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-   -   How has the recession affected your team? (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72355)

Salbert 18-01-2009 14:37

How has the recession affected your team?
 
What has happened to your teams due to the recession? Has anyone lost sponsors (we lost GE)? What have you been doing to cope with it?

Koko Ed 18-01-2009 15:16

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Our team leader just got laid off as well as the woman who was in charge of running the FIRST robotics program for Xerox.

waialua359 18-01-2009 15:21

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
I'm sure hundreds of teams are affected to some degree one way or another, besides just positions and funding.
The entrepreneurship award should be a lot "bigger" than it has been in year's past, to emphasize the importance of sustainability, considering this global:rolleyes: recession.

amariealbrecht 18-01-2009 16:17

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
The Robettes lost a huge grant from an anonomous donor through the school. Although we were dissapointed about this loss there is nothing we can do but apply for more grants and send out more and more sponsor letters!!
good luck to all teams
Alicia Albrecht
Electrical Subteam
The Robettes 2177

thefro526 18-01-2009 16:27

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Surprisingly enough, we've been doing pretty well. We never had a large sponsor or group of sponsors to begin with so we don't have much to lose. We lost some of the funding from our school because they felt it would be spent better elsewhere but it wasn't a big deal. Fund Raising's been a bit difficult because people don't want to spend as much as they normally would but, the big thing is to remind them they're not buying something - They're Supporting your team and getting something in return.

ComradeNikolai 18-01-2009 16:28

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
We lost a potential corporate sponsor; they already sponsor another team in our state (I'm not sure on anything more specific than the state, geographically). Last year we did not do a whole lot of fund-raising -- we were a bit overwhelmed with the first year experience as it was, and our team was rather small -- but we have received a few sponsors this year. The recession definitely lost us some potential aid, but we're still pushing for an engineer if they can spare one.

I wish luck to all the other teams experiencing hardships, and to all the teams that don't exist yet.

ttldomination 18-01-2009 16:32

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Well, with the new control system being so expensive, we are having to put a larger crunch than usual. The FTC budget has been cut, but I believe that we just received Cognex's support so we are alright there. The FRC team is having to make major cutbacks. One of which includes doing stickers this year instead of pins. But I think we will have more fun with stickers.

hallk 18-01-2009 17:07

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
We have lost support funding wise and mentors are also feeling a crunch as they have more difficulty getting off for events and are expected to work more hours.

gorillamonky 18-01-2009 17:13

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
our team has had some problems getting the money to run the program this year but we r holding up ok

BJT 18-01-2009 17:49

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
The state of North Dakota has chosen to not participate in this recession, so we really haven't noticed. Every tank of fuel on my pickup is $50 cheaper now too. Since we draw people from 40 miles away thats a big deal.

Transformix Eng 18-01-2009 21:47

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
It's tough going!
We are a rookie team from Kingston ON Canada, the nearest FRC team is 2 hours away. Very few people/ corporations in our community have ever hear of FIRST Robotics. With the "good will" money drying up fast, we are finding it hard to get potential local major-sponsors to commit to any sort of support. We are now changing tactics and focusing on finding a lot of smaller sponsors instead of a few major corporate ones.
Wish us luck and hopefully we'll see you in Atlanta.

Jeff

Team2339 19-01-2009 09:31

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
I agree with the canadian team, more smaller donations still works. We are doing more with less. It causes proplem solving instead of buying better parts.
We gain by losing:D

.:Brianna:. 19-01-2009 10:57

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
for the past 3 years all our money has come from donations from parents and friends of the girls on the team. this year we somehow managed to get sponsored by Aetna, Comcast, Lockheed Martin, Society of Women Engineers, United Phospohorus, Inc., and a local college. it seems like the recession helped us!!!

Tom Line 19-01-2009 14:03

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Our money isn't substantially down, though it has dropped some.

I have to admit, seeing people post pictures of 16 wheels and 8 crab drive modules makes me insanely jealous. We have enough to get to our competitions, but we count every penny we spend. We have discussions over whether buying an extra 4 wheels is worth it to outfit our 07 robot, etc.

