[YAK'ker]

Our team is also having one of "those" years. It's difficult to get members motivated, especially when many of them have never attended a competition.

We try to elect 2 good Co-Presidents (because, frankly, it's too much for one person) and a bevy of support officers. The Chief Engineer, Chief Programmer, and Chief Electrician are all officers appointed by the mentors and co-Presidents. It's tough to get a slate of officers who also have strong delegation skills, because that's something that usually only gets developed when students have been part of other organizations in the past (Scouts, 4-H, ROTC, etc.)

As a mentor I walk the line between empowering and nagging, and the line gets really blurry when there's so much to do. I want our officers to be the ones in charge, but they sometimes don't want to be team cops. I try to figure out when I need to jump in, but mostly I confer with the officers, ask them what we need to do to get the group working together, and let them handle it. I may have to call someone out who is being disrespectful and undermining their authority. It helps that one of our other mentors is an ex-WWWF wrestler, for sure.