Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
I have to admit that I did not read the entire thread. I started reading after Libby chimed in. Sounds like it got a bit out of hand before that. So now for my two cents. FIRST is many things to different people. It is about changing the culture. It is about inspiring young people. It is about promoting STEM related careers, just to name a few. I feel that FIRST is growing at a pace that it currently can not keep up with. Yet we are still trying to grow it faster and trying to get more students involved. This is great, but at some point we are going to have to figure out a way to catch up with the growth that is continually being promoted. The more teams we have and the more people there are on the teams, the bigger CMP needs to be. The question is how big can it get. We already are playing too few matches to suit many of us, and some are even talking about allowing fewer teams to go to CMP. Wait, how can we expect fewer teams to attend the best event in the program and continue adding teams to the program... Then there is the I have a life outside of FIRST statement. FIRST is a volunteer organization and most of us do have a life outside of FIRST. Yet many of us are giving more and more time to the program to make it better. In some cases we are spreading ourselves too thin and having to choose doing one very important part of FIRST to do what we consider another very important part. Example, our team mentors have helped with a Mock Kickoff hosted by another great area team for the last 4 years. A great event that helps new and veteran teams as well as new and veteran students and mentors. This year we are not able to help with this event, because we chose to start a middle school FTC team last year. Another great program, that is taking students that are bored or tired of playing with Lego's and introducing them to a higher lever, that in turn is bring a higher level of student into our FRC program. However the organized, scrimmage for the FTC program is on the same day as the Mock Kickoff. Hard choices to make for mentors that are busy with their personal lives, including that JOB thing that so many have getting in the way. Not sure where we would find the time to further promote the growth of FIRST.
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