Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Hello-

If you or your team has a fee or contribution cost to attend a regional or regionals (or even to be on the team), would you kindly PM or email me (if you don't want to post it).

If part of the fund raising effort is to refund these at the end of the season then please note that too.

Thanks in advance- I'm trying to compile some statistics for making our teams sustainable.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

We do charge a nominal fee at the start of each year. It has fluctuated between $20-$30 in the past and we're looking at the possibility of increasing that due to other budgetary cuts. It does not get refunded, however if anyone has a financial need/hardship the fee gets waived provided certain criteria are met.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Teams have posted some great handbooks in the white papers here and here: http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc...t.aspx?id=7022
outlining expectations.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

For us, it's $400 per year per student to cover 3 TShirts, a hoodie, travel costs (busses+hotels), and food at regionals.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Our team has dues at the beginning of the year (last year around $50 or so). I imagine that it's negotiable if someone on the team has financial hardship, but that's not my or my teammate's business so I wouldn't know. Volunteering at fundraising events is also a requirement, but our teammates just volunteer anyway; I don't think anyone who's made the cash commitment to the team that shows up to team meetings decides volunteering isn't worth it.

Our team charges teammates for the hotel room and I think part of the bus fee for the away regional (Minnesota for the near future). This isn't to make a profit or anything, but rather since the team organises the rooms together to keep costs down. The same hotel fees apply for Atlanta, but instead of busing team members that wish to go find their own transportation (mostly by plane). Our home regional's just down the street, so that's never a concern.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

We have a fee of $150 to be on the team (to cover shirts, etc), and an additional $100 per regional (to cover bussing, hotel rooms, etc.) The students are responsible for their own food.

Edit: We attend 2 regionals a year, so that works out to $350 for the majority of team members. We have not been to Atlanta in several years, so I don't know if there would be extra costs for it as well.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

This season, 1646 is implementing a new way to be active on the team. The students will now be asked to get somewhere between $150 and $250 in sponsorship money. There will be ways to offset these costs if students are not able to raise the money. It will be highly suggested that the students do raise the money so that the team will be able to have a larger budget for the year.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Our team attends two regionals, one out of state and one about 30 minutes away. We have to pay $150 for transportation and housing for the out of state regional and pay for our own meals. We pay for shirts separately, usually at $10 a piece. If we have spirit items, it is an option for students to buy them and that can range anywhere from $5 to $20. Sweatshirts and jackets are ordered once a year and cost anywhere from $25 to $40.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

My "old" team, 1552 doesn't have a fee for being a member of the team. Students may have to pay for their T-shirt depending on the financial situation.

I see charging fees to be on a team as a brilliant way to drive away potential members. I know I wouldn't have joined the team if I had to pay $100 to be part of it. My parents probably wouldn't have liked it either.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Eh, it's not really like an entry fee. It's an activity fee. If it's a financial hardship, most teams (mine included) can negotiate.

My team collects the fee in the fall, after you've gone to summer demos and such, so you can get a feel for what the team is like beforehand. It's not like our team won't let you in the door if you don't have $50 in hand on day 1.

Even school sports have activity fees.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

In response to this, when I was in high school and a part of the football team for 4 years, we had to raise or pay $300 per person to cover many expenses. Almost all sports at my old highschool and all club sports have some type of fee to pay. I really don't see a reason to not have everyone on the team be responsible for raising $100-300, either through fundraising or just paying a fee. Of course there should be opportunities for the students to raise the money instead of relying on their parents, and there should also be exceptions for low income students, although having fundraising opportunities would take care of that scenario.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

I've said this before but I feel that it should be reiterated. In my freshman year I was only able to attend the local regional because of monetary problems. Because of this some people felt I was not interested in the team, and did not tell me about summer projects. This year I thankfully was able to be more active during the competition season, but be sure that the students that are not financially gifted are still involved.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Our team has never had to do this in the past, but I am seriously thinking about it for next year. although for our regional each member had to pay $98 for hotel and transportation.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

I agree, it is a turn off to potential team members to require a large monetary committment. However, we try to make it clear in the fall of each year, BEFORE we start asking for $$, that if anybody has financial problems, to talk to the mentors. We would never turn anybody away or prevent them from attending an event due to their financial situation.

