10K run

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.

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 23^rd 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, 14^th 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 11^th 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 22^nd 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.

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 7^th 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 23^rd 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 7^th 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 – 10^th
• 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 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd 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 7^th 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 23^rd 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 23^rd 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 23^rd 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.

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 7^th 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 7^th 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 7^th
• Press release: John Uppendahl and I have drafted the press release for 7^th 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 7^th 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 :-)!

Weekly Key Metrics:

• Registrations (Goal: 2,500): 621 – up 17.2%
• Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,000 – no change
• Volunteers (Goal: 243): 90 – no change
• New Members: 0
• Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $91623 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)

Summary

April 7^th will be the press event for the Mayor’s Proclamation.  The team is now coordinating our effort to make this event happen in the most effective manner.  T-shirts are designed in the hands of the vendor.  New posters and flyers were delivered to the club.  We are starting to see engagement from outreach in registrations with a 17.2% bump this week, which is encouraging.  We have secured prizes for 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place positions in the 5K and 10K from Kendra Scott.

Registrations (Howard’s Analysis)

We currently have 621 registered participants.  This compares with 1,176 registrants at this same time a year ago.  Our growth rate in registrations in this 2017 year is clearly behind the growth in registration from last year.  This past week saw an increase in 91 registrants.  The comparable increase in registrations for the same week last year was 103.

Fortunately, the dollars raised in the registration data base for the 2017 year is fairly comparable to that of the 2016 year.  Notice that the amount raised at this time in 2017 (exactly four weeks out) is $20,623.  This compares favorably with the $20,387 raised in 2016 at the same time.  The average price of the registrations sold on the website so far this year is $33.21.  This compares with an average price of only $17.34 a year ago.

We are now poised to make a significant push forward with registrations in these last four weeks.  If we can reach close to our current target of 2,500 registrations and keep our average sale price above $30, we should be able to significantly increase the dollars raised in this year’s event.

Sponsorship

We have engaged Kendra Scott as sponsors for our 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place prizes for the runners from the 5K and 10K events this year.  We will be promoting Kendra Scott through our participant packages and via the announcements, so that participants can visit the store, where we will receive 20% from any purchases made.

Adam Mihlstin has successful persuaded the facilities people at T-Mobile to turn the lights to Blue for the month of April, which is brilliant.  Now Adam is working on securing someone from T-Mobile community team, so we can tie this back into promotional activities for our event with them being a sponsor.

We have confirmed that we will have six VIPs from Bellevue Collection for the April 7^th Proclamation event.  We will also be reaching out to other sponsors to see if we can invite them to attend our meeting as well.  The more the merrier.

Marketing

We have confirmed that the April 7^th meeting will be dedicated to the promotion of the All in for Autism run.  It will be open to the press and we will be focusing on raising the visibility of our beneficiaries’ causes, incorporating speeches from our celebrities (Zach Scott and Dennis Bounds) and sponsors, before launching into the Mayor’s proclamation.  At the end, it is our intent to award Mimi Siegel with the All in for Autism Award, which will also be the call for nominations for next year’s award.

To this end, we have a number of activities that we are coordinating around with making sure we have the Glendale meeting room setup correctly (press friendly), confirmation of guests and securing the details we need for the press in terms of B-roll and packages.  It will be a change up from prior meetings, but it is important for us to make sure we get the most from this event to drive up registrations in the last three weeks before the race.  More specific details will be coming out to the team next week.

