From now on every three months
the ECS leadership will provide an update to its members on items it
is working on in the medium to long term. Most members think there is
a lot going on all the time and that is true, but the ECS leadership
team has become quite efficient at dealing with the busy schedule we
have had this season-a quite abnormally busy schedule. Another consideration
that needs to be understood by all members in regards to "behind the
scenes" of ECS and its planning is that it is not done for the sake
of elitism or because we don't trust our members, it is done out of
efficiency as many great ideas from members just cannot work or happen
due to constraints of being a supporters group in north America. These
constraints may seem obvious to some and to those that they are not,
well it would take more than a newsletter to discuss them. I would be
more than happy to discuss these over a beer if you are curious to know…but
set aside at least 2-3 hours of your time.
A brief rundown of the ECS
and where we are at:
The ECS has over 2000 paid
members-this includes 2009-only, 2010-only, and all of those that were
good and bought both 2009 and 2010 membership packages. Memberships
can be bought at home MLS games at Fuel and online (https://www.weareecs.com/shop/).
Membership sales and database tracking are performed by Sounderstig
and Drephe. We have about 100 membership packages remaining and will
not be ordering anymore for the 2010. We also will keep "old" gear
for ECS-only to purchase on the store in the future years. We think
it's a good idea to allow members to purchase "retro" ECS gear.
We have had an incredible traveling
season this year thus far with a higher average than last year and with
solid away trips in RSL, Vancouver, Portland, LA, San Jose, and San
Salvador. Our travel group in leadership does an excellent job to make
things easy for our members. Travel is organized by Liquidmj, who is
assisted by Yukataninja, Blueeyedbuddhist, and CursedFrogurt.
ECS media has many prongs to
it which include all media categories. This is a part of the ECS we
wish to expand in the future and provide more structure to. It is a
difficult aspect to provide structure due to its nature, but it has
been good so far but will be enhanced in 2011. The podcast has been
revamped and is now dubbed "The Sweatshop" run by Null78, Ebam,
and MMClark. Facebook page is run by MMClark, Tweets are done by ssfcultra,
website media and forums are run by ssfcultra, Drephe, Yukataninja,
and Beerbaron. Game-day media, which includes the info table and membership
table and now the ECS propaganda team, includes Sounderstig, Fuzzyforeigner,
thecutter, banky, and many others. Charity and fundraising efforts
in the ECS are run by the Royal Femmes.
Our game-day crew is large
and varied depending on the match, but Size8 is in charge of tifo crews,
Null78 is in charge of security, and of course we have our capos, drummers,
flag wavers, tifo crews, flag wavers…to which we all owe a great deal
for their effort and vision.
Finally, the Front Office (FO)
liaisons for ECS are Fuzzyforeigner and ssfcultra. We meet monthly or
at least once every two months with the FO to get a status check on
ideas we wanted to work on and presented in previous meetings. We discuss
the general vibe within the group and within the club. Nothing too revolutionary
is typically discussed in these meetings in terms of insider information
(player signings, etc are not discussed). The bulk of the discussion
is in regards to how the ECS can grow, how it wants to grow and engulf
the Brougham End so that our chants can continue to influence the players
and their performance on the pitch-because that is in essence what we
are all about. Things that we are currently pushing for include but
are not limited to the following:
ECS ticket control
in the GA and GA to be seriously considered an ECS section and a standing/chanting
section. To some of you this may be a case of "duh", but it is still
a work in progress and it will likely improve in the future as more
ECS make their way into this section and as new people join our ranks
and like what we do. We hope next season to have more control of tickets
for one-off games and also working on getting fellow ECS members season
tickets in here once the renewal process starts for 2011. We also want
better signage at the top of the section and the GA tickets to mention
that views may be blocked and this is a supporters section. When ECS
members complain about certain things in GA they need to pause, take
a step back, and think of what the GA was like at kickoff against NYRB
in 2009. It has improved massively and will continue to do.
Season end party
collaboration with FO to get players there and to gain exposure for
the massive season end party on Dec 4th where we hope to
pack 1200 supporters into a massive party with music, drinks, and good
times. We have already sold in one week 60 tickets just on the insider.
We encourage our members to buy these up NOW.
Upper GA is next.
This year we have seen great participation in upper GA with tifo displays
and songs. We love what is going on up there and want to get those three
sections more packed with ECS members if the GA becomes sold out once
again. Once renewals happen and if people don't get into the GA we
will point them to these sections. Opening this up to GA is not an option
at this point, but getting more ECS up there will also limit the issues
with flags blocking views.
Early 2010 we were
able to get the info table…a great addition that allows us to capture
many folks who can't go to pregame festivities. We hope in the future
to allow people to pick up their memberships at this table if they prepaid
online at the ECS store.
Away travel and
away sections for the 2011 season (Portland and Vancouver). We continue
to pressure the FO to get on board with the fact that allowing massive
traveling support for the NW darbies will increase the atmosphere and
bring MLS to a whole new level. They are still hesitant due to previous
violence at these matches. We believe that a solution can be found but
current position of our FO is that they will have the one current away
section open and that's it and that they will give the TA only as
many seats as the Timbers are willing to give us. And of course we are
pushing so that the ECS is in prime position to get a big block of away
tickets at these darbies. The SSFC alliance council is also pressuring
for this.
Other long term plans that
the ECS is looking at are:
- 2011 Membershippackage in early 2011. Expect something cool for this.
- Increasing variety of merchandise available on the ECS store.
- Getting more of our members to be proactive about educating others to follow the supporters
way in the GA and around the stadium. This is a huge task, but if each
and every one of us explains to newer fans in the GA what we do, why
we do it…there is no chance they won't be back and supporting our
boys. Each member must consider himself an ambassador of our style of
support and be able to convey to that new person our vision: en entire
Brougham End full of flags, banners, two poles, singing and following
our capos!
- Increasing the numbersand presence of our subgroups. As you all know we have some very good
subgroups that are larger than some entire supporter groups in MLS.
We want to see these grow more and to each gain a designated spot in
the GA. On game day we want these groups to primarily seat in 121 and
123 to spread our chants and the participation even further.
- ECS Awards party and 2011 Membership Package drive. Last year we had a very good 400
plus attendance "season end party" at the Last Supper Club. We envision
having something like this in the New Year around the end of February.
So yea, last year we had just one event-this year we will have the official
"season end party" on Dec 4th and then this event, with
place and time TBD, in late February. Why have one drunk mess when you
can have two? This will be a chance for you to get the 2011 ECS membership
package, mingle with ECS members, and get geared up for the massive
2011 season.
- Let's go MentalSeason end party on Dec 4th. You know about this, if you
do not, check the insider and/or the other article in this newsletter.
- ECS is very stable financially and is setup to be sustainable whilst allowing us to do
a large amount of tifo, events, travel, and group ticket buys. We are
poised for more growth next season with the NW rivalries joining the
fold.
There are other things that
I am sure I forgot, but these are the most pressing and important ones.
Otherwise the ECS continues to grow thanks to its members putting in
the effort to bring friends into our fold and by providing the best
atmosphere in MLS at Qwest. If you have a skill that you think the ECS
can use please pm me (Fuzzyforeigner on the boards) and I will make
sure we can include you someway into helping the members I listed above.
Also feel free to email me at grmockos@gmail.com with any questions.
We have space to grow and improve
and we must always maintain a degree of self-criticism if we are to
continuously improve. Lets keep it up and Take 'Em All. UP THE SOUNDERS.
UP THE ECS.
Greg Mockos
ECS Co-President
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