In the past, our team has had what we call personal fundraisers. Two years ago, we sold pizza cards (they cost $10 and gave the cardholder a buy 2 get one free deal). Each student could sell as many as they liked, up to the cost of team fees, and they would keep that money to offset their team fees. So if anybody needed to save money, they could sell 35 pizza cards and pay their team fees.

The team wouldn't turn their back on someone and leave them with 35 pizza cards though. We would still at the very least cover a portion of their fee.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

For both 1618 and 2815 this past season, students that qualified to travel were only on the hook for food. 1618 collected this money from the students before the event, while 2815 left it to those traveling to have the money with them. There are pros and cons to both.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

At the start of the year, each member is required to pay a 50$ fee, or 25$ per semester. If someone cannot afford the fee, then we usually wave the fee, but so far that hasn't happened, or at least not that I know of.

But after that, we are on our own. We pay for everything else that comes with robotics. That would include shirts, hotel rooms, and food. But that's about it. Our excellent sponsors (Motorola, Cognex, EMD Software) handle all of the regional fees and a part of the transportation/hotel costs.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

there is a $300 fee for each year, which doesn't even come close to covering the travel.

Students who can't afford to the fee can have it waived by putting in good work for the team, but they have to put in good work. Students have every opportunity to fund raise, so we don't believe in giving free rides to students just because they "can't" afford it.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

We have shifted to making students/parents responsible for all travel costs (airfare, bus, hotel), food during build season, 2 shirts, and possibly registration fees, if the team cannot raise sponsorships for those (which hasn't happen yet). So depending on the year and where we travel to, students/parents are looking at $100 minimum (attending 1 local regional) to $1200 (attending 1 local, 1 out of town but < 500 miles, and 1 out of state). Almost every student/parent fundraises a good portion of these costs. We are lucky to have a local Bingo hall where all the proceeds goes to those who work it. This last year we made about $18k for parents that worked there so that they and their students basically travel for free. Those that don't work the bingo hall usually have to write a big check at some point to pay for travel. We also do car washes, fruit snack sales, and computer raffle tickets which are tracked per student and profits they make go into their account.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Students on the FEDS (201) are required to pay a joining fee of $100 each year to pay for two regionals or three FiM competitions and a shirt. We also impose a fee of $100-$200 for Atlanta though due to bus and hotel fees. The Atlanta fee may have been higher if AVL had not stepped in at the last moment and helped us go to Atlanta :)

The students are also "advised" to participate in the majority of fundraising events, which are mostly can drives throughout the year to pay for things like buttons and off season events (along with competitions).

Of course if a student cannot pay the $100 fee we will find a way around it so that no one who is accepted onto the team gets turned away due to money issues.

So here is the quick breakdown of the budget:

Item Amount Raised
Student Fees $3,500
Can Drives $2,500-$3,000
Sponsorship $25,000-$30,000

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

In the past, on my team you pay travel costs (none for our regional because it's a short bus ride away and the school covers the bus, and we don't need hotels, plane ticket and hotel room costs for Atlanta) and t-shirt/sweatshirt costs. We're considering switching the system for next year, though.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

What could be implemented is a kind of "personal account" we use it for our boy scout troop, and it works awesome!!

There are many fund raisers throughout the year that the scout has the chance to do or not to do. If the scout opts out of them, they will be charges a fee of like 20 or 30 bucks.

If they decide to take part in the fund raiser, there will be a goal set(same for everyone) like $350 of popcorn. The troop will get 50% of the profit from the first $350 and the scout will get the other 50% to go into his account. But if the scout sells more than $350 they keep 100% of the profit after 350(in their account).

It is great because Then If you want to buy a shirt or go on an outing, you don't have to write out a check every meeting, you just check a box saying"charge my account" It works great!!!

The best part is that if a scout has financial difficulties, they can just do more fund raising, and they are all set for the year!

-Kyle

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

My scout troop uses a system just like this also, and I must agree with you that it works really well! If a scout cannot pay my troop's dues, then they just take it out of their account.

The only reason this may be a problem in FIRST is the issue of fundraising as a team.

