Quote:
Originally Posted by Libby K
This is so true.
What scared the hell out of me was the snippy answer to "How many FIRST Alumni are on the BoD?" and resulting followup. It's unfair that the decisions that affect our community most are being made by those who don't know what the community is truly like. It's one thing to visit teams and talk with them, but another to live and breathe the team for months at a time, if not the entire calendar year.
On top of that, the 'we can't poll thousands of people' rationale just doesn't make sense to me. You have a Hall of Fame. You have the Championship WFA's. Use those as a focus group - you've identified them as being the best people and programs in FIRST, so why not use them?!
I'm still trying to digest my thoughts on this one, but so far - not at all fair to teams, and not at all happy with it. I'm very glad FIRST at least made an attempt to open the door with discussion... but they certainly did not handle it well at all.
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Totally agree! It is for the above reasons (not getting community input), that many in the FRC community felt unrepresented leaving them frustrated and angry.
Some here in this string considered negative positions to be "ungracious". I would suggest it is "ungracious" to not allow folks to articulate their views on the decision. Only allowing questions and not allowing people to voice opinions, made people feel that their opinions on the decision didn't matter.
They had to know this news would not be popular. People need a chance to voice their free speech rights and opinions without being made to feel like negative positions are automatically considered "ungracious". No one got openly nasty or inappropriate. They merely voiced their displeasure.
People love this program and put many years into it and they all have a right to have a voice in how they feel when someone is shaking up the world they have come to love.
Had decisions been made by including a subset of folks who actually were part of the FRC community (legacy? hall of fame?), it may have been much easier to accept change and I think there would have been less frustration....I also think the resulting solution would have been very different.