Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Our team is debating adding a small fee (~$50) to join our team due to a larger number of students (75~) than previous year to cover the additional cost of transportation. Traditionally plans of adding a fee have been shot down due to being located in a public school with a wide range of income levels.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We don't charge a fee. However, we do require students pay a portion of their travel costs normally their portion of the hotel bill. We have so many trips and things that a one time fee wouldn't really be fair for some of the students on the team. We have some members that never even attend competitions, they just prefer to come after school sometimes and that works for them.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Many public school teams have fees. When I was on 766, the fee was $200. This was similar to many of the sports teams fees. There was school criteria for financial aid. I don't recall the details but from the team perspective we would receive paper work identifying students who meet the financial aid criteria and waive the fee. edit-now illegal in california
https://www.aclu.org/blog/human-righ...-fees-students

hopefully, your school has that criteria already established.

3476 and 3309 have students pay for some of the travel expenses like hotels.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

That is better than having students that rarely attend meetings, but prefer to miss school for the competitions.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We charge the same activity fee as all extra-curricular sat the school. I believe the school itself has a scholarship fund to help underprivileged students pay those fees as needed.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We don't charge a fee, but it sounds like you could benefit from a similar system my high school marching band had set up. Every student had a band "account" and all fees related to participation were charged to that account. We were responsible for paying off the account. We could either pay it out of pocket or pay it with fund raisers we had throughout the year. There were some people who could fund raise several hundred dollars and that would roll over to the next year. Whatever was leftover when they graduated got distributed to the other students accounts.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

That one we don't allow to happen, well at least not often. Competitions are a privilege not a right.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We used to have a fee of $200 per student. We also had a plan in place to not deny access to the team, if you could not pay. We were also getting support from school for cost of registration. Team did not pay for travel, we competed in Michigan District system, so we had access to local competitions. Almost 100% of funding went for robot parts.

Two years later we were told by the administration we were not a pay-to-play school district, so we could not charge a per student fee. We were also told that our fund raiser of manning a state licensed charity poker room, (on two weekends a year buy adults over 21 years of age) would not be allowed, as it didn't look good for the school to be associated with Gambling. (In Michigan where schools are funded by a state lotto?) These were tough blows to the program.

Fortunately, We picked up some GREAT corporate sponsors, first with a NASA grant for veteran teams who had lost funding, then with Chrysler.

Last year we were able to support some student travel costs, for the first time, and we were able to support our local FLL teams, and FTC team with funds from our great sponsors.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

In the past we didn't have a fee, but now we have a fee of $100. Members can either choose to pay themselves or they can fund raise for that $100.
We are still working out the kinks for this year and the major problem we have right now is if a student works to fill out a grant (with a mentor) does that cover his or her expenses?

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We charge a fee of $50 which is pretty low compared to the $300 or so that other school sports cost. we haven't had issues (yet) with students being unable to pay but if so it would probably be handled on a case by case basis

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

While I was on 2220, the participation fee gradually went up over the 4 years I was on the team. As robotics is an MSHSL-sanctioned competition in Minnesota, our school required a $50 fee (which I was never really clear on where it went...), and the team, being very large every year I was on it, had a gradually raising cost for t-shirts and other expenses. Our faculty mentor was very insistent that we kept the fee as low as possible, and if a student couldn't pay, the fee would be reduced or waived completely. A family's financial situation was never a barrier for participation on the team. I believe the total cost was about $150 my senior year.

We also had trip fees for the double DECCer and Championships when we went, but we tried to keep those as low as possible as well.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

422 has existed for 15 years and has never charged club dues... until this year.

Demand for the program has grown to a point where we are scaling fundraising to students participating and we can still barely keep up, so we're asking families to contribute $100 for required team apparel and other expenses. Half of that will go to the apparel of 3 shirts (a robot shirt, team shirt, and competition polo, with possibly a nametag) We're hammering out a program to get students unable to pay the money can get their dues paid, and everyone gets a "free trial" as provisional members until kickoff. Members also pay a subsidized fee for travel events and they are also able to receive need-based funding for that if necessary.

We're actively working through long-term plans to meet a maintained high demand for the robotics program and we see maintaining the dues are a part of that future.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

On Garnet Squadron, every kid has to be a 4-H member ($10 a year) so there's that. Our expectation for this year is that every FRC student brings on or retains one sponsor, though half of anything raised (including by fundraisers like selling LED light bulbs and working USC football program sales) gets applied to their travel costs.

