[BrendanB]

We do not charge a fee but I know of a few teams in our area who do charge a yearly fee. From what I've heard, most teams who charge a large entry fee ($100+) also cover a few team shirts as well as their travel costs.

Currently all of our students pay for their travel costs (hotel, airfare/bus/van, food, etc) along with team apparel. It adds up to a lot each season by the time its done (roughly $1000+ per year for 5 events). This year we are attempting more personal fundraising efforts in which the first few items they sell goes directly to the team and any number above that a 50% will go into the student's travel fund in the future.

We've never had a student unable to attend an event due to travel costs as we always find ways to cover expenses.

Long term we hope to expand our corporate and personal fundraisers to help cover portions or all of our team travel and take the burden off of families when we travel.

Our team is currently moving under the 4-H umbrella which will allow us to have team dues but we won't open that door until we have sustained fundraisers that cover all student travel costs. Eventually I would like to see us charge $xyz at the beginning of the year which gives students x number of team shirts/polo/other apparrel, cover their 4-H fees, & the small remainder goes to travel and that's all they pay for the year using our fundraising methods to cover the rest in addition to working hard to bring our travel costs down.