Re: The District System
 

From what I understand, MAR is pushing back the districts back so that the last one is week 5 rather than week 6 to avoid this problem. I believe Bridgewater will be a week earlier and Mt. Olive will move to week 1 next year

Re: The District System
 

I'd rather us not skip weeks 2 and 5. FiM had two in Week 5 and none in Week 6, and we had a Week 5 (and no 6) in 2012.

To be fair, I suspect HQ knew it was coming, but they didn't want to land on Easter. Not sure why MAR avoided this when no one else did, though.

Re: The District System
 

Another thing to keep in mind is that MAR has tried to avoid having events conflicting with Easter weekend, and next year's Easter weekend is much later than the last two years(ie. past the 7 week competition season).

Re: The District System
 

To be honest, I'm not even sure that week 2 should be an off week just because of HSPA testing. I believe it's typically administered Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The district events are Friday night setup and then Saturday and Sunday competitions. Not much of an overlap

Re: The District System
 

Completely agreed on this point and Sean's point about leaving a breather week.

Re: The District System
 

As a member of the original NJ planning committee and now a MAR board member, I can tell you the no week two events is more of a venue specific problem than an always no week 2. It would be better to host a PA based event for many reasons. 1) We have to set up earlier than Friday evening, so we are inconveniencing schools. Schools are giving the HSPA and do not want any other chaos on their school on that day. If there is bad weather, HSPA moves to Friday. Also, whether you agree our not, many school districts have a NO fieldtrip policy the week of those exams. A huge problem happened before districts when FIRST signed a week 2 contract with Sovereign Bank Arena and we had to alter the Thursday schedule to start at noon and end at ten. My team had to go to the board of ed and plead their case too even attend. We were told that we could go after the test, but if there was bad weather that week and HSPA moved to Friday, we could not take a single junior whatsoever. They could ride the fan bus on Saturday. You cannot create a scenario that handicaps teams. There may be a week two this year; it is all about scheduling.

I personally looked into holding rooms at champs for MAR. Steele meetings position was they were never in a position where they could not house a team from a week six or seven event so we couldn't hold an entire block of 150 rooms just for MAR. Also, I personally looked into holding 90 tickets out of philli and 90 out of Newark. The cost is prohibitive. We have to pay upfront which tires up assets we don't have yet in MAR, and what if no-one uses them, MAR is out a lot of money. I am looking into it again this year.
I struggle with the idea of a week 6 or week 7 championship they both have pros and cons. week 6 means the 12 teams qualify have more time to plan for St Louis at the inconvenience of the other 40 teams that are attending the MAR championship.week 7 means that all of those teams have an extra week of planning for the marching p.m. ship however the cost associated with those 12 teams going to World Championship a week later is significant.airfare has gone up at least 100 to 200 dollars a seat and it's difficult to get more than 20 seats on the same plane at that point. it was rather a nightmare having people know two days in advance if they qualify for March championship but most of the teams were well prepared to just jump in run holding hotel rooms already in having busing already scheduled only one or two teams that I know we're unable to make a transition and that was because of various factors one being poor planning on the mentors parts on that team. there is a logical point cutoff as to where you could really determine whether or not you were going to even be invited and most teams could mathematically at least figure out that they were probably going to be invited to the March amp in shipping had plenty of time to prepare.I am personally torn is which I think is the best option inconvenience for tea to help 12 save money to championship or inconvenience 12 to help the 40 and also it's a volunteer issue to make sure we have enough volunteers going back to back those weekends.someone suggested going to a 5 week schedule which Iunfortunately think would never happen because we are then asking all of our volunteers to probably volunteer two weeks in a row maybe 3 weeks in a row and some of them would volunteer 5 weeks in a row the amazing one to come and help set up the field breakdown the field and behind the scenes stuff that none of you see.

Re: The District System
 

Even if that was the only alternative (it's not, as pointed out by other posters), yes. A week less to prepare for St. Louis still leaves several days to prepare. Infinitely better than trying (unsuccessfully) to fill spots the morning of load in at MAR Championship.

Re: The District System
 

Since no one has said this yet, I feel like there is a serious problem that I have not yet seen. What if all of FIRST became districts? Regardless of which events teams went to, the team could be from NY go to a district in CA and then another one in TX, the first two events count for points. Then whatever your home "region" is is the district championship that you could qualify for based on points. From there it would follow normal district CMP rules to determine who goes on to World Championships.