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

• Kindering Gala (3/25) had a promotion for our event in their auction brochure – we are seeing some increases in registrations as a result.
• Social media campaigns – we promoted an end of month 10% discount with $50 gift card from SHOES-n-FEET this week. The promotion ends this evening.  Pushed through our Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook channels.
• New posters and flyers have been delivered to the club for distribution. We will also want to get them to the Boys & Girls clubs, Rotary Clubs and other venues to increase visibility – all of you can volunteer to help here, please get back to me.
• I have a meeting confirmed with the Bellevue Reporter Ryan Murray for next week and will begin to lay the ground work for our event’s promotion through their newspaper and to have them attend our proclamation event.
• We have the new press release ready to go, once we have secured support from T-Mobile. Here is the current iteration for you to read: https://www.dropbox.com/s/270l5tz15u0vmhd/BBRC%20Press%20Release%20v2.docx?dl=0.  We need to run this by our beneficiaries and sponsors this week for their approval.  I do not envisage any issue.
• Joellen has worked with Eastside Pathways to have them promote our event through their channels with the result that they will be pushing our details out.
• We have created an email JPEG that can be used by our members to reach out to their network via email to drive up participation. This was sent out to all of our members last week.
• New Tech Northwest have promoted our race through their newsletter for a third time to their network of 28,000 registered email recipients this week.
• Zach Scott has passed on the community outreach person at the Sounders to me. I have reached out to them to seek their support in promoting our event via their mailing list.  We will also be taking up the opportunity to use the open booth from Orswell Events to promote our event at the Sounders Run on 9^th April – I will be looking for volunteers to help me hand out leaflets and posters on the day.
• Special Olympics Washington will be promoting our event via their community of 30,000 registered supporters on email.
• We have been seeing some uptake from our sponsors in pushing through their networks and we will continue to work with them to leverage this as an asset for registrations.
• Neil Bretvick has secured support from his firm, Hellam Varon & Co., to feature “All in for Autism” as their cause for April, 2017.  To that end, they will have their people choose the option of either a cash contribution or to volunteer in some capacity, or participate in the run. This is a great example of how our members can make a difference.
• Coach Akana from Sammamish high school football had a meeting with his coaching staff and booster club, and they are all on board to participate in the 10K run on April 23. They will have raise sponsor dollars, which they will donate to the club after the monies have been collected.
• I met with the Forest Ridge Interact club this past week and encouraged their participation in supporting the race with volunteers and participants. They will be leaning in and supporting us with both.  It was good to see them attend our club this week and reaffirm their commitment.
• John Uppendahl is working on the 7^th April PR plan and we will be sharing this with everyone to make sure we are all hands on deck to make this event successful. This is our big shout out to the entire community, so we need to make sure we are working hard over the next couple of weeks to pull this event together and make it successful.  This will help us really hit our goal of 2,500 participants.

Logistics

Our team in Steve Roberts, Steve Luplow and Orswell Events are moving forward on the course planning and logistics.  Our biggest challenge remains the start and finish of the event, where we will need to manage the runners and traffic.  With new administrators from the City involved, we will need to go by the book until we have them “trained” for the future.

T-shirts are being produced – here is the artwork for you to view: https://www.dropbox.com/s/59v2n6med0lsuw9/V10929_BellevueBreakfastRotaryClub_Mens_E2_SS_RoyalBlue_Proof_edit_V2.pdf?dl=0.  They are going to look good and they have our club figured prominently on the front, so we can raise our profile.

Joellen indicated that this year we will not be required to notify all the property owners along the route if we have the run notification boards’ setup around the route.  This is great news and saves us time.

We do have an issue with the Eastside Prep school not being able to lend us their buses for the event this year.  Steve Luplow has alerted me to the issue.  I will be following up with the school directly to see what I can do to get them to reconsider.

This area of activity will start to ramp up and our need for volunteers will be high as this gets sorted out.

Finally

We have a lot of moving parts over the next two weeks as we focus on making sure our PR and related activities all come together.  It is going to be a huge driver for the registrations and, ultimately, for the amount of money we can raise to support Kindering, Special Olympics and our Rotary projects.  We will all need to do what we can to make this come together successfully and ensure that the momentum it generates helps us get the number of participants over the 2,500 level.

My thanks to you all for the contributions to date – you have all been brilliant in terms of ideas and getting things done.  I truly appreciate the support.

Weekly Key Metrics:

• Registrations (Goal: 3000): 530 – up 9.1%
• Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,000 – no change
• Volunteers (Goal: 243): 90 – no change
• New Members: 0
• Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $89,066 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)

Summary

We have started to plan for the PR event on 7^th April.  There is a lot to do to make this happen successfully.  This is also going to be critical as we need to drive up registrations.  In terms of logistics, our collateral will be delivered next week.  We will then want to have members pass this out to the community.  Revenues are actually tracking with last year and volunteers are tracking ahead in comparison to last year.