That said, it does not have a big sponsor to satisfy the requirement. Getting the funding is important, but it also means our kids will have to be able to talk effectively about the team and what we're trying to achieve. Sneaky, no?

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

In California it is illegal for any public school to charge any sort of fee or require any materials whatsoever for participation in any school sponsored class or program. A student could show up to class without a pencil, and legally, we would have to provide a pencil. Football teams cannot require uniforms that cost money, they must be provided or optional. Basically, any school charging for anything that is a requirement for participation is in violation of state law.

We do require students to sell 5 E-watt LED bulbs (very minimal requirement). Students get one T-shirt and one regional with transportation "free". Students pay 100% of travel costs for any additional events, and we provide fundraising opportunities to offset those costs. It's far from ideal, but we do not have the funds to cover travel costs.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Man am I out of date. This is what I get for mentoring a private school for the last three years: https://www.aclu.org/blog/human-righ...-fees-students

I guess this was set in 1984 but many California schools have been stretching the definitions of "asking" to pay a fee. For the record, I "had" to pay a fee or the sports team was gonna fold. So go figure. Considering I did not like the coaches, maybe I can get my 200 bucks back?
http://education-law.lawyers.com/sch...ying-foul.html

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

On 2067, every student has to pay $75 each year.
I don't know what it goes towards, but it includes the cost of a team shirt.

Students also pay for events where we need to stay in a hotel/pay for transportation.
For the district championship, I think it was something like $200.
For St. Louis, it was $800.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Winnovation does not charge a membership fee. As a school supported activity, students are required to pay the extracurricular fee ($75, I think). We also ask each family to raise a minimum of $200 by participating in team fundraisers, soliciting sponsors, or writing a check. There are ample opportunities to raise these funds through team activities.

Team funds typically pay for one team shirt, transportation and rooming for in-season competition, provided students meet their academic requirements, participation (hours) requirement, and fundraising requirement. Students cover their food at competition. Off-season events cost is distributed among participants (e.g, hotel room, transportation).

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

1923 does charge a fee for the FRC team.

$200 gets you safety glasses, a t-shirt, a polo, and the ability to qualify for travel with us.

In order to qualify for travel, students must attend a certain percentage of meetings (more meetings for leaders than other students). They must also attend our pre-season and our pre-event workshops on things like scouting, team history, etc - all led by student leaders, as well as sign a very thorough student & parent handbook. Our parents are also required to give time chaperoning our build space (not on school property) as well as money and/or food at least one time during the build season. The student and parent sign off on this when they pay their dues.

Sadly, with our multi-event travel costs we occasionally do need them to pitch in on travel cost. (The downside of inconveniently-placed-for-us districts).

So it ends up being more than $200 if we can't get the funds raised to travel -- but for our kids, that's all the more incentive to go get us some new sponsors each year. The parents being required to come to meetings and spend time with us increases their engagement with the program as well, which has brought us some really awesome support.

Hope that helps!

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

1339 recently added a $20 fee to pay for a t-shirt. Students who intend to participate in competitions, travel, and/or earn a letter are expected to raise $300 (through whatever means).

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

In this thread, I'm a little bit surprised by the number of teams that have such requirements which seem to (perhaps not deliberately) exclude less fortunate students. What a luxury it must be (for the teams) to be able to charge a fee for participation, but what an unfortunate circumstance it would be for that really bright kid who does not come from a family of wealth, and whose family does not have $200 or even $20 to spend for him or her to join.

Perhaps things are just different outside of California...

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Our school's development office is quite paranoid about us talking to potential donors that they also have their eye on (which seems to comprise most people/businesses with money in Oregon), so we're pretty limited in how we can fundraise. Because of this, we need to charge $350 to compete in the spring season, and students also need to cover their portion of travel costs. However, if this is a hardship, financial aid is available for the membership fee and travel costs, and the school kicks in quite a bit if we make it to St. Louis.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

There's always more to the story. Our school has a foundation that pays for everything from books and AP test fees to project and travel costs for students that lack means; students can contract to work at a rate of $10/hr for the school (usually helping teachers out in the classroom), with the "money" coming in the form of paid fees. I also have years of experience that tell me kids treat free stuff with less respect than things in which they have invested, so regardless of the means each student has, it's good for them to have some literal buy in, I think. And I have had students on my team who ranged from homeless to wealthy.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We have never charged a fee to be on the team. Students must set a goal for fundraising and if they meet that goal they get their shirts for free. If the whole team meets the goal set by mentors then travel is paid for as far as we can. Last year we were able to pay for half of everyones hotel costs as well as mileage for parents that provided rides.

