[abualhaijar]

Thanks everyone, this is all really helpful information. It's good to know that there are different branches of FIRST flourishing in Australia and Israel. Costs it would seem are a big obstacle, but I think they could be dramatically reduced if there are more international regionals started up, that way they would only have to fly out of country for championships, and maybe some day we could even look at holding world championships in another country (maybe not for a while but that would be cool) Or perhaps FIRST will just branch off in to a bunch of individual organizations that is run by countries, or groups of countries so that there will be us first that has its own competition and middle east that runs its own etc. In any case to get to that point we have to start somewhere. MrTechCenter, I like the idea of starting a committee or group project I think that if that could get some traction, that could be exactly the tool that FIRST needs to expand more aggressively to other countries. I'm certain I could get my entire team, (or at least the outreach department) behind this, and hopefully (with enough help from our marketing department) spread it through Oregon teams. However, before we start spreading awareness, we need some kind of feasible goal, and some fleshed out plan of action that can get us there. If you really are very interested in this, I think we should get started on something right away.
-R