Dark Clouds Board of Directors Meeting 8/11

The Board of Directors’ next meeting will be held over Zoom on Wednesday, August 11 at 7:00pm.

The meeting is open to the public. Please email president@dark-clouds.com to request access to the online meeting.

Dark Clouds Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

7:00pm

Zoom

Board Members Present: Meagan Weber, Shaun Sapala, Alicia Pedersen, Samantha Solberg, Andrew Bruski, Nick Rodriguez, Maggi Heyer

Absent: Andy Kahl, Ty Hoaglund, Jack McFarland, Andy Wattenhofer, David Zeller

Guests: Todd Anderson

I. Call to Order

7:04 p.m.

II. Approval of Minutes

Alicia Pedersen made a motion to approve, Meagan Weber seconded. Motion passes.

III. Reports of Officers and Committees

a. Treasurer’s Report

Supporters season ticket membership pass-through money has begun flowing again. MNUFC sent Wonderwall the first installment of $15,000. The expectation is that there will be one more of around that size and then a third one of whatever the remaining amount ends up being.

Work is progressing on establishing the Wonderwall financial policies and procedures, but things have slowed greatly due to summer, vacations, and people generally deserving of time away. Things will start ramping up again next week.

I have not yet sent in the $1,250 donation to the United Way 211 fund. I’m sure there is a link to do so buried somewhere in this Slack, but if someone has that handy it would help me.–hold off until end of Membership sales to do one lump donation

b. Committee Updates

Merch

Sold 95 Pride scarves so far (out of 145); couple dozen beer glasses (only in person sales). We’re assuming we will sell all of the Pride scarves and shirts, so donation to Avenues should be $1395 and we’re prepared to make that donation. New shirt in the next few weeks. Bruski will connect with Andy W to make that donation.

Matchday

We had matches again! Varying results due to people being out of town. Smoke issues-company doesn’t have enough folks to staff the matches; we may end up with smoke machines again. We need capo volunteers! Also new flags with the new branding.

Mar/Com/Social

No update

Silver Lining

TC Futsal event this Saturday (there is an open 12:30 slot that we neglected; looking to fill that)-event is both soccer clinic and one hour of service for the kids. Green Garden event has been stalled a bit. World Cup Street Fair-waiting on contact from Henry (supposed to be end of July). Sanneh has not reached back out to us after their fire.

Membership

Survey discussion-our new volunteer made our survey look good! Links here: 2021- Dark Clouds survey data.xlsx 2021 DC Survey summarized results.pptx
We are actively looking for volunteers, especially with Ashley moving away; also meeting next week to plan an event at Ninth Street.

Partnership

Summit has stuff for us for the MSS Silent Auction Dark Clouds basket. We’ll need to figure out what all the DCs are putting in (I believe we have a couple of ideas already) and how we are going to package it-Sam will connect with Zeller on this. Do we have anything around the office that might work? Do we want to just buy a basket or something? Anyways, thoughts are appreciated. I’ll be getting the stuff from Summit either this week or next, so we can take this off the to-do list soon
Morrissey’s is on-board as a Watch Party partner. Bruski can speak to the space, but the set-up is really good for watch parties (and meetings!). I am confirming a few details, but for sure will be $4.50 Summit EPA’s and Keller Pils on ALL match days with Wonderwall card. There is a way to close off that space even for late matches.
I am trying to confirm an anytime deal and not having to have everyone show their cards for the match day deals. Once all of this is confirmed (hopefully today) I’ll reach out to MCS to promote on socials and I’ll update the website.

Tifo

Nothing to report. Would be fun to have a tifo this year.

IV. Old Business

Update on Action Items from June
1. Poll was posted in Slack-no one objected to meeting in person, so we can explore that for the August meeting (back room of Black Hart, Nick will supply the tech for anyone to remote in).
Other Old Business
1. nothing

V. New Business

Fragapane incident-summary/did WW meet with the team? No, WW did not meet with the team. Abe talked to them though, but did not really go anywhere. The WW statement that went out was a collab from the board members and wanted to focus on trying to create a culture in which this type of incident is not acceptable.
Jim Crist’s idea for a tailgate in Blaine to celebrate 10th anniversary of Stars winning the Soccer Bowl-NSC seems like a no-go. Currently still brainstorming. We’ll get a bigger pitch from Jim C in Slack.
Annual plan items for July
- Discuss/start plan for DC End of Year Party/Charity Auction (solicit auction items)
  1. Nick and Fallon are now on this committee with Meagan and Zeller, Alicia too
  2. Items already being collected
  3. Committee will meet before August meeting
  4. Motion to call this the Party Planning Committee (Nick), Alicia seconds. Motion carries.
- Start discussion about Membership Cards-move to digital? Keep the same type of cards as we have been doing? This should be a WW initiative, not a DC initiative. WW should be handling these cards in whatever capacity they are in. Table to August.
- Add D4C collection to July annual plan. Scoreside app discussion for this collection.

VI. Open to Board

Prideraiser total was around $1400
CEO hiring process-this was discussed at the WW meeting last night. At this point, they are far along in the hiring process. What WW is interested in at this point is the SGs putting forth ideas about how this new CEO could work with us (knows SG culture, how important it is, and ability to interact with the community). Transparency in the selection process.
At the last home match, an object thrown onto the field. Incident was taken care of fairly quickly – was a good example of self-policing. We don’t think this was a normal DC, but we should probably reiterate what our bystander training is (what to do in these situations) through MCS (tweets, etc) before our next home match. Maggi will reach out.

VI. Open to Public

Todd Anderson is present on the call and wants to get more involved. We will definitely take him up on this!

VII. Set Date for Next Meeting

Meagan will set on Slack

VIII. Adjournment

7:55pm