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Originally Posted by EricH
It's not in this thread, but there's some discussion in http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=136519&page=4 (start at post #48) on just what it would take to get that happening. Some square-footage requirements, some loose sizes, and throw in other stuff that needs to be handled. Good luck...
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Two words...Las Vegas! (Plenty of Venues, plenty of rooms! To handle 800~1200 Teams). Planning would have to be years into the future though to secure all that would be necessary. They can handle the World series of poker & CES and much more, they can handle just about anything. You might have to break up the 8 divisions into 4 venues, then bring everyone together at say UNLV for the Championships...So what? (Schedule a 2 hr. pit move & dinner break between Divisional Awards and the BIG SHOW!) You know how much room there is between the MGM Grand and UNLV alone (just a couple of blocks from 1 another).
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As I read these 2 threads and see the doc's come out that have been circulating now for actually a few years, & the committee that was put together to explore options for the future and to deal w/ the exponential growth of FIRST & FRC & The Championships, the Finances of US First, and all that has gone into bringing back up to at least a mere 25% access to Champs attendance & future INSPIRATION OF STUDENTS, and the recent pushing for the district format, and the overall slow to change directions the community really seems to have been to adopt that format in some places still today...I wonder how much of a real shock this should have really been to that many in the actual FRC community.
Could it be "the community" has had its heads buried in the sand and or just didn't read the tea leaves (of the road map), that "management" has been leaving them? Or just doesn't really want to change...Remember HofF Teams are highly responsible for a lot of actual growth within the organization also!
And that is a GOOD THING!
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What I hear is a lot of hurt feelings from some that Management left them out of the decision loop, OK that hurts a bit from well invested customers, and Really Well Invested Volunteer Mentors...Especially THE REALLY LONG INVESTED ones! (I have to talk to George Williams our 19+ year low digit Team Founding Mentor who has not taken a year off since the very start (almost 2 decades now), and see how he really feels about the issue this week...I don't even know yet, but I know whether or not the team attends/competes at Champs (We certainly are this year).....George & Crystal are there VOLUNTEERING for FIRST, with or without the team, year in, year out...EVERY YEAR! So, I'll assume until I hear differently from him, that he isn't going anywhere).
Now, just to play devils advocate here, I hear throughout the community often, FIRST (but, especially FRC), compared to a company, and the problems and solutions real companies & teams of workers within companies/industry face every day, from personell and company size, to supply chain issues & far beyond.
How many here have been with a company years (maybe decades), and 1 day find that the ownership changed overnight without a word or even a whisper, one day new management just arrives, w/ a new management team usually. Or, The Board &/or Management decides one day that something just isn't working, and MANAGEMENT DECIDES w/ little input from the workers (the labor force), that we are trying something new folks? And YOU will make it work. The customers are usually informed right after Labor and about the time the new name/logo's are released.
Management rarely if ever, asks Labor or The Customers exactly what they think before the changes are actually decided on, only afterwards how we are going to actually accomplish the tasks together, and how the new company will serve their customers even better than the old image/company.
While USFIRST is a HUGE Community Driven and Industry Sponsored... Industry, Education, and Personally Fueled Volunteer Mentor Organization....USFIRST Founded the Non-Profit Organization, organized it, and Manages it...They are MANAGEMENT (We are both the customers, and the Large Labor Base). but, THEY ARE STILL MANAGEMENT.
They did not go into this blindly...There has been a widespread COMMITTEE drawn from all angles of FIRST working on the project, and today wasn't the first time I have seen that blog post about that large committee or the Charts listing the 2 different methods of conducting Districts to Super Regionals to Championships either.....And I have only been around FIRST the last 4+ years.
They warned us months ago, THAT BIG CHANGES ARE COMING, and BIG CHANGES ARE HERE. (And they were not just talking about game design I fully realize now). We all should realize that by now.
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*Nothing I am posting has anything to do with any team, anyone else, or any discussion with anyone else....Just personal ideas and observations as I read and see a wider view of both sides of the multi-pronged issues. I dislike change just as much as the next guy or gal.. Just trying to look at all sides of the issues & all views in a realistic manner, and laying emotions and ego's aside. Discussion is now the key as decisions have already been made.
Lets make things better, not worse. Deep breaths can help.