Quote:
Originally Posted by DareDad
Minnesota would need 15 district events just for the teams in Minnesota. If only Minnesota teams were allowed it would orphan the teams in North Dakota, northern Iowa and north/western Wisconsin. Add those teams into the district and there would need to be 17 to 18 districts minimum. Minnesota would be running 3 or 4 events per weekend during competition season.
You can't expect the key volunteers to work for six weekend straight. To make districts work you need six or more event leads, FTAs, FTAAs, Head Refs, Lead Queuers, Pit Admins, Lead Robot Inspectors, Judge coordinators, Lead Safety inspectors and probably a couple more I'm forgetting. That's fifty plus people all making a commitment to train and work four weekends during competition season.
Minnesota has some really committed key volunteers. But it's a small group that's maybe a third of what would be needed. Right now its a group of people who do Duluth's double regional and then Minneapolis' double regional. I've already committed to Iowa next year and I expect there will be enough of the core group that the key positions there would be covered.
It's the minor volunteers that are where Minnesota has trouble, and that I suspect has to do with the size of the events which have all of the teams in the area competing, so most of the natural volunteers are already occupied.
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As Matthew pointed out, there were 218 MN teams in 2015... you need a district event for every 20 teams, so that's a minimum of 11, not 15.
Agreed that you can't expect the key volunteers to work for six straight weekends... BUT you're only in need of enough staffing to run 12-14 events (including DCMP; 14 would include surrounding states)... maybe that's 4 key volunteers each working 3 or 4 weekends or 3 key volunteers each working 4 or more weekends. At any rate, I think Matthew's spot on with his "If you build it, they will come..." more volunteers - including key volunteers - will step up as need arises.
I'll also kindly point out that there have been a diverse group of regions to go to districts... none of them have suffered from the change and I've hardly heard anyone saying "I wish we were still going to regionals." Look at the PNW as an example of a large region geographically with tight population pockets that also lacked the "region age" that Michigan or New England have... the PNW has definitely benefited from the change!
Also, it seems to me that FIRST HQ is really pushing regions to go to districts... a few years ago they were hoping most of FIRST would be in districts in 2016; it's more, but not nearly as much as they were expecting!