[JesseK]

Wilson I dunno why there is so much silence from VA FIRST. I was told they wanted to take the lead on NCRA this year but we're almost half way through Fall semester and haven't heard anything, and NCRA is meant to be a place for teams to be able to have 1-on-1 talks with each other when they want them. Makes me want to send something anyways (though that'd be against the wishes of my team...). VA FIRST would probably say 'there's a newsletter', but some of the news breaks on CD or FIRST (emails) weeks before the newsletter - so the newsletter is 50% time late and often contains nothing of actionable value.

I will say that the planning committee meeting minutes are pretty detailed and show they're putting forethought into plenty of things. However, room blocking is not one of the things in the minutes. So it's worth it to send an email directly to FIRST.

Hopefully VA FIRST has their stakeholders outlined and in that outline 'teams' isn't represented by some nebulous insignificant block in a corner of the page. Teams have gone to plenty of events before, and have lots of experience in what makes a great experience versus mediocre experience. We also understand what sponsors we're most likely to engage with post-event and which ones we say 'hello' to and move on. I hope they engage more teams as part of this process moving forward.