[George C]

There's a difference between "mentoring" and "providing assistance to".

In Ontario, rookie teams are set up with an official veteran mentor team for their first year. If a partnership doesn't start up on its own, the regional director asks veteran teams to take on a rookie team. Veteran teams help find sponsors and mentors and introduce them to the FIRST culture. Rookie teams can hit the ground running. During the build season mentors and senior team members visit the rookie team as often as possible, include them in events, provide parts and expertise, critique designs, help out with fa brication etc. I've seen too many regionals where all the rookie teams are clustered in numerical order at one end of the pits and don't have much a clue as to what is going on. For the past couple of years at Ontario regionals the veteran and rookie are side by side in the pit area. The success of the arrangement varies but is somewhat dependent on the distance between the two teams. We've officially mentored rookie teams for the past three years and it works really well. Last year we were an hour's drive from our rookie. The had a great season and are really enthused for this year. The relationships built with all our official rookies continue.

Suggest it to your regional director.