I'm going to go ahead and answer the original question: How do I help my area move to districts?
First, a few disclaimers: I am from Minnesota. I am not on the RPC, though I was on it for a year and know all of the members. I am a key volunteer, and I graduated college relatively recently (that is, I'm not an old man shooing rascally kids off my lawn).
Here are some real issues that need to be solved to move a region to districts:
- Where are these events happening? I don't mean give me the names of the small handful of school who currently host offseason events. For Minnesota, we need at least two locations every week plus one for the district championships.
- Someone needs to contact those locations. You need to be willing to drive to those locations and speak with representatives from the venue regarding contracts, timing, and logistics. Keep in mind that Minnesota is a large state and the proposed district spans the entire state.
- At this point, probably go back to step one because a few of your original venues were taken off the list because they are unavailable when you need them.
- Find funding for these events. Someone will need to go and speak to potential donors. Believe me, this will take a lot of potential donors. These donors also need to respect you and the organization (FIRST) that you represent.
- Find volunteers. Let's assume for a second that Minnesota has enough volunteers total such that each volunteer works two events (because that horse has been overbeaten more times than I care to count). Now you need to coordinate getting the right volunteers for 13 events (up from 4). They need to be relatively local to the area and/or willing to travel for the event. Your VC for each event should probably know these volunteers by name and a good VC will also have the same qualities as a good manager- they know where you want to be in 5 years and are working with you to get there. A VC isn't a once-a-year or maybe-I'll-try-this-out position.
- Coordinate the A/V aspect of the events. Who is webcasting each event? Who is running the sound board and projector? Do you have the equipment to do that? If not, go back to the fundraising step and then go through the process of acquiring equipment
- Find a place that can store your field(s). For Minnesota, this is a number greater than or equal to 2.
- Find people to maintain your field. It needs to be cleaned at least yearly, and things like road crates frequently need repair.
- Go back to fundraising because you also need to purchase fields.
- Figure out how to transport the field(s) to the events. The location Minnesota's field currently lives at between events doesn't allow anyone in under 18 and is only open during the workday M-F. The 2016 field also requires either two regular moving trucks or one semi, either requiring two drivers or someone with a Class A license (x13)
Those are the tasks I came up with in a few minutes of thinking, and I know there are a million more. Don't forget that the people we are currently asking to do these things are also currently responsible for 208 Minnesota teams and 4 regional events that need to continue running during the transition.
As much as I hate to say it, I don't think most college students would be good fits for many of these tasks. It's not because I think college students are immature or lazy, it's because of the time commitment many of these tasks require. College students should be focused first and foremost on college, and it becomes difficult to do that if you are trying to coordinate fundraising for 13 district events with executives from dozens to hundreds of companies. There is a reason that many have suggested that a 501(c)(3) is necessary: managing districts can easily be a full time job for a group of people.
That being said, these tasks can and should be divided amongst people. Regardless of who you are and where you come from, if one of these tasks sounds like something you would be good and and are interested in doing, talk to your RPC about how you can help out in that area.
Saying to your RPC "I want us to switch to districts" isn't likely to get you anywhere. Saying "I want us to switch to districts, I think I would be good at doing X, and here are a few ideas I already have on X" is much more likely to lead somewhere.