We're lucky enough this year to have access to a machine shop. However, they're tight on budget too and we have to be careful to only ask them to do our most critical stuff.

Last year we bought some supershifters and that was our huge purchase. We still talk about how expensive they were :ahh:

techsupport07 19-01-2009 15:09

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
BJT is right...North Dakota has decided to stay out of the recession. We are doing just fine...sure is nice for our state to have over $1 billion surplus!

falconmaster 19-01-2009 15:53

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Almost killed us this year, it might do it next year. Maybe FIRST can lower the price by not requiring teams to buy a new control system next year and drop the price 2k?

Jared Russell 19-01-2009 15:57

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by falconmaster (Post 803847)
Almost killed us this year, it might do it next year. Maybe FIRST can lower the price by not requiring teams to buy a new control system next year and drop the price 2k?

That would sure be nice!

aznkazoon 21-01-2009 16:48

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Like what happened to us is that people said that they would sponser us,but later on said they can't.

Salbert 21-01-2009 18:48

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
We lost our biggest sponsor and almost lost our 2nd biggest sponsor, but MARS is going to come out a lot stronger, and hopefully with more little sponsors.

Rick TYler 28-01-2009 01:10

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
At the end of 2008, FIRST was holding more than $14 million in cash and cash equivalent quick assets. This was an increase of about $4.5 million from 2007. Perhaps they could spend down $5 million in each of the next two years to reduce costs to FRC, FTC and FLL teams. In 2008, FIRST collected more than $14.4 million in program registration fees. If they had spent down their cash by $5 million, they could cut registration fees by a third. That would help everyone, and not wipe out FIRST's cash reserves. This can't go on forever, however, since corporate giving to FIRST will inevitably decline at the same time giving drops to the teams.

This won't even touch the insane amount of money local organizing committees need to raise to fund FRC tournaments. With many of our major tournament sponsors losing money and laying off employees, it seems clear (to me, anyway) that either FIRST needs to start diverting team registration fees to the tournaments, or they are going to lose a lot of FRC events.

I predict big growth in the Vex Robotics Competition and FTC next year as former FRC teams look for cost-effective ways to offer STEM programs for high school students. My Vex program costs us $150 per student, per year, and FTC costs us about $250. When I did FRC, we spent $500 per student -- and we were a "budget" team. The "high end" FRC teams spend $1,000 per student and more. The medium-sized robot programs are where the growth is going to be for the next two years at least.

I'm not suggesting that we all stop raising money for our teams and events. Far from it. Even though our club does "little robots" instead of FRC, we still need to raise about $6,000 (we have 45 students) for next year -- so we are looking at the same issues as everyone else. Risk management is a normal business practice that includes planning for bad scenarios as well as good ones. Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together.

Kims Robot 28-01-2009 12:51

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
The most notable is two of our student's mom's have lost their jobs, and Harris is asking us to "tighten our belts".

Oddly enough, though, our Patron drive is going as normal if not better. We have more large sponsors ($200+) on the back of our TShirts than ever. Several of the smaller companies are giving less ($50 down to $25 or the like), but we are finding to our suprise that most businesses are still willing to contribute at helpful levels. Im not sure if its the writeoff aspect or how they work it, but our patron contributions havent really decreased. This year so far we have raised close to $9,000, and have about 60 patrons.

Although, as seen with Harris asking us to tighten up, I know a lot of major sponsors are really aiming to decrease their spending whereever they can, and unfortunately that means reduced large sponsorships. But I think as seen by our patron drive, so far, money is still out there, you might just have to work a little harder for it.

Ryan Caldwell 28-01-2009 13:10

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
The main thing we did was dictate to the design team robot construction costs were limited to $1000 not the $3500 the rules impose.

The other was decide no practice robot and everyone must share the team screwdriver.

as a rookie team this year 2851 is looking to find new revenues, companies seem reluctant, we have invited all the companies we talk to whether they sponsor us or not to be our guests (get the VIP treatment) at the competition. We hope that those whom show up get the hooks into them and they will help out in years to come.

Its ongoing fund raising here as of current we will not be able to attend nationals if we qualify.

