see some pick up in registrations from this guerilla marketing effort.
  • Flyers and posters continue to be distributed around the community. I will be working to get the flyers and posters distributed to the Boys & Girls Club to increase our reach through Bellevue and Kirkland.  More details of the work completed to date can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gc1rxtqg0ulbwuk/Bellevue%20Run%20Communications%20Plan%202017.xlsx?dl=0.
  • The bag stuffer flyers for Uwajimaya through Orswell Events should be ready and delivered to Jeff next week. This will help with the push from them through their customers for the next couple of weeks
  • We will also be producing some Kendra Scott leaflets for inclusion in the runner’s packets being stuffed by Rogue. These will encourage runners to visit the store and we secure 20% of anything purchased for our event.  I am also working with Kendra Scott to make sure we can get the prizes setup for Men and Women winners in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places – this will be fairer.
  • Volunteer CTA: Paul Osborn and Dustin are continuing to corral members through their promotional activities. They continue to tack ahead of next year – we do need to push our sponsors for volunteers to my point above.
  • Social media – we will continue to leverage our content from 7th April to further promote the event and engagement with the wider community.

The last couple of weeks are going to be critical for us, so let’s keep the foot on the gas to make sure we drive more registrations and meet our goal of 2,500 participants.  It is these activities that will make all the difference.

Volunteers

New goal – 299 – this went up because we have added 21 Forest Ridge Interactors for water station volunteers.  May go up again.

Current – 216 / Remaining – 83 (These are all pretty much Course Volunteers)

Believe it or not, we’re well ahead of pace from previous years.  Even though it is spring break, we’ve still got kids signing up.  Dustin expects to get a rush starting next week when kids are back.

We are still struggling to get beneficiaries (although I will be following up with Kindering and SOWA next week) and other organizations to send volunteers.  We remain over-dependent on the schools.  If the committee has contacts with the beneficiaries, sponsors, or other organizations, Dustin could really use some outreach to get some volunteer action going.

Booths

It looks like we are waiting for confirmation from Costco with respect to the water for the event, although they have confirmed the bananas and oranges for the event.  We may need to scramble for this, so please be on standby for Colleen’s call to action when it comes.

We must also reach out to our networks and see if we can secure more booths from local businesses.  We have had some success with personal outreaches already and they were easily achieved, since the local businesses were excited by the prospect of participating.  All we need to do is ask, so please reach out and see who in your network will sign up for a booth.  Also, encourage other members to do the same.

To this point, we were able to engage four business at the Seahawks 12K event this morning to upsell them to be at our event on the 23rd April.  They will be following up with me next week to confirm their interest, once they have spoken to their decision makers.  We met with a Dental, User Research, Coconut Water and banking group.  I will keep Colleen in the loop as we work through the process.

We want the Race Village to be lively and exciting on the 23rd April.  It helps to generate the energy around the event.

Logistics

No updates at this time.  Steve Roberts, Steve Luplow and Orswell events are working through the details for the course and will work out any issues that might come up.

We do need to think about the early registration in the next week, so we can prepare for the hand out.  Katherine DeStephano has committed to supporting us again and Francine is on point with making this happen.  Francine will also be working on securing the registration support for the day – which I think is going to be busy as I suspect Dick Brown has called out for good weather to support us on the 23rd April!

Tim Leahy and I will need to work out the details for the announcements and officiating in terms of the activities on the day.  My goal is to meet with Tim this coming week so we can get the ball rolling in terms of the planning.

Finally

We have momentum and two weeks in which to use this to our benefit with respect to race participation and revenue.  It will be a busy couple of weeks as we drive to the day of the event and ensure that we can secure the goal of 2,500!  Please let me know where you can help with making this happen, as there is plenty of work to go around and your support will be most welcome in the mission.