Registrations (Howard’s Analysis)

We now have a total of 530 completed registrations.  This represents an increase of 44 over the previous week and an increase of 120 registrations (31 + 45 + 44) over the past three weeks.  This registration rate lags a bit behind the comparable 3-week increase of 129 registrations (13 + 58 + 58) in 2016.

The 530 registrations as shown for this 2017 year compares with a registration total of 1,073 in the 2016 year.  Hence, we are exactly 543 registrations (1,073 less 530) behind at the “5-week out” point in 2016 and not catching up very fast.  Since our goal for this 2017 year is now set at 2,500 and this 2,500 is exactly 355 more than the 2,145 we had a year ago in 2016, we must step up the registration pace significantly in the weeks ahead.  In summary, we must close a gap between the current level of 530 registrations and the target of 2,500 in just five weeks.  That is an average of 1,970/5 = 394 per week.

The fortunate part (and perhaps our light at the end of the tunnel) is that, in terms of “dollars raised” in registrations, we are not nearly as far behind as we are in “number of registrants”.  The attached sheet shows our total dollars raised so far in the registrations (not counting donations made through the registration process) for the 2017 event is $17,316.  This is almost on track with the $17,737 raised a year ago at this same time.  If we can just kick up the number of registrations to something close to that target of 2,500 for the 2017 event, we can easily exceed the dollars raised in registration from the prior year.  Hence, the target should be “register, register, and register” in the next few weeks and right up to race day.

Sponsorship

We secured Special Olympics Washington as a Race beneficiary this week and they will be engaging in an outreach for our event.  They have a database of 30,000 people and are committed to promoting our race with at least two newsletters to their community, amongst other activities.

We have also connected with some of our sponsors this week to engage them in promoting the event.  A good win will be from Nintendo and OfferUp who are actively promoting within their companies.  OfferUp is going to block purchase 25 registrations after my call with them this week, which they moved on when I indicated the pricing increase coming up in April – this is a good technique for creating urgency with our sponsors.

Steve Luplow confirmed that Bellevue Collections will attend our club for the April 7^th Proclamation.  I was able to connect with the Bellevue Association to secure their support for our Bathe Bellevue in Blue campaign.  Bellevue Chamber has not responded to my outreach.

The next step is for the Sponsorship team to reach out to other sponsors to see how we can engage them in the process to drive up registrations.

Marketing

Marketing is the core area that will be the primary focus for our team.  It is critical that we push much more aggressively here to have a direct impact on our registrations.

• MOVIN is also interested in connecting with Kindering to involve them in the PSA activity that we have going with the radio station outreach and this will be a nice touch for our PR.
• Social media campaigns – our donations for the event are tracking ahead of last year and this I think comes down to the social media campaign through Linkedin and Twitter. We need to push this more aggressively and so I will be ramping this up personally.  It will be good if all of you can do the same.
• Mayoral Proclamation (Bathe Bellevue in Blue): the planning for this event is underway. We have to coordinate the meeting on 7^th April with the press, VIPs, sponsors and the mayor’s proclamation.  The plan will be distributed this week to those who have volunteered to be a part of this effort.  A shout out to Michel Carter who has confirmed that Dennis Bounds will be attending our meeting on 7^th April for the proclamation.
• New posters and flyers are printed and will be made available next week to the club. I have also confirmed with the City of Bellevue that they will distribute these to their Parks & Recreation facilities.  We will also want to get them to the Boys & Girls clubs, Rotary Clubs and other venues to increase visibility – all of you can volunteer to help here, please get back to me.  Tom Miller has already reached out and will be distributing flyers through the Easter Seals community/facilities to raise awareness.
• I need to coordinate some additional updates to the website this week. We also need to do another SHOES-n-FEET promotion for the end of the month, before the price increases.  George is also working on a call-to-action email graphic that we can share amongst the membership for outreach to our members and others – this will be available this week.
• I will be working on a new press release for this week to start some of the promotional activities we need for the final five weeks before the run itself.
• I will be sharing the PR plan latter today to everyone who is a part of this team. Again, any help that can be lent to our efforts here will be appreciated.

