CESA: Update #2
It is CESA’s mission to create a community of endurance industry professionals in Canada. Moreover, we’re committed to providing members with significant value in the form of education, content, discounts, best practices, etc. If you keep reading, you will learn more about the tentative plan re: membership benefits as it relates to 2020 and 2021, how we selected a Government Relations Firm, and how you can help grow the alliance membership base.
We are excited to report that 100 organizations have joined the alliance, which represents 4,089 events and 4,825,255 participants. We want to keep growing these numbers.
Town Hall
We will be inviting you to a virtual Town Hall in the coming weeks to meet the INTERIM board of directors of the Canadian Endurance Sports Alliance. This 1-hour webinar will serve to provide an update, hear from the members, answer questions, and introduce you to the principal lead at Blue Sky Strategy, the government relations firm we selected.
Government Relations (GR) Firm Selection Process
We interviewed and received proposals from three firms. In the end, we voted unanimously for Blue Sky Strategy. This Ottawa-based firm specializes in public affairs, strategic communications, government relations, and media relations advice and execution. The firm is working with other sport and recreation groups on similar requests of government and is experienced in this type of work for our sector. This proposal outlined what the next 3-5 months of work will look like and how we are to have the best chance at success in asking for relief. The co-founder, who we will work with directly, presented tactics to the group in a 90-minute presentation and demonstrated a deep understanding of our industry. Co- founder Tim Barber is one of us, an athlete and ironman who has volunteered and sat on the board of directors for Run Ottawa. His extensive knowledge of our industry gives us an advantage in Ottawa where he is both connected and well respected as we discovered through reference checks. Tim was able to easily walk us through next steps, including how to formulate an ask, how we will tell our story to the people that matter and he identified who our natural champions will be, both politicians and bureaucrats, while also providing direction on how to increase our chances of success by formalizing this group.
Incorporation
We’re in the process of incorporating as a non-profit association. We’ll provide more clarity regarding structure, reporting, voting, etc. in the next update.
Funding
The CESA is volunteer driven, the success however of the CESA’s mandate will be dependant in part on engaging key third party experts, resources, and normal expenses. CESA is evaluating sponsorship, membership fees, and educational events as means to fund the short term mandate. Thus far, donations has been eliminated due to time and complexity of a charitable structure, and membership has been prioritized based on ease of implementation to fund the short term government lobbying project as well as the long term objective to deliver industry specific value to CESA members. Sponsorship remains on the table to help reduce the short term and long term burden on members.
Sponsorship
More details will follow and ideas are welcome.
Membership Fees
In short, we need to cover the GR firm fees. Review the charts below to better understand what the next 18 months might look like.
2020 Membership Fees
Standard Membership (Free)
Government Lobbying
Bi-weekly updates
Silver Membership ($500)
Everything in Standard Membership, plus
COVID-19 best practice guide for Canadian races in Q4
Access to national industry impact study in Q3
Gold Membership ($750)
Everything in Silver Membership, plus
Multi channel press release distribution
Ability to post job postings
Platinum Membership ($1000)
Everything in Gold Membership, plus
Bulk discount access to vendors TBD
Vendor Membership ($1000)
Everything in Platinum Membership, except
Government Lobbying
Bulk discount access to vendors TBD
2021 Membership Fees
Standard Membership (Free)
Regular updates
Silver Membership ($500)
Everything in Standard Membership, plus
Access to annual national industry impact study
Ability to post job postings
Gold Membership ($750)
Everything in Silver Membership, plus
Multi channel press release distribution
Discount to Running USA membership
Platinum Membership ($1000)
Everything in Gold Membership, plus
Bulk discount access to vendors TBD
2x discounted conference tickets TBD
Vendor Membership ($1000)
Everything in Platinum Membership, except
Bulk discount access to vendors TBD
Alliance Members
Please ask your race director friends to join the alliance by July 10th, 2020. This is the date we’ll need to submit some of the data to the GR firm.
Aggregate Data to date
Subscribers: 100
Participants Represented: 4,825,255
Events Represented: 4,089
FTE: 761
PTE & Contractors: 2,508
Volunteers: 64,343
Provincial Breakdown
Alberta: 16
BC: 19
Manitoba: 1
New Brunswick: 1
Newfoundland and Labrador: 1
Nova Scotia: 5
Ontario: 37
PEI: 1
Quebec: 3
Saskatchewan: 4