Maybe instead of an account, a team just records how much total a person has fund raised. That way you know how much you have, and can see if they have fundraised enough and so that people just aren't sitting on large sums of fundraised money.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

My scout troop does the same thing. However, we also have some group fundraisers. Some percentage of the total profits is credited to the individuals who work the fundraisers, in a ratio based on how much time they put in out of the total. The rest goes into a more general fund for troop expenses.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

On 234, students are required to pay fees that help cover travel, as well as fees that help cover shirts/jerseys/polos/windbreakers/etc.

Also, all students are required to bring in a small business community sponsor. This requirement has two main purposes. First, it helps the team raise the vital funds necessary for survival. Second, it pushes the student outside their comfort zone, forcing them to go out into the world and talk to people about FIRST. These sponsorships come in many forms. Most are monetary, but some have resulted in relationships with suppliers and machine shops to help with building the robot.

In my experience with the team, we have not had a student not be on the team because of the fees or fundraising requirements. If a student cannot afford the fees or does not want to pay them, they can generate more sponsors to offset some of that cost.

In the end, it's an investment in your future. If parents and students cannot see the value in the team, then we as a team are not doing our job of showing the benefits of being a team member.

Because of FIRST, I recieved a full-tuition scholarship to Purdue which provided me with an amazing education. I also recieved a high school internship with one of our sponsors, which turned into a full-time co-op role, which is now a full-time engineering position. Not a bad return on investment, in my opinion. In fact, I'd argue that in a world with so much uncertainty, FIRST and programs like it are one of the surest bets out there.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

We have not required our students to pay for anything in the past. In the last 2 years, we have attended 2 regionals plus championships. We also compete in Vex and BEST. Again, no cost to them.

After reading the comments in this thread from other teams, I think that it is important that the students have some type of 'buy in' to our program.

I couldn't agree more. Our problem is that the student population is made up of over 96% economically challenged families, and also on the free/reduced lunch program. So trying to collect any monies for fees is next to impossible.

I do like the idea of sending them out to talk to small businesses about sponsorship. Thanks Collin.

Since our whole team is graduating this year (I know, not very well planned), we will be starting with a complete new set of faces next year. I think that by setting goals for them at the beginning will benefit both the team and the students.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

This idea of each person bringing in a small sponsor seems like a really good idea. The only question I have is what if someone doesn't want to bring in a small business or cannot get one due to various problems? Also do you put dollar ammounts on these small sponsorships, or is it just the interaction tyt you are looking for?

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Our students (and mentors) pay all the costs for their travel, food, and team shirts. We do have fundraisers where the students (and mentors) can help pay down their costs, but few really take advantage of these.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

There is a minimum ammount that each student has to bring in. It can be accomplished by one sponsor or by many small sponsors. My first year on the team as a student, I hit my goal by going around to start-up businesses in a new strip mall being built near our HS. Each company was very willing to give $25-$50 to get their name on the back of our shirts.

If someone doesn't want to bring in a small business, then they don't want to be on the team. If they put in an effort but have a hard time finding one, we will help them out. This includes, but is not limited to, sending seniors out with freshmen to "show them the ropes".

At the end of the day, the sponsorship money is important because it allows the team to accomplish all of its goals. However, getting our team name into the community has also helped increase team awareness. Everybody knows what the basketball team, band, and choir do. Fewer people know what a "Robotics Team" really does. By pushing the students into the community, we are slowly helping the community understand.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Being on our team is free. Students that participate regularly are pretty much guaranteed to be able to attend our local regional since we travel by school bus.