Our typical goal is $500 per student, but we have never really had more than 15 active members when build season rolls around. But if we get that plus whatever our mentors beg and borrow, we typically do okay.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

If a student wishes to travel with the team to official FIRST events, he/she must raise at least $250 in sponsorships. While we encourage these sponsorships to be with area businesses, on occasion they're financed by the families or the students themselves.
We also work with the students throughout the year, training them on proper tactics, partner rookies with veteran students, and utilize the Fundraising Toolkit.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

I think others have said this earlier in the thread, but our experience echoes the same: If there is a kid who wants to join our team but cannot, for some reason, pay the money - we work it out. We would never, ever, deny a student for their inability to pay if they truly want to be there. As an example, in our case, maybe the student creates the equivalent of the fee by putting in more outreach hours than the handbook requires or by bringing in a new sponsor.

But with almost 200 students clamoring to join our program, the fee is (1) a way to help cover our district travel and (2) a way of weeding out the kids who just want it on their resume but don't actually want to engage with the program.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

The only fee our team charges is for your heart and soul. No refunds.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

As a primarily homeschool team, we charge a participation fee of $50 per family. This encourages siblings to participate without additional cost, which we've found to be a decent recruiting method.
This fee doesn't cover required student expenses like travel or T-shirt cost.

We had discussed moving to a $250 fee, but none of our leadership team had time this summer to schedule and attend fundraisers to help our students raise the money, which was a necessity in my opinion.

So we'll work on it for next season.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We charge a small fee at the beginning of the year to cover uniform&safety glasses costs for each student. Students pay in full all competitions, most of which are within driving distance under the district system. This year a student that wanted to attend all 8 of our competitions(including 3 off-seasons) would have had to pay about $2,000 out of pocket. We also seek additional sponsorship to help offset transportation costs, this year our district paid for the bus to the district championship and hotels in St.Louis.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

our team Does not charge a fee, but we have requirement for each student raising a curtain amount of money. Rookie members have to raise 100, and veteran members have to raise 300. this money includes any public fundraising event, for example a tag sale so the money we make at the tag sale is divided up among all the student who helped out. if a person does not raise the required amount, then if we become a little short on funds, towards the end of the season they may be required to pay for there own hotel room.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Similarly..
When I ran the team, and even before that, we/they charged an "entry fee" to help offset team costs and to show member commitment. It started out at 60.00 but it went up to 75.00.

That as well as an expected amount of fundraising effort to be able to travel to competitions. We would remind the offenders that they haven't "earned" enough money and gave them (and everyone else) extra opportunities to earn money. Sometimes, they would simply have to "write a check" to be able to go to competition, to be fair to everyone else who did all their fundraising. We would have a deadline of December so we could confirm hotels and other travel arrangements.

I suspect that is how the current Advisors' are continuing to do it, very effective.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

973 has a grey area here.

Students are responsible for their total cost, but most fundraise this. Some parents choose to pay it so their student has to spend less time fundraising.

The team has lots of methods to help kids fundraise; raffles, events they can work, pamphlets to help going door to door or mailing, etc... Most kids end up making $10-100/hr through our fundraising methods.

We've never have a student unable to go because of finances, we always make things work.

I believe it's important that free rides don't exist, it's a very valuable lesson. That being said, it doesn't have to be a financial cost (it can be work instead).

The lessons learned through fundraising are just as valuable as the technical ones. Some students are great technically but are terrified of talking to people, and fundraising can really help get some kids out of their shell.

If we were to sort the kids in order of how much they've learned (which is something we'd NEVER do), even the lowest ranking kid would feel like they accomplished something. Just being on our team and traveling to events means a great deal of work has been done.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We do not charge a fee but I know of a few teams in our area who do charge a yearly fee. From what I've heard, most teams who charge a large entry fee ($100+) also cover a few team shirts as well as their travel costs.

