[Elgin Clock]

I will try to be as un-biased as possible on this question.
I am not an alumni on a FIRST team, as you might mean it. I did not go to the High School that my team is from. I joined the team through a college class, helping out with the CAD design stage 3 years ago.

Over the past 3 years I have seen both positive, and maybe not so positive attitudes directed from the team as a whole to the individual (graduated) alumni of the team.

Some graduates are welcomed with open arms into the team year after year, while others are frowned upon just about every time they show up (on their own free will none-the-less) at a meeting.

On one end of the spectrum we have a few graduates who come back to the team every year since they graduated and help a lot where they can in their area of expertise. They are treated with respect from all the team members from current seniors to freshman, and also the adult mentors and school faculty..

But there are always two sides to a coin.

There are other graduates who came back, volunteered to mentor a subteam, started a large project with help from current students, and then were basically denied the respect they deserved, mostly from the leaders on the team.. And also the project they started, which was a breakthrough in the team, was taken over and credit was given to someone else. Every time this project is shown to members of the team, I just have to roll my eyes, because I actually know the truth behind it all. These particular graduates work great with the kids, but I feel that they get basically no respect from the faculty advisors and some others.

One group of graduates started mentoring other students, and helping out in a technical area and were basically forced out of that position by another group of students and a mentor, and their ideas ignored so much, that they don't want to even be associated with the team anymore.

I usually don't have to deal with any of the issues that these graduates face, but I still hear about it, being the link between the team and them because I am close to their ages, and it is really disturbing...
Unless their is something I am totally missing, this just seems wrong.