Can't thank BAE Systems enough for stepping up and investing enough for our team to get started.

ICntIHaveRbtics 01-02-2009 10:29

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Its hard to really gauge, because last year we weren't as proactive, but this year, we've been getting more money than ever. Usually we struggle to have enough money to pay off regional debt at this time, and now we've paid off our debt for regionals, nationals (for the first time ever), and then some thanks to some awesome sponsors =D

I don't know if the new companies we approached would have given us more in the past, but it seems like everyone around here is still willing to give something. I think its all in how you approach a place. I mean, if you lay the facts out there that their money is more of an investment than a mere donation, I think it changes the perspective.

SCROSSLEY-GCEC 01-02-2009 23:20

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Living in New Zealand, the exchange rates to buy VEX parts are beast. FRC parts if we need to order them in will be much, much worse :ahh:

spc295 02-02-2009 14:02

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
we have not yet been affected, but its coming

waialua359 02-02-2009 15:03

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick TYler (Post 809491)
At the end of 2008, FIRST was holding more than $14 million in cash and cash equivalent quick assets. This was an increase of about $4.5 million from 2007. Perhaps they could spend down $5 million in each of the next two years to reduce costs to FRC, FTC and FLL teams. In 2008, FIRST collected more than $14.4 million in program registration fees. If they had spent down their cash by $5 million, they could cut registration fees by a third. That would help everyone, and not wipe out FIRST's cash reserves. This can't go on forever, however, since corporate giving to FIRST will inevitably decline at the same time giving drops to the teams.

This is very interesting.
However, I dont forsee FIRST dropping registration fees. If their goal is to continually expand reaching more teams in more countries, then those cash reserves might be essential.
I agree that maybe registration fees should come down somewhat, as teams are strapped to doing more with less resources. This is why I believe that entrepreneurship award should be celebrated much much more than it has in the past.
Everyone talks about sustainability, but are they actively trying to improve their situations? Or are they counting on others in an all or nothing sponsorship?

RoboMom 02-02-2009 15:14

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
I am also seeing the economy affecting the recruitment of volunteers for events, particularly the regionals, and for mentors. These mentors, some working for large corporations, are also watching their savings disappear and are having to re-think how they spend their time.

It is evident to me that the way things have been done in the past need to be realigned.

katyrobo2177 02-02-2009 17:10

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
This year we lost a huge sponsership from an anonymous donor through our school. So to make up for it, we have been sending out sponsership letters like crazy to every compant possible it seems such as red bull, the north face...trust me we're trying everywhere so our team doesn't die which would be veryyy tragic :(

Dragons527 02-02-2009 17:56

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
My team (completely unsponsered) is looking at potentially being shut down by my district's budget vote and having to raise all money by ourselves, (note, this is a probability not yet confirmed)

ZakuAce 03-02-2009 12:19

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
My team has gotten very lucky. Our big name sponsors (EX: GE, Generac, Rockwell Automation) have stuck with us, and we are very greatful for their help. But we have been hard pressed to find smaller sponsors. We were also lucky that we saved $3000 from last year. Without that money, there is no way we could have ever hoped to go to a second regional, much less Hawaii. We're being more conservative in spending team funds, encouraging more parents to bring lunch on Saturdays rather than spend money on take out pizza. Admittedly, we are in a pretty rich area, and I feel for teams that are more financially pressed than we are.

xitaqua 06-02-2009 06:35

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
It is interesting when we think how the recession has affects the team, we mostly think about companies and their sponsorship.

I mentor a rookie team and we have been very blessed this year. The local companies have been very charitable with encouraging their employees to volunteer as mentors and also financial support.

I am curious to hear how the recession has affected parents contribution to the team, and how many teams ask for "team" contribution before hitting the business for financial support.

Cheers,
Marcos.

Cynette 06-02-2009 08:50

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by xitaqua (Post 815190)
I am curious to hear how the recession has affected parents contribution to the team, and how many teams ask for "team" contribution before hitting the business for financial support.