Currently all of our students pay for their travel costs (hotel, airfare/bus/van, food, etc) along with team apparel. It adds up to a lot each season by the time its done (roughly $1000+ per year for 5 events). This year we are attempting more personal fundraising efforts in which the first few items they sell goes directly to the team and any number above that a 50% will go into the student's travel fund in the future.

We've never had a student unable to attend an event due to travel costs as we always find ways to cover expenses.

Long term we hope to expand our corporate and personal fundraisers to help cover portions or all of our team travel and take the burden off of families when we travel.

Our team is currently moving under the 4-H umbrella which will allow us to have team dues but we won't open that door until we have sustained fundraisers that cover all student travel costs. Eventually I would like to see us charge $xyz at the beginning of the year which gives students x number of team shirts/polo/other apparrel, cover their 4-H fees, & the small remainder goes to travel and that's all they pay for the year using our fundraising methods to cover the rest in addition to working hard to bring our travel costs down.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Years ago when our team was a bit bigger and before FiM reduced the cost of travel so drastically we had students pay their own travel costs but those costs could be offset by participation in a fundraiser or by meeting attendance.

Our sponsor liaison mentor had arranged that the team would keep track of each members hours, and based on the hours a member put in, our sponsor would offset the cost of travel for that member. This meant that a team member who put in like 150+ hours essentially got to travel free of charge, and acted as a good incentive to get students to show up and participate.


Since the implementation of the FiM District structure, travel costs have dropped substantially and our team has gotten smaller to the point where the team simply covers the cost to rent Vans and buy lunch for everyone (Students just pay for Breakfast/Dinner and any snacks).
As an example of the cost difference, this year was the first time in 4 years our team had to pay for hotel rooms because all the other events we attended were close enough to commute to every day, even then the team covered the cost because of how much we had saved up to attend states (and then didn't qualify).

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We charge $200 each year for every student on the team. That team member is also required to raise another $200 by conducting some sort of fundraiser designed by them. Any sponsor they get can also go towards that $200 fundraiser. Some students also choose to use a sponsorship or fundraiser to cover their participation fee, and some students choose to pay the $200 they are required to fundraise. The initial $200 (dubbed the Participation Fee) goes towards the team (for uniforms, transportation, and other team dealings). The student-executed fundraiser is refunded to the team member in the form of a scholarship given their senior year. This scholarship goes up by $250 every year the student is on the team. You have to graduate on the team to receive the scholarship.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Those are pretty much same reasons we run a very similar program on my team. Instead of "dues" we run a program where each student is expected to bring in $200 to the team through whatever means are easiest to them. They can cut a check to the team if they like, which immediately helps the team. But they can also use profits made from the fundraisers we run (selling cookie dough, light bulbs, etc.) to build up that $200.

We also directly assign a minimum of two area businesses to each student and require that they visit these businesses to present about our team and request funding. The business visits are probably the biggest way individual students contribute to the team. These alone accounted for around 10% of our budget last year.

This method offers a good compromise for people who are turned off by a fee, and the need to bring money into a team. And it being a "requirement" only really means that students have to do it in order to participate in activities like Kick-Off or Competition. If a student fails to bring in $200 we aren't going to be kicking anyone off of the team.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We charge a $350 fee after we get new team members in October. But, the fee is for travailing and competition costs. So, I don't know if you would count this as and "entrance fee" but we do charge something. We also charge another $300 if we qualify for worlds.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We are charging $50ish to cover uniforms, plus any travel costs incurred (bus, plane, hotel, food). We are fortunate to have eight districts and the state championship within 50 miles, so we don't start incurring travel costs until World level. Parent-power (carpooling) gets us where we need to be for most events so buses and other such expenses are a non-issue.

I plan to be proactive about making sure students aren't swayed by an inability to pay by submitting our student roster to the counseling office and asking if they can cross reference our roster with the list of students receiving free/reduced price lunch. I don't have a particular plan of action if there are any, but I imagine we can come up with a solution that eliminates or reduces their financial burden and saves face.