To travel to our away regional / Championships, the student have a list of "Achievements" to accomplish. You can find these on our website - http://www.penfieldrobotics.com/team/achieve.php All students pay a relatively small deposit for the trip to indicate committment. For the students who complete all the achievements, their travel costs will be covered. Depending on the success of the fundraising efforts, other students may have a portion of their travel costs covered based on the proportion of achievements that are completed. Financial hardship may be taken into consideration on the deposit. Since we consider the achievements attainable by all of the students, if you don't have money to pay for trips then you need to be proactive in getting the achievements done.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Team 1249 has never charged a student to participate. We have some great sponsors and our Board of Education allots us enough to cover the travel to two out of state regionals. I have ask students to pay for meals while traveling on the bus or for lunch at the events. Our county treats us like any other extra curriculumn team. We have a bond levy in our county that helps cover the expenses for field trips and competition trips. Sounds like we are lucky because i am not for sure if i had to charge students that i would have anyone. We also have FTC and sponsor four FLL teams and cover their expenses as well. We do not pay for parents expenses.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Team 397 requires students to either, participate in a fundraiser OR have their school account charged $50 (Until this charge is paid they cannot get their grades and cannot graduate) Obviously this comes no where near even covering food for the season, all food is donated by mentors (or their parents) or paid for by the team.

When I was on RUSH Clarkston implemented a Pay to Play policy, to be involved in ANY after school activity (NHS, Football, Marching Band, Robotics etc) you had to pay $50. On top of that, RUSH members are always required to fundraise a certain amount. This is actually a benefit to the team in two ways, it gains the team money and it shows the student is willing to work for it. Of course, if a student simply CANNOT raise the money the team will work with them.

Really the simple solution is to be flexible, never tell a student they cannot be involved because they cant pay you $500 dollars. Teams are all struggling for money right now, so are a lot of families, there are ways you can work around it, if the student wants to be involved NEVER turn them away for financial reasons.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

It varies from year to year, and we have never placed a student in the situation where they were unable to be on the team, have a t-shirt, or go on a trip for financial reasons.

However, we do charge students for a T-shirt, and for part of the cost of travelling to a regional. Typically a "local" regional... Portland or Seattle, for instance, is about $150 for bus and hotel, while going to Toronto or elsewhere would involve a bit more cash.

This year students had the opportunity to offset their "robotics" expenses, by selling Hexbugs. Our top seller was able to offest $80 of her $150 travel expenses. (Although as has been pointed out elsewhere, the real money in Hexbugs comes from selling spare batteries... I was a bit slow to clue in to that one.)

But the bottom line is, no one gets left behind for financial reasons.

Jason

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, we are prohibited from charging dues or annual fees to be a team member, even though we never did charge dues in the ten years prior to incorporating as a non-profit. In our school district, 85% of the students are on free or reduced price lunch. As such, as try to keep student expenses as low as possible, as a large portion of our team is compromised of the typically underrepresented groups in engineering.

Since the loss of a major sponsor about six years ago, we've had all students and mentors pay all travel costs personally, minus a "travel stipend" that is allocated based upon how well fundraising went that year. (In our first few years, our team paid all travel costs, including week long Park Hopper passes when Nationals was at Epcot). One of the reasons we compete at up to a half dozen post-season events is that with the exception of the hotel for Battlecry@WPI, these events have no cost on our students, as we almost always use "provide your own transportation" philosophy. (Most students will carpool with each other to events).

Due to the financial situation of many of the students on our team, traditional fundraising options - selling stuff - have never panned out for us. Instead, we've had tremendous success with can and bottle drives, car washes, pasta dinners, and especially our pulled pork barbeque events. Through these fundraising efforts, we fundraise well into the five-figure amount every year, with nearly all coming from the latter.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Our team does it pretty simple. We require, for travel, that you fundraise (or pay) 150 dollars. The fundraisers vary from year to year, but we have one every year. This fees covers a team shirt, and allows you to go to our non-home regional (chicago). Similar 1714, our home regional is blocks away from our shop, so that it is relatively free for us (as students, obviously not the robot) to attend. This also covers Atlanta. I'm not sure how sponsors go, but I'd assume that they cover alot. If anyone fundraises over 150, they get a pat on the back, and idealy, the overflow goes into a "slush-fund" that covers kids who can't quite meet the bill. Seeing as how we're an inner-city team with inner-city kids, this is very helpful.

Its not much money, but it offsets the costs a tad, and it shows that the kid is invested. Nothing bothers me more than kids that go to regionals "just to get out of school" or "just because they can" if they have no plans to do anything at said regional.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

It varies form year to year, depending upon the venue, costs, and team treasury. For example, we went to NJ, Palmetto and CMP this year. For NJ I think the cost was $150, Palmetto about $300, and Championship was $375. This is somewhat more than in the past, but times were pretty lean this year, and CMP was almost entirely student-funded, since we hadn't expected to win RCA at Palmetto.

