[Jon Stratis]

Off-seasons are critically important when we look forward to new regionals or further expansion of districts - we need people with some experience who are ready to step up into that key volunteer role, and we need to make sure those people are geographically spread out. Using the situation we have here in MN as an example... we had two LRI's in the state this year, both located in the twin cities, and both handled an event here and in Duluth. Obviously, that's not sustainable when we start to talk about adding a new regional or changing to districts. We look for these off-season events to help us train and bring in new volunteers who can fill those key roles. I know this fall there are some off-season events being planned several hours from the twin cities... I'll likely be driving out to at least one of them with the intention of training someone who is actually local to that event... hopefully after a couple years running inspections at that event and inspecting at regionals, that person will be capable of stepping up as an LRI if we need them to.