[IKE]

I think things might have gone moderately better had the FIRST Panel accepted some of the peoples statements and acknowledged that they are entitled to their feelings. Many of the responses were inadvertently telling people that "I don't think your feelings are right, and here is why". I made this same mistake in a discussion after the town hall.

I was very worried by some of the comments that I heard coming from very respected mentors. I was also fired up due to people quoting things that I did not think were true (growth in Michigan factors) or personally know are not true (no safe places within 20 miles of Detroit). I went to have a discussion with one such mentor whose comments had me very concerned. The discussion quickly turned into both of us talking at each other vs. talking to/with each other. The discussion stayed a discussion though a bit adversarial when this persons team all stepped in to back this person up.

In retrospect, I was trying to convince that team that what they felt was not reality when in fact it is their reality. Their feelings are real to them, and needed to be acknowledged. I may not share their feelings, but trying to "fix" or "change" their feelings at that time was not going to happen and just validated that I was not in touch with their reality. To that mentor and team, sorry for having that conversation. I am sure I came off very condescending to you and your team trying to tell you how to improve your program. I may not have agreed with your feelings, but I should not have tried to change them.

I think the FIRST panel had the same problem. In several instances, they tried to "dismiss" or "correct" a persons feelings, when a higher level of empathy would have gone a long way.

For instance, with regards to concern about Detroit:

We hear your concern about safety of your students in an Area like Detroit. I know that for many mentors, these kids mean as much to you as your own kids. We had very similar concerns and did a lot of cite visits before making the decision. We know that doesn't increase your comfort, and as a mentor you will likely have an uphill battle with a lot of your parents, so we would like to work with teams to help mitigate the concerns that teams might have, and support their efforts in ensuring that teams can attend the Championship in Detroit. St. Louis has a very similar reputation (#2 to #4 depending on the list), and we did have instances where we had to work with teams to understand the safety that we ensure when hosting an event. You can see some of these measures if you look for the extra police officers that have been brought in along corridors of public transportation to and from the venues. We work hard with the cities to ensure that teams will have the safest and best experience we can give them. Let us know what sort of efforts we should make public in order to better support the difficult decision you will have to make, and the difficult discussions you will have to have when planning travel with parents.

This basically says the same thing they covered, but I think it would have gone over better.

With regards to the "students want a champion", had they said:

We agree with you that it is important that students and teams have role models, and often those role models are pointed out to them via the winning and champion alliance. Inspiration is one of the most important factors of FIRST, and we share your concern about the possible concern of 2 Champions vs. 1. Because of this, we have been and will continue to investigate possible alternatives and scenarios of a follow on event to have 1Champion Alliance. FIRST dealt with a similar concern when switching from single team to Alliances. There was a lot of consternation and people upset about no longer having truly 1 true champion. FIRST got another round of this when switching from 2 to 3 alliance members and the discussions still come up about the serpentine draft.
This does not mean that we are disregarding these concerns or that your concerns are ill placed. Having "a" champion is very important. We are just valuing having more participants in a Championship event as higher value than having a singular winner at that event. To show though that we do believe it has important value, we are investigated possiblilities and alternatives to get to a single alliance champion for FIRST.
It should be noted that for most High School sports, they stop at a State Champion, and thus there are at least 50 champions in the US alone. For many of the more popular High School Sports, you have different divisions or classes within a given state, and thus as many as 5 State champions for the same sport. When talking with a 2A Football State Champion, their title is no less meaningful than the title awarded to a 3A Football State Champion, though the debate often occurs when a single class sport (like Inidiana basketball) transitions from 1 class to multiple classes.
FIRST is not just a High School Sport, and we like being different. Again, this is why we are investigating ways to get to a single Champion.

With regards to "Divorce" and splitting up the family, had they said:

I really like the family analogy. In many ways, the FIRST Championship has been one of the wildest, craziest, and most fun family re-unions that anyone can imagine. If we can go back to the graphic, I think we can explain a lot better about how this family reunion has changed over the years. Early on, the family was small. Infact with only 30 some members, we could pretty much fit everybody anywhere. Over the years, we grew and grew. Very soon, it was too big to have just 1 event, so we created regionals, but still had a Championship where the whole family could get together. This model worked for quite a while even though the family grew at a crazy fast pace. We were always able to adjust the format of the re-union to accommodate those that wanted to come up until the late 2000s. By that time, FIRST had gotten big enough that it was getting very difficult to accomodate all who wanted and could afford to attend. We have since tried a lot of different ways to fit the family. Its really hard to find a place that can fit all the cousins, and second cousins, and .... this year we even went to a completely different format than the past, and it has frankly been a bit crazy. We will do it again like this next year, hopefully with some lessons learned from this year after we review how the event went, but we cannot find a way to make it work in a single venue. As we said before, we have reviewed options and did not find any ideal options, but we went with what we believe to be the best of those options.
While we don't look at it as a divorce, I can see why it does feel like splitting up of children. We are still considering and working through the methods of who will attend which event, and how those will be decided, but ultimately some friends that are very far apart will be seperated.
When Michigan anounced the districts, this was a common complaint at that time, and is still one of the chief gripes that comes from the district model. I will say though that from what I understand, old friends keep up the freindships that they want to work for, and many new stronger relationships have been formed by teams that are able to visit more frequently in those regions.
We at FIRST HQ do not honestly know everything that you mentors and teams do for us as there is so much done that goes un-recognized. Because of that, we will never be able to thank you enough. It is really heart wrenching to see any action we do cause so much pain as you and many others are experiencing. I love hearing that you talk to the teams that are your heroes. Before you leave this weekend, please talk to about 10 teams that it is their first time coming. Ask them about their experience and what they will be taking home. We know what we are doing is not popular among many of our greatest teams, but if you talk to a lot of those "almost didn't make it" teams, you will likely understand why we are doing what we are doing. This year Don Bossi went to 3 events every weekend and talked to as many teams as he could. Talking with all of those teams, I think we are making the tough, but right decision. With your support and help in the areas that we have some flexibility, I think we can make the 2 event format great, but I do know that some of you that will get to attend those events will miss seeing some of your friends. *I personally am glad to see that we no longer have our event the same weekend as the VEX World Championship so I can see some of our friends from IFI here at the event.

*I added this last statement for me as well as a few others that would love to hear that more frequently....