The poll I would be more interested in seeing results from is "How much does the average student on your team pay out of pocket to get your full team experience (i.e. - they attend all competition events) in A) a year when you do go to worlds and B) a year when you don't go to worlds." That would negate differences based upon what is and isn't included in the participation fee.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Not really suggesting anything about dues or joining fees. But FRC is an expensive sport.
$5000 for your veteran robot to go to one regional (two district).
About $.50 to $1.00 a mile to transport your pit & robot to a competition.
$300 to $600 /person to transport, house & feed you team per event. Somewhat less if you don't have to use hotels. Somewhat more if you use airplanes.
This does not include build costs for the robot or tee shirts & uniforms, pay for the teachers, coaches, mentors. The costs get absorbed in various ways (including supportive parents carpooling), but they are real just the same.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Wave Robotics charges a $100 registration fee to join the program. Here's the breakdown:

$20 to the Recreation Department for administrative fees
$20 for team shirts (typically three t-shirts)
$60 for expenses related to student activities that we pool an account for. This includes if we need to buy a dinner for a night that a parent missed bringing dinner, buying bottled water/beverages for the team during build season, end of the year party, etc...

If a student qualifies for free and reduced, that student pays $50 and the Recreation department still takes $20 so we receive only $30 per student.

We also require students to cover their travel expenses as corporate funding (we do not receive funds from our school district) cannot be used to supplement travel through our 501c3 account. We provide team fundraising activities that go to offset total cost of travel for everyone and have individual fundraising accounts for students to offset their own travel costs.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

The stipulations the donor puts on funds can control what they are used for. Being a 501-C by itself doesn't stop you from using funds to offset travel. You have to be careful how you give individual preference including scholarships & you have to following the bylaws of you corporation though.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Team 20 unfortunately runs about $400 per student as a fee to join the team. This includes a team shirt, a team jersey, and one of our two regionals.

There are reasons behind this monstrous fee in team history, but if you want to know more about that, you can PM me.

Most of the money goes to travel expenses to transport our 100+ student team to the events.

No student would ever be turned away from the team or not allowed to go to an event because of financial reasons, however, so it's not quite as horrible as it sounds.

But as a Freshman, convincing my parents to take on even part of that cost was difficult.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

I was told that, in the Phoenix Union High School District, where I go to school, every club has to have some sort of membership fee, but the amount is up to the club itself. We usually charge enough to cover the team shirts, bandana, and goggles or side protectors that everyone would need to buy anyway. We make sure to tell the team to talk to one of the coaches if the fee is going to cause a problem, but I don't know that it ever has.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

One thing we've been trying to do is to make each member of the team responsible for helping the team procure a certain amount of money. This could be through tax credits, grant applications, sponsorships, or whatever else they come up with, but they don't pay the money themselves.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

456 is a community based team. We have students from public, private, and homeschools on our team. We charge a $200 activity/membership fee plus a travel fee per trip. The activity/membership fee gets team shirts and goes to offset some of the other expenses like robot parts and materials. The travel fees depend on the costs of the trip and offset some of the hotel costs. The travel fee is usually like $50 or $100. We find that having fees are actually a benefit because we attract students that really want to be on the team not just kids that want to hang out and have fun and play games on their phone. They have “skin in the game”. Likewise, parents expect value for their dollar and want their kids involved and being productive. It seems everything students do these days costs lots of money now whether it is band, cheerleading, football, or whatever. Parents consistently tell us that FIRST robotics is the most worthwhile activity their kids are involved in and they feel it is an outstanding value for their investment. We do have policies in place as well to handle situations where students want to be on 456 but cannot afford it. No student will ever be denied the opportunity to be a member of 456 and/or travel with the team for financial reasons.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

You are correct it is a bylaw of our community foundation that we have our 501c3 through.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

3883 does not have a fee per say, but it is ~100??? (I don't remember too well) per student to attend the DoubleDECCer due to transportation and hotels, but there is no transportation fee for our second regional due to mainly parents driving students to the U and back. Our shirts and sweaters are also paid for by students, but if one is on free/reduced lunch it can be lowered or waived.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

You forgot sanity.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We have a $350 fee per student to cover Shirts, Hotels and Travel costs. There are provisions in place for families that can not afford the fee.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

How appropriate that this thread pops up, I was came from a Dawgma meeting where we discussed the implementation of these fees for the first time. We're intending them to about ~20$, taken at the beginning of (or around then) build season. The delay until build season is giving people a chance to see if they actually want to commit to our team, also, it's low enough that people shouldn't have too much of a problem paying the fee. We haven't discussed ways to mitigate the fee, but now that I'm reading this thread, I'll have to bring this up next meeting. Perhaps we can waive the fee if you've gotten fundraising or some sort of sponsorship?

