Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Agreed on both counts.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I'm very surprised to see that, especially because it is your "home" event. If it were your second/farther event, it would be more understandable and acceptable. But as is it seems unfair at best.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

shouldn't the teams coming from NOVA have been asked/urged to attend one of the 4 events in their area?

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I know 1793 (Norview in Norfolk) is one of the wait listed teams for Doswell.
They signed up for Hampton Roads as their home event (as it should be). There are several more that still only list one event (1908 in Eastville, Northhampton High on the Eastern shore, 2107 in Portsmouth, 3168 in Suffolk and 3359 in Portsmouth (who is hosting Hampton roads) I don't know if this is because they haven't registered for a second one or they are wait listed. 388 way out in Grundy hasn't even registered for anything yet. From what i saw at the meeting last season during the VCU regional they weren't too happy about the whole district thing to begin with.

Oddly 1885 is coming to Hampton Roads and the DC event but not Northern Va. which they are hosting at their own school.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I know if I was hosting an event, the last thing I would want to do is attempt to host the event while competing at said event.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Yeah i can see the point of 1885 maybe doing that for that reason....but 1885 is one of the bigger teams. Then again 3359 is hosting and competing at Hampton Roads....BTW there isn't much in the way of food or lodging near Churchland High until you get a few miles from the school so be prepared.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

that's the same for Doswell, too.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

When I was scouting out all the events I think the northern Maryland event was around a half hour to the closest hotel group. EDIT: That's for a district in North Carolina, all CHS Events have hotels around 15 minutes away.

I'm pretty sure 388 will not be competing this year, but I have not heard an up-or-down on that yet.


I've sorta spent tonight trying to guess who is on the waitlist for the event. As much as people may think I enjoy coming off as a knob, I gotta say that even reasonable and kind people would think this is not great.


A team should not be expected/asked to drop out of their home event and therefore be forced into traveling to 2 districts and potentially 2 championship events, just so someone else who didn't make registration a priority only has to travel to 1 or even zero districts. While the term "sacrifice" has been held over my head re: the district system before, this is not exactly what was advertised. It feels even worse knowing that other teams at the same event did not get the same email 422 got, and "gracious professionalism" was used in an effort to coerce us to fix a mistake we cannot afford to fix, be it directly in financing another additional trip or indirectly in damaging the relationships with parents, alumni, school, and sponsors.


I really want to know if other teams at the event got the same message or if a message of this nature has been sent out to other teams in other district systems before this.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I don't know for sure, as I am no expert by any means, but I don't think many other FIRST in Michigan people will be perusing this thread so I'll toss in my experience. But in my 7 years in a district system I have never heard of a situation like this arising. Especially at a home district, as those are guaranteed spots.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I've heard of it in regionals. Specifically, I've heard that a team that had attended a particular regional as their home regional since it (regional, not team--team predated regional) started was asked to go elsewhere to make room for an out-of-area rookie. I believe space was eventually found, but not at that team's expense. Bear in mind that this information is at minimum second-hand, and not from this year's registration. (I'm also going to note, briefly, that the CLOSEST ROOKIE team to the event, bar nobody, had to register for the second-closest event, a "hotel" event for them, and ended up not competing to my knowledge. That I know from looking at the team lists and being at both events! I don't know why, however.)

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Agreed, wholeheartedly.

I've heard Gracious Professionalism used in so many inappropriate scenarios. The usage of it in this situation is neither Gracious or Professional...

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Agreed completely, this is pretty messed up. It makes so much more sense to ask a team that is already travelling to the event to just travel the extra 2 hours to HR than it does to ask a home team to travel the two hours.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Keep asking. I don't see why FIRST would not let some small percent of teams to opt out of their district to compete in another district. If FIRST agrees to this, they may require your team to attend the district championship in that selected district.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I can confirm that this is the reason. As an added bonus we love the teams down in Hampton Roads!

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

You should ask them (whoever sent the email) to do the GP thing and vsponsor your registration fee for the alternate event.