Internal Promotions

Made a presentation to the club this week on the progress to date and put out a call to action for the 2 volunteers and 22 participants from each our members.  I am kind of stumped on what else can be done here to engage the wider membership to support the club’s biggest fund raiser, so any ideas from the team will be most welcome.

On a bright side, Paul Osborn’s campaign to help Dustin with volunteers has been doing well.  The engagement with the board and roles has been fun to watch.

Rotary Club outreach – next week, I would like to have a skit or outreach to our members to engage our local Rotary clubs for support of the event.

Logistics

We have received the Special Events Permit from the City, so we are a go.  Thanks to Joellen for staying on top of this area.

Our course logistics and planning are the next big effort after we solve the registration flow.  My thanks to Steve Roberts and Steve Luplow for getting started on the conversations.  There are a ton of moving parts that need to be coordinated between the club, City, Orswell events and volunteers.  Let’s remain close to any support that needs to be provided here.

T-shirts are being produced – we have changed the artwork a little to minimize the price as a result of the colors that we have, so this will come a little bit more expensive than planned, but still less than what we were originally quoted by Brooks.

Finally

In the end, this event can only be as successful as the engagement we can secure form our members, the community and our sponsors.  So, to Howard’s point, lets focus everything we do on driving up registrations by doing everything we can possibly can to increase the visibility and support for the Race to hit our goal of 2,500.  We have five weeks left and we need to hustle to get our registrations moving!

Weekly Key Metrics:

• Registrations (Goal: 3000): 486 – up 10.2%
• Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,000 – no change
• Volunteers (Goal: 243): 90 – 47.5
• New Members: 0
• Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $87,375 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)

Summary

We have received the event permit from the City of Bellevue.  We have also secured support from MOVIN and 98.9 ROCK have agreed to support event with PSA and Booths, which will boost PR.  Preparations for promotional support (Mayor Proclamation/Company/Discounts) are underway.  Collaterals and T-shirts ordered.

Registrations (Howard’s Analysis)

Notice that the update this week is labeled as Week06 and this shows the status of registration numbers and dollars 6 weeks out from race day.  We now have 486 registered runners/walkers compared with 1,015 runners/walkers a year ago this same time of 6 weeks out.  The situation with respect to dollars is much better as we have $16,375 now compared with $16,284 a year ago.  While it is true that the advantage for this year basically goes away if we look at registration dollars alone and without donations.  This year’s registration dollars (without the donations) equals $15,780 compared with $16,044 a year ago.  In relation to dollars overall, one can say we are just about the same place we were a year ago.

The gain in actual “number of runners/walkers” over the past week shows that the weekly gain this year (from Week07 to Week06) was only 45 as compared with a gain of 58 a year ago.  If we hope to get to the earlier target of 3,000 runners/walkers this year, we obviously have to start increasing these weekly gains very soon.

It is encouraging to see that the average registration value has held up well, actually increasing from $32.15 a week ago to $32.47 last night at midnight.  Part of the reason for this consistently high average registration dollar value is the lack of KIDS signing up.

It is of interest that we have only one KID signed up this year at the Week06 point compared with 13 KID reservations a year ago at the same time.  Where are the KIDS?  A small part of the answer (though not a total explanation) is the fact that 7 of the current 73 registrants under the FAM/GROUP designation are under 14 years old and would likely have signed up as KIDS had they done the individual rather than group registration.  Many more folks are using the group registration process this year than was the case a year ago which makes a precise comparison in this area of KIDS registration (between the two years) a bit difficult.

Sponsorship

We have received major sponsorship agreements from Parallels, Acme Foods, OfferUp and chasing down the others.  Invoices sent out and Howard is chasing down the collections of the sponsorship dollars.

We have a coordinated effort to collect all the sponsor logos this week for inclusion on the website, t-shirts and collateral (major sponsors only).

There are two outstanding sponsors that I will be chasing down this week to ensure they are not left off the t-shirts and website inclusion before the event kicks off.