All in for Autism Run: Weekly Meeting – 31st March, 2017

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Weekly Key Metrics:

  • Registrations (Goal: 2,500): 854 – up 36.1%
  • Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,000 – no change
  • Volunteers (Goal: 243): 156 – 73.3%
  • New Members: 0
  • Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $101,229 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)

Summary

A healthy jump in registrations (36.1%) and volunteers (73.3%) marks this week’s update.  This is encouraging as we are seeing average price per registration holding at $30.70.  Our progress with the All in for Autism meeting on 7th April is good – our guests and Bellevue Reporter are confirmed and we are working on b-roll in preparation.  We need to lock in the final media representatives, which will happen this week.

Registrations (Howard’s Analysis)

The search of the registration data base at midnight last night was encouraging, especially in relation to the gain in registration dollars.  The total dollars collected in registrations are now $28,778.  This compares to only $25,594 at the same time in 2016.  This advantage of $3,184 in 2017 registration dollars is significant and is a good baseline to move forward with even further gains in the coming weeks.  With respect to registration numbers, we stand at 854 in this 2017 year compared with 1,378 at the same time in 2016.  Encouraging is the fact that the average registration payment this year is $33.70 and this is well ahead of the average registration of $18.57 last year.

Last year, we took in a total of $47,911 in registration monies.  If we continue to hold the average registration value above $30 and hit a total registration number of 2,000 (exactly 145 below last year’s registration number), we would generate a registration $ figure of at least $60,000.  ($30 X 2,000 = $60,000)   We would do even better if we approached our current goal of 2,500 registered runners and walkers.  If we can in fact hit or exceed the $60,000 level in registration dollars this year, we will easily cover the additional cost of shirts in 2017 and increase the chance of improving our net dollar gain in this major 10K/5K fund-raising event of the BBRC.

Sponsorship

A number of us are reaching out to our sponsors to secure support with the promotional activities of the event through their channels.  Francine will be proactively reaching out to Sponsors with their discount codes, so we can encourage them to spread the word with their employees and friends/families.  With our promotional approach of just 10% discounts, we will not jeopardize the average price that we are looking to maintain at around $30 per participant.

We did connect with Sturtevant’s (thanks to Fred Janssen) who may be interested in coming in as a sponsor – we quoted them with a package at $1,000.  We are waiting on their response.  In the end, we have the option of getting them in as a booth sponsor.

PSE did respond back to me and confirm that they will come in as a booth sponsor this year.  Similar to Symetra, this will be their test to see if this is a future even that they want to be associated with, so we will use this as an opportunity to upsell them into a sponsor package for next year.

Marketing

We are coming very rapidly on the 7th April with it only being five days away.  A lot of the organization with respect to the event has been accomplished and I wanted to note some of the details here:

  • Room/Table: Paul, Kim and Alex we are well on the way to having the Glendale meeting room setup for the Mayoral Proclamation and All in for Autism Leadership Award announcement. It will be an in-theme and different layout to facilitate the audience’s involvement with the event.
  • Guests: we have confirmations from all the guests. This includes the Mayor, City, Kindering, SOWA and Bellevue Collections.  We will have some 15-20 additional guests in addition to our membership.  My thanks to Joellen for handling the Mayor/City guests, Steve Luplow for handling Bellevue Collections and Michel for securing Dennis Bounds.  Zach Scott has also confirmed his attendance to the breakfast.
  • Press: Chris Boland is working with securing radio representatives. Bellevue Reporter (Ryan Murray) are confirmed to attend for the event.  We are still working on securing the TV broadcasters.  This will have us covered on all mediums and will be an awesome catalyst to help us reach an audience that we can promote the event to in the goal of getting to 2,500 participants.
  • B-roll video: Michel Carter has already been connected with Kindering, SOWA and Dennis Bounds to secure.  Zach Scott has also confirmed that he will be willing to be videoed for the event and we are working on scheduling this to happen.  The good thing about the b-roll is that we can use this for promoting the event in the future as well.
  • Press Packets: I have gathered most of the materials and this will be sent to Kim, who has kindly agreed to pull them into ten packets than can be handed out on the 7th
  • Press release: John Uppendahl and I have drafted the press release for 7th I am in process of getting it approved by the various parties involved, and at this juncture waiting for two outstanding approvals.  We are also hoping to tie in with T-Mobile’s efforts and Adam Mihlstin is working on closing this out for us.
  • All in for Autism Leadership Award: we have had the plaque made for the presentation to Mimi Siegel. We are hoping to make it a surprise for her on the day, so please be discrete in terms of mentioning this outside of the race committee.  This will be the finale to the event on 7th April and I am hoping will start a new award that BBRC can use to promote its efforts to the community with respect to Autism.