This would help with the overall positives of a district system while still seeing the great and fun competition of 233 or 846 going up to Boston, or 125 in Orlando.

Re: The District System
 

This is a great idea, but I see one problem: FIRST becoming 100% districts. Why, because it is easy for the U.S. and Canada to do districts (for the most part, at least), but what about those international teams, like 383 from Brazil? It is difficult enough for them to make 1 competition, but 2? And then if they make district championships, 3? Not to mention how it would be decided what district they would fall under. I just can't see FIRST going all districts within the next 15 years, and by that time who knows what crazy new system they will have found to manage teams. If a 100% districts system does happen, I sure would love interdistrict play. But the chances of that are pretty low.

Re: The District System
 

Funny that you chose a team that traveled to 2 US regionals in 3 of the last 4 years.

Re: The District System
 

::rtm::

Well... That's awkward. I just chose 383 because cmrnpizzo was referencing teams at the Boston regional in the last 2 years, so I decided to do the same. Did not know that they were one of the few teams in distant parts of the world whom actually attend 2 regionals.

I still stand by my point.

Re: The District System
 

Having a school bus drive you to a competition or booking airfare is simply not a reasonable comparison. This is MAR. We are not within driving distance of st Louis to commute home each night. Over half of the teams attending MAR champs didn't need to book hotel rooms. We all need to book hotels in St. Louis. If you are talking about unreasonable expectations, FIRST wanted a check cut by my board of ed within 24 hours of offering me a waitlist spot. They wouldn't take a purchase order. That is unreasonable, not having sixty teams in MAR who know they have a good shot at going to MAR champs being told to confirm the travel plans they already secured. The one team who fell through wasn't prepared to even consider going and had no intention of taking their students. Those students were mad and had a huge meeting with their superintendent after saying this is unacceptable and will never happen again. That is why they were filling one spot Thursday morning.

Re: The District System
 

Should have gone with Chilean Heart (I forget their number). Went to GLR in 2008, then were shut out of MI due to districts being implemented. They've found a home in Los Angeles ever since.

Deciding what district an "outlier" falls under should, IMO, be left up to the team's "home" event and the team to figure out. For the Chileans, their "home" event is Los Angeles; should California go to a district format, I would be all for allowing them to join that district rather than having to find a new "home" event.

The other part--attending two events with high travel cost/awkward time to get there--is not just a problem for international teams outside of Canada. There's the HI and Israel regionals, with their team groups, which are too small for a district system currently (and, in the case of HI, in-state travel can be a bit of a pain if you have to switch islands). There are some other blocs of teams--Kansas City among them--that are in a similar boat but could theoretically combine with another bloc to form 2-3 district events with a "reasonable" drive time. There's the UP teams in MI, who have to travel with hotel to a minimum of one if not two events.

That said, there are ways to make it manageable; for example, I could see international teams going to back-to-back events in Weeks 1/2 and taking the intervening time to do some tourism. It could also be possible to apply a "correction factor" to the points for teams that can only do one event, or have certain championship events have "at-large" slots for international teams on top of their in-district slots.

Re: The District System
 

I understood the reference ;) This is where the system would get a little bit wonky but it could still work. Like when hypothetical rankings are placed on CD, the international team could only attend one event and then have their points doubled to compensate for one less event. Then, if they were to qualify for district CMP there would be an additional spot added to that competition so that a team who otherwise would have qualified wouldn't lose their spot based on an assumption.

This would help limit the number of competitions that international teams are *forced* to attend while still providing them a nearly equal opportunity.

I forgot to define international. I think that it would be safe assumption that anyone outside of continental North America could be considered international. My apologies to 359 and company, but Hawaii is essentially international territory in terms of location.

Re: The District System
 

I might be taking this in a different direction than you intended. I haven't been to a district event, but can anyone who has comment on how they would feel if they only attended a single district event for their entire season? The concept of getting more bang for your buck has been thrown around quite a bit, but I don't see how only attending a single district event all year and then possibly not qualifying for the district championships would in any way benefit international teams. You can't auto-qualify all international (extracontinental?) teams. Some regions could support at least a few district events, but some teams would be stranded if all of FIRST transitioned without adding significant international team growth. Unfortunately, significant international team growth requires more international events, which, in turn, require more teams, which, in turn, require more events, which, in turn...