Even if you don't come to any regionals, you get everything else free.

Every team member is expected to participate in all fundraising

Coaches and mentors are sensitive to finances, in past years we have chipped in to fund one or two students who wouldn't be able to attend otherwise.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Skunkworks has a relative simple plan.

There is a $25 cost to be on the team.

If you want to travel and participate at competitions you need to fundraise $300 per regional/championship. We usually do 2 regionals and CMP.
Only Juniors and Seniors can go to CMP. They must pay for their own airfare.
(We are in Seattle..)

So typical year for a junior They need to fundraise $600 for 2 regionals and another $300 to go to Atlanta plus they need to pay for their own airfare which is around $500.

We have fundraisers during the year to help do this.
Through these team fundraisers, a participating student can raise around $300.

They do other fundraising to come up with the rest.
By not having freshmen and sophomores go to Atlanta, we urge them to start saving for their airfare for those 2 years and put it in a bank account.
This teaches them to save...and makes the CMP something to really look forward to. This means they save $250 per year.... for airfare...

All of the student fundraising pays for about 1/2 of the budget with the other half coming from the bigger sponsors... for us BOEING and SPEEA.

This seems to work for us...

We also have a few anonymous sponsors that provide "scholarships" for needy skunks so that those that have a difficult time with fundraising can come up with their part...

We have a motto... no skunk left behind...

we live by it..

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

We don't have an team fee, but have to pay the school $75 as a club fee at the beginning of the school year to be part of the club. You also have to participate in one of the fundraisers (hexbug sale this year) to travel with the team (I'm pretty sure on that).

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Wildstang students are enrolled in a class so that covers some things in the school. They must fundraise as well for other things like travel. There are several opportunities like selling hot chocolate and KK donuts at football games. We have done cheescakes sales, Entertainment books, candy, etc. Profits are set and go into student accounts like those mentioned for Boy Scouts. We also run the concessions at the State Lego League and work the event. Students who work in any area during the two days, shares in the profits of the concessions.
Since we are very close to the Midwest Regional and are more or less the host team, school buses bring the students to the event. Only drive team and select pit crew go on Thursday and the whole team is able to attend on Friday and Saturday. We attend one other regional, and for that we take a skeleton crew and drive team. We also attend the Champs and students picked for that travel must have fundraised a specific amouont which changes with hotel each year. The students are also selected by participation throughout the year and their duties during the event. I am proud to point out that that our students this year played a pivotal role in gathering data and producing an effective strategy while picking two spectacular teams that complemented our robot function very well.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Several years ago, we were able to raise a lot of funds and have been able to since then.
One of the issues was getting donations/grants that had to all be spent by year's end. If not, then why ask for what we've been getting.
It was enough to cover the entire team's travel costs, equipment, tools, and supplies.

The last couple of years however, we created a sustainability plan and have convinced many of our sponsors that the money we ask for works towards that. That means not spending everything we get.
The responsibility year in and year out is disclosing our long term efforts and being able to sustain our program at a high level with the annual gains/losses of donors.
To be able to do this, we now charge our students a portion of their airfare costs, while the team covers all transportation vehicles (gas, rental cars, insurance, etc.) and hotel costs. This is in part why we dont stay at 4-5 star hotels. We look at it as pure lodging and spend the majority of the time out anyways. We also cover certain team meals and dinners and I personally like going to a pretty mid- to high-range restaurants to celebrate our achievements/successes.
The most important part, I think, is collecting $200/student for team activities, meals, and certain expenses. We give them money for them daily. In other words, we hang on to their personal monies up-front and give it to them, little by little. I got tired of students complaining about stuff we did, since you cant please them all. Or, they used money intended for food to buy personal gifts, which left them begging us for more money. I let the team decide what they want to do during their free-time, but its a group decision. That way, I get minimal complaints, everything is up-front, and I have very little to NO issues with the spending money portion.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

I really appreciate all the feedback here. Keep it coming!

(I'm going to put together a spreadsheet for me to follow- I'll keep things anonymous :)