In the meantime, here are other details from the ongoing outreach that has been underway this past week:

  • We launched two email/social media promotions this past week: end of month discount promotion and Autism Awareness Month discount promotion. We want to keep the momentum going with registrations now that we are gaining traction.
  • Flyers and posters continue to be distributed around the community. My thanks to everyone with respect to their respective outreach.  More details can be found in the PR Communication plan located here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gc1rxtqg0ulbwuk/Bellevue%20Run%20Communications%20Plan%202017.xlsx?dl=0.
  • Connected with the Sounders FC community outreach team and they will be willing to promote our social media activities when made available via Zach Scott’s media channels. Working with Zach to make this happen.
  • We are working on getting the bag stuffer flyers for Uwajimaya through Orswell Events, so we can have them promote our event at check out. These will come with a 10% discount, so we can encourage registrations and measure the effectiveness of this campaign for the future.
  • Volunteer CTA: Paul Osborn and Dustin are continuing to corral members through their promotional activities. It looks like we are tacking slightly ahead of the prior years, so we are having a positive engagement here.

I know that there are a lot of individual activities underway to help promote the event.  Too many to mention here and I appreciate all the club members who have personally let me know about their contributions.  It is great to see more engagement from the membership.

Volunteers

We are continuing to see momentum here.  Technically we’re still ahead of pace.

Have = 156 / Need = 142

Still Needed:

  • Course Volunteers = 117
  • General Registration = 4
  • Course Marshalls = 1
  • Water Station = 20 (We have them – just need to sign them up)

We are going to maintain our visibility on this area of activity as this remains a critical component for the success of our event on the day.

Booths

We have seen PSE sign up for a booth.  We are also working with engaging our sponsors to have them sign up for booths, which Colleen is doing a great job of leading the charge on.

We have Sturtevant’s interested in participating and working on the details with them to see if we can get them involved.  We should also help Colleen with reach outs to our personal contacts to see if we can get more businesses involved.

My thanks to Colleen in working with others to secure support from Whole Foods in providing snacks, etc. on the day.  I am also thankful for the support of Jeff Cashman and others in securing water from Costco for the day as well.  I like the hustle that is underway to make sure we take care of the gaps when they materialize with our Race Village.

Logistics

A couple of updates on vehicles for the event.  Steve Luplow let me know that we may be at risk with the loan of buses from EPS.  I have since spoken with the school and working on an arrangement that may allow us to use the buses – we are still waiting for confirmation that it is acceptable.  I have also secured a pickup truck for Dustin and the introduction has been made.

Traci has worked out the details for the Kids Dash, so we can make sure this event is fun and successful for the kids on the day.  Now we need to see the registrations ramp up to make sure it is all good.

No other updates with respect to the logistics, which are all being handled by our team in conjunction with Orswell Events.  My thanks to everyone involved with this area to date – you are pros!

Finally

We are coming into the home straight!  Wow, it is only three weeks to go and we still have some big items to get taken care of with the promotion and logistics before the day.  I am continually impressed with the level of engagement from this team, especially in ownership of your areas and the ideas that you have contributed to our organization.  I look forward to working with this team as we literally race to the finish line :-)!