Thanks, Chief Delphi!

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

My team does charge a fee, but not money. We all are required to get 30 service hours and we pay for our own hotel rooms which when split between 4-5 students makes it somewhat cheap.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Our school prevents charging any type of fee to the students. We've never intended to charge them anything nor will we. Besides, we've been hurting for new student involvement for a few years now so we don't want anything that would turn them away.

It definitely makes sense for teams that register for 3+ events a year and attends Nationals annually but for smaller teams that have been struggling for awhile, we can't afford to lose team membership.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

World Championships....not Nationals

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

our team doesn't charge any fee but does require students to attend a certain amount of both community and competition events or else they get a temporary suspension from the team. if they refuse to participate after that then they are asked to leave the team.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

When we started out, we charged ~$75 plus travel costs because we didn't have a lot of sponsors. Since then, we have unfortunately had to up costs to $175 plus travel. We have actually gained sponsors since then, but our school cut all of our funding, so now the team have to pay for registration and competition fees in addition to the school's pay-to-play fee of $100. It really bothers me that we have to give the school around $4000 just to exist when they do absolutely nothing for us - our coach doesn't even get a stipend. It really sucks.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

All FIRST teams in our school district charge a fee. Our FRC and FTC teams charge a fee of $225 per student and FLL teams are somewhere around $100. This is because our FTC and FLL teams generally don't have sponsors and are funded completely by their entrance fee. Our FRC teams have very generous sponsors but having that entrance fee helps a lot with budgeting and controlling funding.

All of our FIRST programs are run through the community programing, we call it Community Ed. They are the same people that run things like Club Care after school and Drivers Ed so some of that money goes directly to Community Ed.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Team 4276 is asking students to meet a $150 funding goal. Of course, as a California public school "club" we cannot force any student to pay, and we cannot exclude anyone based on financial reasons.

Students may meet this funding goal by

1. Parent Donation
2. Selling LED bulbs ($7 per bulb credit) or school discount cards ($5 per card)
3. Participate in team fundraiser events (restaurant nights, car washes, etc.)

If a student does not do any of the three above, they do not receive a team shirt for free. Otherwise they may still be a full team member and attend competitions, as long as they do their work.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Our first year (2013) we kept the fee low at $50 so that we did not scare away any potential members. We had a strong group of 27 students. Last year we set our entry fee at $100 and we had even more members (34).

This year we are not looking at increasing the fees - however we are looking at a more complex system of fundraising and fees. I will not share it here as I don't want my team knowing exactly what it is. However, it will not raise the fees for our committed members - only those that are 'less; committed.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

Our team charges students $100 team dues each year, payable by the beginning of November. The dues cover the cost of the team uniform -- 3 T-shirts and our rally towel -- and the field trip costs for the Virginia Regional, which we consider to be our "home" regional. The team dues started during the first few years of our team and were instituted because we had students that would come all fall, go through the team-provided training and work their way onto one of the subteams, then disappear in January. This put the team in a bad position because we didn't necessarily have the proper skill mix. The dues were instituted so that the students and their families became more invested in the team (dues are non-refundable if they drop out) so that we could minimize the number of team members who suddenly disappeared. This seemed to work well for us, as the number of students dropping out dropped sharply after the dues were required. Over the last few years we have had much less of a problem with drop outs than in the early going, but the dues have persisted because it helps with an early infusion of cash into the accounts.

I will stress that our team is big on "inclusiveness, not exclusiveness," so students unable to pay due to family financial hardship are routinely provided a "scholarship" by the team to cover costs.

Re: Does your team charge a fee to join?
 

We cannot charge a fee, but we do encourage people to pay $135 to cover the cost of competition, shirts, etc. Hotel rooms are paid for by groups of students rooming together. If somebody can't pay, they are still full members of the team. We are in a pretty affluent area, so the costs are usually not a problem.
We have 50+ spare shirts from years past, so if somebody can't afford the cost or don't pay, they can probably pick one up during build season for free (just ask and come occasionally).

We spend a lot of money each year, and even with grants we get around 30% of our cash from parents.