[Bob Steele]

Having read through this entire thread... I have decided on a new approach for our team...

Next year we will have several students whose specific duties will be to help people find seats... Student Seating Ambassadors or something...

They will be stationed at critical points and will help people coming in to find seats.... We will have to train them.... help grandparents to find their kids teams... answer questions... etc...etc...They will NOT be SEAT POLICE but rather will act by example to help achieve a solution to the problem..
Our students/team members will also be instructed to make space for people coming in...ALL people...

So many people come wandering in and the last thing we want to happen is for them to get turned off... they don't know where to sit anyway...
Why not usher them to a team to "host" them and let them know what is going on? If approached in this way, any team should be willing to let them sit with them...

In this way, a team can talk about FIRST ... explain the game...
and help gain new friends for FIRST.... gain new supporters for their progam.

We are going to try this next year... and see if we can get more teams to do it... ASK people to sit with them.... make them part of the "family"

This could be a start....

Let me give you an example... we were at the Spokane event this year..a couple came up to us and students and mentors in our group talked to them about FIRST. It turned out that this couple was house-sitting in Spokane and were actually from our home area... They had sort of stumbled into the event and we talked like we always do..We like to talk about how FIRST has changed the culture in our school...

The other day I received a check in the mail from them... they wanted to let us know that they want to support the team...they liked what FIRST was doing......totally unsolicited... we weren't fundraising we were just talking (enthusiastically) about what FIRST meant to our team...

Just saying...