Quote:
Originally Posted by Koko Ed
I remember a quote out late team founder Gene Wicks made to our kids before going to champs years ago regarding taping kids in their room and such.
"If we have to do such things to keep you in line, we're not taking you."
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^This!
Regarding taping doors if you want it to be effective put the tape on after student curfew, don't put it on obviously, and take it off/check before morning curfew. Also when dividing up the rooms, don't put all of your problem children/most likely to cause issues in one room.
With regard to cell phones, I would advise not taking them away from students. If a parent were to find out that on a school trip students weren't allowed to have cell phones on them I don't see that going over well. What if there is an emergency, a parent wants to have contact with their student, or contact among members regarding important team function at the event. It is hard to keep everyone busy and entertained 100% of the time but you need to set a standard that playing games is not acceptable during competition.
Money for trips is hard especially when students don't have a job. During a trip meeting with both students and their parents we said to plan for $10 per meal and a few extra dollars for snacks. We have had some problems with students running low after a long weekend so I and a few other parents and mentors have loaned students money on trips. Part of your problem could be making sure the parents are aware of how much their child needs in advance. For all they know, breakfast, lunch and dinner are covered by the team/event so they only give money for snacks. Parent education is key for trips!
A tip for dealing with meals. We had an issue this year where after collecting the tab for our meal ended in a huge difference between what people gave for their meal+tip and the total. In the future we plan to keep one of the menus along with a notebook and go around writing down what each student ordered and calculate the tip so every person knows exactly what they owe. Splitting up $600 tabs is not easy!
For down time in the hotel we encourage students to hang out in common areas and not in their rooms (no girls in guys rooms and vice versa).