Our students are expected to give pay a deposit for team travel but that is mostly to ensure the committment of the student to travel. Depending on the success of their efforts for fundraising and our patron drive (where we ask businesses for financial support), a proportion of the remaining team costs are paid. So the "individual" contribution and requesting support from business are independent functions. We ask the parents to support the students in contacting the businesses, especially if they can be the help to get the foot in the door of their own workplace or the business of a relative. We have discovered that the personal contact is essential in getting a business to say yes to sponsorship, so we expect the students to do as much face to face as possible.

Racer26 06-02-2009 10:06

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Interestingly enough, 1075 is actually better off this year than we have ever been before. We got a new local sponsor on board who donated a laptop and a bunch of money. We've always been a lowly funded team ($10k max). Last year was our first year doing 2 official events. This year we're doing 2, plus the offseasons we go to. Our students have always had to bear the brunt of the travel expenses though, hotels, food, and the like... This year we ran some fundraisers in the fall where the students performance in the fundraiser was directly affecting their travel costs, so there was incentive. 50% of the money they fundraised would be used to pay for their travel expenses. The other 50% would go to the team, and any leftover travel cost that they hadnt fundraised, they would have to pay.

Jablonski@1250 06-02-2009 10:52

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
We've been more cost-conscientious, but are doing alright otherwise. We gained a few members from another team that had its program shut down by their school to fund a (still) poor-performing sports program- a pity, really.

mrnoble 06-02-2009 11:40

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Ironically, this is our best year for sponsorships by a factor of 4. Our primary sponsor for the year actually gave us a check back in June. As it happens, they helped us tremendously by doing that, as they have been especially hard hit by the recession. They are a natural gas exploration company, and recently pulled out of our state due to collapse of the market. So next season, we are looking at a potentially tough year.

suj 25-02-2009 18:35

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
A possible loss in sponsors and lack of new sponsors coming in. But we plan on changing that.

Mark Rozitis 25-02-2009 20:04

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Transformix Eng (Post 803458)
It's tough going!
We are a rookie team from Kingston ON Canada, the nearest FRC team is 2 hours away. Very few people/ corporations in our community have ever hear of FIRST Robotics. With the "good will" money drying up fast, we are finding it hard to get potential local major-sponsors to commit to any sort of support. We are now changing tactics and focusing on finding a lot of smaller sponsors instead of a few major corporate ones.
Wish us luck and hopefully we'll see you in Atlanta.

Jeff

Don't forget you're local media, I know with the recession there are less and less if us media around but there still are some, you're local community papers, radio stations, TV station if you have one, make a presentation and visuals and hammer away at the media to do a story on you're team, if they bite it's a great way to get the word out that you exist and what you do.

It's hard in the Toronto market to do that because if "agenda stories" but in the smaller markets I think you will have good success. Any business and local trade magazines and papers as well that serve industry in you're area.

Then at least businesses will know what FIRST is and you're team as well.

m

E.L.I.T.E. 48 25-02-2009 21:44

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Team 48 has been extremely fortunate this year due to our main sponsor (Delphi) continuing to support us. We have had a few parents laid off; however, some of them have used this as an opportunity to give more of their time to the team.
Also, trough the combined efforts of NEOFRA ( Northeast Ohio FIRST Robotics Alliance), and the continued support of US Congressman Tim Ryan we have been able to start four new FLL teams, two new FRC teams, and one FTC team. I am being optimistic about the upcoming season, and I hope that things get better for those teams who are struggling.

Travis Hoffman 03-03-2009 11:06

Re: How has the recession affected your team?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by E.L.I.T.E. 48 (Post 828050)
I am being optimistic about the upcoming season, and I hope that things get better for those teams who are struggling.

:rolleyes: :(

http://tribtoday.com/page/content.de....html?nav=5021

20%+ cuts across the area, but naturally, over 50% of local robotics mentors were affected. They would like to remain local, but viable engineering jobs in this economic wasteland are very hard to come by.

Anyone want to start a job networking service on CD for recession refugees? Mentors displaced in such situations (not just here in Warren) deserve better. Is there anything the engineering mentor community can do to help such individuals out?


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