[marshall]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

Having a short window to find out about qualification to DCMP and CMP is very tough... it's hardest because it's the teams on the 'fringe' that have the hardest time knowing whether or not they'll go, and these teams are more likely to be less financially secure. One thing that helped in 2014 was NEFIRST assisting in organizing buses for travel to CMP... If the District organizers are conscious of this difficulty a lot can be done to ease it.

Definitely something I'll bring up with our organizers when I see them. We attempted to get them to hold some bus reservations for St Louis this last year and it ended up not happening because other teams were concerned about the ability to pay for them in the event that they needed them due to the unique way that each school system has interpreted NC's laws/regulations for procuring transportation.

Let me tell you though, there is nothing like an invitation to a world stage competition to get school districts to very quickly re-evaluate their policies for procurement. We'll yet again be pushing to see the organizers take on the challenge of reserving buses to St Louis and maybe even for the DCMP event.

Thanks for the suggestion. Good info to know.