Team Update - 8th January 2017

Team,

A Happy New Year to you all!  I hope that you were all able to enjoy the seasonal festivities with your families – it certainly seemed to fly by this year.

Well, we have a lot to update you on with respect to the Run.  It is fair to say that our work is now going to start as we begin the process of building momentum for the race in April.  So, without further ado, here are the updates.

Course Update

This continues to be an open item.  The latest update is that Jeff Orswell met with Titus (Bellevue Dept. of Transportation) and Lt Sanabria (Bellevue PD) just before Christmas.  In short, the City is wanting us to keep as much of the routes from the previous year as possible in place.  We’re discussing simply moving  Race Village to one of the parking structures on the north side of 4th between Bell Way and 100th.  Steve Luplow is talking to the Bellevue Square people about the use of one of those areas.

The idea being that we’d then move the Start/Finish to 4th.  It’s going to add a little distance to both races, but we think it’s our best option.  We’ll start running west on 4th, turn south on 100th, turn east on 2nd and from there the courses will be the same as last year.  We’ll then return the same route in reverse (Bell Way to 2nd to 100th to 4th).  Jeff is waiting to hear back from Steve Luplow on what Bellevue Square says, then will schedule a follow-up meeting with the City and have Steve and Jeff represent us to finalize it all.

We’ll also address the pending construction coming on 112th for the installation of light rail, the utilities construction on 116th at SE 8th and the construction at 2nd and 102nd to make sure we’ll be clear in April.

Sponsorship

We have updated our brochure to remove Seattle Childrens from the sponsorship.  We have not been able to schedule a follow up meeting with them at this time, so I think we move on.  I have been able to connect with Kindering’s business development manager (Alison Morton) and we will be meeting in the next couple of weeks to discuss ways that we can leverage their partnership.  More to follow.

We did receive some disappointing news from Brooks with respect to the race shirts, which they will not be able to donate to us as on previous occasions.  They did offer to sell us the shirts at  $6.50 (a lower cost per unit).  The good news is that we were able to rally around the issue with some other ideas.  Steve Luplow was able to connect with Katherine DeStephano and explain the situation.  Katherine generously stepped forward and reached out to her contacts in Marketing at The North Face who have allowed her to use her co-op dollars for the Bellevue 10k.  Furthermore, Katherine agreed to have Escape Outdoors to be the 10k sponsor-at the $7500 - we will discuss if you prefer it in T-shirts or in cash.

Steve Luplow is also in contact with Bellevue Square team about engaging them at the $10,000 sponsorship level.  So, we hope to secure their support for the run once again.  John Martinka was also able to secure the Overlake Medical Center at $5,000 sponsorship level.  I know there are more updates to come, but I did want to let you know that we have traction with this side of the race.  It also looks like Concur is interested in continuing at the $2,500 sponsorship level, which John is looking to close.  Also, John is working with Jeff Cashman on the Uwajimaya sponsorship as well.

This brings me on the final point that I want to make with respect to sponsorships and that is for you to rally around John and Jenny in making sure we get the word out for sponsors.  Each of you please reach out to your networks and members of the club to put out the call to action.  I am in the process of reaching out to my network and waiting for some responses and Alex Chehab has generated a wonderful list of groups involved with Autism work that we hope to leverage for outreach and support in our efforts.  We can all make a difference.

Marketing

We were able to launch our early registration program in December with the assistance of Orswell Event’s support.  We updated our website, sent out Facebook and emails encouraging runners to register early to secure the discount during the holiday season.  Finally, we have produced our first batch of brochures to be distributed around the area.

Alex has been working been working with Adam Stuhlfaut (Director with SHOES-n-FEET – Running!), who approached Mike Ralph about supporting our efforts this year.   Adam and Alex are working on a plan to leverage his organizations capabilities to support our race via social media and his contacts, with content like videos, etc.  The PR team will provide him with a schedule.  We are also looking to setup a raffle to generate interest and we are working on the details with respect to what this will look like.

This is also when we will want to begin the process of promoting our race, both internally and externally, so I will be looking to the PR and Club Promotion teams to kick start their plans, so we can generate excitement amongst the community and the membership for our run.  I will be approaching the two teams to engage on the process to support our success in this area.  We can never be too early for this effort and to this point I ask all of you to leverage your social media to like and promote our event, when the opportunity presents itself.  Here is the link for you to use: https://secure.getmeregistered.com/get_information.php?event_id=125588.

Website

You will notice that I have been updating the Team section on the website with the updates, so that we can keep a record of all the efforts for this event.  Please do the same for your areas, so we have one source of truth for the race and a record that others can learn from.  Dropbox will also continue to be an archive for us.

One big update was the update that Alex and Michel made to the wording for the summary of the event.  I think you will find the language more appropriate for communicating our event:

“The All In For Autism 10K & 5K Run/Walk is a family event brought to you by the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club (BBRC) to raise awareness for Autism and other related disorders. The All In for Autism event is put on to show support for families and/or caregivers, affected by this growing neurological condition, and to thank those in our community who work to provide support and success to these individuals, in the hopes of expanding the circle of care. 1 in 68 individuals are affected by autism, and show impairment in the following areas: communication, repetitive patterns of behavior and social skills. Funds raised from this event go to: Kindering, as well as other identified agencies, plus Rotary projects that benefit children and families locally and internationally. Together, let’s make a difference! If you are a runner, volunteer, and/or sponsor, sign up today  and show your commitment!”

Please note the increase in profile of Rotary, so we can make sure we are telling our story.

 City of Bellevue

Joellen Monson has been doing sterling work in making sure our paperwork is handled with the City.  This is an unseen body of work that is very involved and Joellen has been instrumental in our success with the City and the good relationship we have with them.  Joellen is continuing to shepherd this process to submit appropriate paperwork from the City and is working with Jon and Ted for the race as needed and while keeping us updated.  Once the course has been determined, Joellen will be able to bring this work to a conclusion with the City.

We will also be able to leverage the relationship with Ted at the City (he is a huge fan of the race) and use their channels across the area to promote our run.  So, I will be looking to have our PR team engage with Joellen and Ted to take advantage of this opportunity.

Volunteers

We must not overlook supporting Dustin in his significant task of securing volunteers.  To this end, please make sure you leverage your networks and other contacts you have to make sure we do not leave this as a last ditch effort.  Volunteers are an important element to the success of the race and, more importantly, they can be future Rotarians as well since they will be exposed to our work.  I have already made contact with Eastside Preparatory School to secure support from their newly formed Community Services group and I will also be looking to ways that we can secure support from our Rotary youth groups this year.

Event Day Activities

I’m pleased to say that we have agreed to a proposal from Rogue Multi-sport for the timing tags.  My thanks to Howard and Steve Roberts for their engagement in reviewing this proposal.  We have kept the price the same as last year and built in some mitigations regarding the risk with securing the course. We have one very significant change in scope, Rogue will be providing disposable timings tags attached to the backs of the race bibs in lieu of the reusable shoe tags as done in the past. This is a big upgrade and eliminates the need for chip collection and return and avoids any cost associated with shoe tags not being returned.

Team Meeting

I wanted to notify the team that it is my intent to hold a meeting when we are back in our regular location at Glendale.  This will allow us to all get caught up in person and start to work on the key tasks to drive momentum and engagement with the event.  I will speak with some of you at next week’s meeting in person, so we can start some of these activities sooner.

My thanks to you all for your continued support of this event.  We are well positioned to make this a wonderful event this year, even with some of the challenges ahead of us, and this makes it all the more worthwhile.  Onwards and forwards.