Shutting down for the summer...
 

My team's school liason just decided to shut down the team's operations for the summer, and it's become a huge point of contention for the team members. People disagree with his decision (as do I- but I still support it); and it's already caused one of our engineers to leave. Are any other teams shutting down for the summer, and if so- how did you make the decision and how did your team take it?

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

This is just for the summer correct? You plan on coming back next year?

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

Yeahh, we're going to start back up in late August.. It's only for 9 weeks or so.

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

Perhaps it's a funding issue.

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

Here is a bit of advice to get things moving:

Try to organize events outside of the school that you can do as a team: go volunteer, have a few socials, attend an offseason comp to volunteer or cheer. Just because you are temporarily unconnected to your school doesn't mean you can't be effective. Do some robot demos if you can.

Get back that engineer. You will need him next year. Write him a letter as a team saying that you as members were very sad to see him go and invite him to return and try to work around not having school availability.

I wish you the best of luck. My team, among others, is very active over summer, and I invite you to email me or others to get any help you need.

Good luck,
Genia

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

No, he's worried about insurance costs and such.. Which is understandable.

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

Insurance is a touchy issue, that I don't encourage discussing much on public forums because that's a personal team thing.

However, let me change my ideas:

Do not volunteer in any organization that has immense liability: i.e., Habitat for Humanity or any other building. Yah, it's fun to build, but if insurance is an issue...

Get a parent group going to help you work that out. It could help in the future.

Find out the specifics of that policy. If it indicates that you cannot do certain things under the guidance of school officials and that is what you have to pay for, then don't do things under the guidance of school officials. This is a great time to become a team leader and organize a social event or two, or volunteering, or to carpool with parents to an offseason comp.

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

Thanks for the advice! I'm sure I'll bring up your views at our next team meeting...

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

I would recommend doing things like fund raising or other team building activities that will strengthen the bond on your team. You can never have enough teamwork.

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

I agree. That's one of the areas our team needs to work on, and shutting down for the summer might give us a chance to actually get to work with one another without the added stress of "OMG Nationals are only week away, what are we going to do?!?"

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

You can simply just hang out and get to know one another doing things together. Sometimes that's all it takes to become a more cohesive unit.

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

Also, if the school is not allowing you to do any fundraising and other activities in the name of the team (i.e. "This event is sponsored by [insert school and team here]"), just do said activities as a general group of people.

We've had to do this on our team because our schools only let us do two fundraising events every year (to keep things fair with the other groups and clubs), and it has proven very successful for us.

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

We were forced to shut down for the summer as our main mentor and teacher had to go out for back sugery...he will hopefully be back in August.

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

I guess I don't understand. When you say shutdown, you mean no building, fundraising, etc...?

If that's the case - go do fun stuff together. Call it team building. Our team has done or will do:

- Relay for Life (24 walk-a-thon for cancer fundraising)
- Star wars marathon. (watch 1 and 2, go to the theater to watch 3, then go back to someones house and watch 4, 5, and 6.) (And if I found out they watched the ewok Christmas, I'm going to have a serious talk with them.)
- A sumo bot competition with a $30 total limit.
- I think laser tag is in the works.
- They want to do paintball, but that takes some serious money and permission slips.
- Go see "Robots"
- Etc...

None of which the "team" offically runs. Just stuff they all do together. It's good for team unity.

Re: Shutting down for the summer...
 

I mean that we can't meet as a team or at our team's base. And thanks for the ideas, hopefully we can use them!