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Originally Posted by Conor Ryan
2) If you want to get more funding, the show part really is great for going after money. I've seen prospective sponsors turn into actual sponsors much faster at a Regional than a District. It adds to the awe and gives the whole organization a much more professional face. In particular its helpful for raising funding at the event level, regionals wouldn't cost so much if the events were able to fundraise for themselves better.
I guess the best way to summarize my complaint with the current district model/format/presentation is that it lost too much of the professionalism associated with a regional in order to cut costs of events.
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How is, "We'll take your $10k and spend it on fancy lights" a more compelling argument than "We'll take your $10k and expose this to hundreds of additional people"?
I understand that donors want something for their donation, but it seems like you get a lot more bang for your buck in the district model. And there will still be a state championship with the production value of a traditional regional, and the robot quality is way, way better. Are the fancy lights and AV crew worth it if the robots struggle to score a single game piece?
I lived a similar experience to Brandon. In the first two years of 1276 we had a kind of adversarial relationship with the school (teachers kept track of when we left printers on, and other fun pedantic things, and we were very thorough about cleaning up after ourselves). In 2006 we invited the principal to come to our regional, and by a happy coincidence we won. After that, we had full run of the schools tools and they paid our registration fee.
Sign me up FIRSTWA.