Steve Luplow will be working with Bellevue Collections to have them attend our club for the April 7^th Proclamation.  I am also working with outreach to Business Chamber and Bellevue Association to secure their support for our Bathe Bellevue in Blue campaign.

Marketing

Marketing is the core area that will be the primary focus for our team.  It is critical that we push much more aggressively here to have a direct impact on our registrations.

• The big win for us this past week is thanks to Chris Boland who has secured the support of MOVIN and 98.9 ROCK radio stations support for our events with PSAs and being present with their booths. We will most certainly tie this into the bigger campaign around the Mayor’s Proclamation.
• Social media campaigns – we are seeing some impact in this area, where there has been pick up in the primary areas of focus (Linkedin, Facebook and @BestDarnClub). I think one of the drivers for donations, mentioned in Howard’s analysis, is coming from our focus in this area.  Paul Cunnington will be picking up this activity for us now that he has returned from his travels, so we can have a more dedicated resource on this area.  This will be done in combination with Orswell Events support through their social channels and it is my hope to leverage Zach Scott’s in the next campaign with them, as well as the promotions for our sponsors and discount promotions.
• Mayoral Proclamation (Bathe Bellevue in Blue): we are going to have our work cut out to make this the cornerstone event for our PR blitz. This weekend I will work on a plan, which will be based on the great input from John Uppendahl that we can then work on delegating out the tasks to the team for its execution.  We have four weeks in which to make this happen and it is very do-able.
• Our press releases are now available on the website, so please feel free to leverage them in posts across our social media channels. They are located at the bottom of this page: http://allinforautism.org/event-info/.
• We also started our reach out to company’s who are sponsoring the event to leverage them in promoting our event. I have meetings with Amazon, OfferUp and Nintendo planned for this coming week to get the ball rolling.  We will need all other sponsor companies to be approached to do the same.  Furthermore, I am working with Zach Scott to get the support from the Sounders organization to raise the profile of our event through their community.
• Collaterals ordered. Orswell events will be creating the new posters and flyers for us with the view that we will have them within the week.  We will want to develop a distribution plan for the new collateral to help raise the visibility of the event across the community.  These will be delivered at the next club meeting, so we can pass them out to the membership.

Internal Promotions

Continuing to push on the theme for member engagement around securing two volunteers and twenty-two participants for the race.  I will be sending out another call-to-action email to the membership for their support (already sent out an update to Linkedin group).

Paul Osborn has been working on the internal club poster for the All in for Autism event, which will include our sponsor logos, etc.  This will be a motivating tool that we can leverage in our internal promotion…perhaps another skit.

Rotary Club outreach – it will be a good time for us to visit clubs in the area to promote our event.   Plan for making this happen will be beneficial and again we will want to engage members, once the new collateral have been delivered, to make this happen.

Logistics

T-shirts have been ordered now that that the volumes and varieties have been worked out.  We will be ordering 2,500 t-shirts in the navy blue and the artwork will be provide by Orswell events.

I have asked Orswell Events to get the posters and new cards published, so they can be distributed out through our channels in advance of the event.  I will find out when the delivery date is due and communicate to the club.

Colleen has been busy on the outreach for booth sponsors.  She has sent out the call to action for booths sponsors with a view that we can secure support from local business in participating in the Race Village with their booths.

Finally

If there is anything that any of you want to get involved with, please let me know.  There is plenty of work to go around and there is no need to be shy if you are interested in making a contribution.

Onwards and forwards – let’s get our registrations in and the preparations for the race going.  It is only six more weeks to the big day!

Weekly Key Metrics:

• Registrations (Goal: 3000): 441 – up 7.5%
• Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,000 – no change
• Volunteers (Goal: 243): 61 – no change
• New Members: 0
• Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $85,280 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)

Summary

Internal skit kicked off to motivate our membership into actively promoting registrations (each member is being asked to find 2 volunteers and 22 runners).  Zach Scott spoke to our club as part of his involvement with us and he confirmed that he will actively promote our race.  We have made some decisions related to the logistics for the event that relate to the Race Village and our start/finish on the route.

