A Recap From 2018 Town Hall

This past Saturday, we met at Peticolas Brewing Co. for our annual Town Hall. This year, we had a lot to talk about and we are sharing it all with you here!

We started off the day with our boys beating the Portland Timbers 2-1. It was a great game and we had a lot of fun watching at our new away watch party home, Peticolas. Shortly after the game, we got going on all of the basic information for the 2018 Season. You can find all of the basic information on our structure and officers here on our website. What we are mainly addressing is the Q&A session where our members got to voice concerns. You can read all of this information below.

1. With the new parking set up, will DBG, EM, and LSL be relocating their tailgate spot? The front office is not relocating us. However, we also cannot give the free parking capabilities to our members with the current set up. Leadership of all three groups proposed a new location today to Kris Katseanes and are currently awaiting an answer. We believe this new location would be the best for all three groups given the current parking situation. We will post more details as soon as we have them.

2. Has the FO given any indication of a vision for the North End (i.e., over the next couple seasons?) and does that vision include DBG and the rest of the supporters groups?

The FO has not given a projected vision for the North End. As far as we are concerned, the Garden belongs to the supporters and we get to choose how we shape it given the current parameters. We are joining forces as it pertains to chants, drums, etc. while also trying to keep our individual spirits. As always, we will give you any updates on the situation in the North End as we get it.

3. "How will you be improving communication with members? In my experience last year, communication about events, ways to serve the community & DBG, etc, was either non-existent or far from sufficient. This creates a feeling that DBG isn't as welcoming to new members as it should be, that there is a bit of an insular "core" group of members, and that while membership has grown, engagement is very shallow. There were multiple times when I was the only person to show up watch parties last season. Let's be honest, there aren't many of us passionate FCD fans. A premier supporters group like DBG should foster and grow fandom, not make loving FCD harder than it already is."

1. Our current forms of communication are announcements on our website, e-mails (monthly newsletters as well as others for highlighting different events and happenings), twitter, instagram, and Facebook (Fan Page and Full 90 Members page). What is it that you would like to see in addition to this? How can we ensure that you are getting all of our communication. 2. We are always looking for ways to help engagement. Our welcome team is working on ways to be open during all events including game day and watch parties. All of our watch parties have been moved to Peticolas Brewing Co. this year. We are hoping to see an increase in attendance with this. As for engagement, we suggest always showing up to outside events: community outreach, tifo painting, etc.

4. "Chants. How they going to work? Like wit EM and what not. And we need new ones. Like ones that start by people not just led by the capos."

Our plan with EM and LSL right now is to switch off with chants and taking breaks in between to give the drummers from both groups to play beats. This should also help with energy of the capos and what not. Unfortunately, because it is 3 different groups working together, we do ask that you follow the capos because we will be combining chant lists this years and to sound like a cohesive unit, we want to stay together. We do understand that there are times when it is just right that something comes from the crowd, and our capos will do the best they can to communicate with EM and LSL on that. If we need to break off for a moment to do our thing, we will, but the more voices together, the more impact we have.

5. "Are we going to try and work with the other supporter groups to grow louder and support the team even more? Come up with same chants, etc? I think it would make the Beer Garden a more daunting place when visitors come." Please see above. Also, we are always open to taking suggestions!

6. "What type of accountability is there across the leaders for lack of effort during gameday/tailgating events? Such as if the food is the same and boring each time, or lack of excitement and energy during games, etc. I know there’s a gameday leader, but do other leaders pick up slack where it’s due or do they just let it continue to fail."

So, with this, we will first look at the structure of DBG. DBG consists of 7 Directors and 8 Officers. The Director board directly keeps the officers accountable. When the ball gets dropped, the directors do step in, help, and in an extreme case, will remove an officer if it is deemed necessary. So, yes, there are definitely levels of accountability. You can find our bylaws and the structure on our website.

As for the food, our grill monkeys work very hard to prepare and deliver food every week. This past year was actually one of our most diverse years with food that included 72-hour Irish Goodbye sous vide corned beef sliders, stir fry, tacos, jambalaya, hand pressed beef sliders, pork and chicken sliders, brisket, and many other options. Because we are a non profit organization, our culinary arts section of the tailgate is limited to a set budget. We operate on donations for everything we do. So, we have to buy tailgate supplies, food, tifo supplies, items for capo boxes, drums, flags, and anything else that we may need for the groups through the profit we make on merchandise and donations from the tailgate. Our grill monkeys do an amazing job with the short staff they have and the limited budgets. If you would like to see our tailgates continue to improve, we would encourage more donations and help in the kitchen section of the tailgate area. We also take supply donations. Please see our NEW gameday chair, Stephanie Ikeogu, for a list of items you could bring to help with the funding.

As for the lack of excitement and energy, we are always looking for new and fresh blood to help us capo, hold flags, drum, etc. Capos do a huge job for us in the fact that they pay for a ticket to the game and then get on a box to have their back to the field almost the entire game. Many of these people do this job EVERY game. Understandably, this could create one to lose energy as the season goes on. The best way to help? STEP UP AND JUMP ON A BOX! We would love to have you! As most people could assume, having as large of a group as we do, it takes more than one person to make this a well oiled machine.

With this, if you would like to get involved, please contact the following people: Welcome Committee - Emily Ernst - membership@dallasbeerguardians.com

Tifo, Design - Dan Crooke - branding@dallasbeerguardians.com

Tailgate, Capo, Drum - Stephanie Ikeogu - gameday@dallasbeerguardians.com

7. "Does DBG intend to work with the Season Ticket Advisory Board given that Bryan Michel mentioned his position in the Full 90 group as a member of this board?" Absolutely. Now that we know we have a Full 90 Member on the STH Advisory Board, this will be another avenue to have the voices of the Supporters Groups heard. We will be in contact with Bryan and working closely with him this year. In addition, we will have a section on our website where you can submit questions, concerns, etc. for the front office and we will take those directly to the front office. We will escalate your concerns until they are given an appropriate answer.

8. "Where do you see DBG this time next year?"

We see the Dallas Beer Guardians continuing to grow as a group not only in numbers, but in volume and invitation. We want everyone to know they are always welcome with us and that we have their best interest in mind. In a year, we would like to see a star over our crest, but more importantly, we will still be fighting for our members to whatever degree we need to. This group really is a family and we will continue to foster that.