Registrations

We currently have 441 registered runners/walkers this year compared to 957 a year ago.  Again, the dollar comparison fares much better with a registration dollar total of $14,280 this year compared with $14,838 a year ago.  In other words, our dollars in registration this year are only $558 less than they were a year ago at this same time.  We still of course have some catchup to do.

We should also observe that during this coming week (Week07 to Week06) a year ago we picked up an additional 58 registrants with a total additional dollar amount of $1,446.  This means a stepped-up rate of registration and dollars must occur now.  Let’s hope the challenge that Wendy and Carmella gave at the meeting this past week (22 registrants per member) starts to hit home with the troops.

Sponsorship

We have update the website with the logos for many of our sponsors.  We are in process of securing the last few that we did not have logos for, so that they can be put onto the sponsorship page.

We are working on locking down the major sponsor agreements, so we can begin the process of invoicing for payment and to also engage our sponsors to promote the event through their own internal channels.  This will help support our own efforts in driving up participation in the event.

We are also locking down on a couple of sponsors to hopefully close out this effort.

Marketing

We are continuing to build on our momentum for marketing.  The key updates are as follows:

• Established campaign on Linkedin (using their $50 credit) and seeing some success in terms of reach.  This is in combination with a regular schedule of publishing content to the group site:

As can be seen in the chart, the campaign has been having the desired effect in terms of  engagement and traffic.  In the meantime, we need to continue with the Facebook, Website, Linkedin and Twitter promotions – to this end, I will be working with a colleague of mine in the office who will help to push this through a broader set of channels.

• Zach Scott spoke at the club this week and through anecdotal feedback it was well received. Zach has confirmed that he will be willing to work with us in terms of promotion on press releases, social media and connecting us with the Sounders organization to get the word out.  I will work with the media team to get this done.
• Kindering have confirmed their support for the Mayoral Proclamation on 7^th April by having some families in attendance to provide the human interest component to the press who will be present. We now need to craft the press release and organize the logistics to make this event successful.  One big part of this will be working with the Bellevue Collections to see if we can get the blue lights turned on for the weekend in the buildings (Alex and Steve to work on this one).
• Our press releases will be published to the All in for Autism website, so we can leverage them from here in our promotions, since the local media has not picked anything up yet.
• We have two discount promotions left for the event:
  • One before the end of March, which we will combine with the SHOES-n-FEET voucher. This will be for the $5 discount and it will be tied to the Stride into Spring Theme
  • We do one last promotion for the Mayoral Proclamation on the 7th April and it will end at midnight on 9th April. This will be a $5 discount in the support of Autism Month
• New Tech Northwest promoted our event once more through their newsletter (which goes to 28,000 email aliases) and I am hoping for a bump in registrations as a result.  Here is the promotion itself:

Internal Promotions

My thanks to Wendi, Carmela and Chris for their internal skit – “It’s All about the Numbers” – this past Friday.  It was both fun and a great call to action for the club membership to find 2 volunteers and 22 runners.  The good news is that this is far easier to motivate people to do rather than asking for funds, so it is our hope that the club responds.  I sent a follow up email to all the membership on Friday evening to further underscore the value of the skit’s message and to call them into action.

Logistics

T-shirts price is good and includes landed costs.  I just need to work out the volume and variety needed across participants.  We will go with blue t-shirts and working on the artwork and logos for the back of the shirt.  My intent is to have this order placed next week.

I have asked Orswell Events to get the posters and new cards published, so they can be distributed out through our channels in advance of the event.  I will find out when the delivery date is due and communicate to the club.

We made the decision to have the Race Village in the carpark area, rather than try to plan for the availability of the park space.  There is too much risk to the organization of the event to consider alternatives at this juncture.  We also have a challenging start/finish with this course that will require additional coordination on the day to make sure we can manage the flow of traffic and participants during the event.  Steve Roberts and Steve Luplow, in conjunction with Orswell Events, will work out details to make this work.

Finally

If there is anything that any of you want to get involved with, please let me know.  There is plenty of work to go around and there is no need to be shy if you are interested in making a contribution.

Onward and forwards – let’s get our registrations in and the preparations for the race going.  It is only seven more weeks to the big day!