Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Blake
Andrew... what do you think of a financial travel stipend to normalize travel for these far-flung teams funded by FIRST in Texas?
It's not perfect because of the hours of extra travel time you can't recover for these teams but would be the closest to the best solution possible I believe.
--Michael Blake
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Bluntly put - I think it's naive to think that it'd happen. The Texas Workforce Commission grants, which seems to be the majority of the funding, already has the stipulations that it can't be used for travel, food, or lodging. My experience has been that most sponsors do not want money spent on those things, and I'd be hard pressed to think that FiT could find companies that would allow for their sponsorship to be used for costs associated with travel. Putting that burden on FiT just isn't any more sensible than putting it on the teams.
There's also nuances to consider in team sizes (how many rooms), and district rules regarding travel (for instance, any travel we use - bus or vans - have to be through a school approved vendor). If you were to attempt to do a financial stipend, I'd guess that the sponsors would also want to control what bus/van/hotel is used rather than just give the money to a team outright which could cause it's own set of problems. Granted though, if you could even get to this point I think most teams that have to deal with those sort of rules imposed by a district could find a way to make something work if it reduces costs...but I've learned never to doubt the ability for rules and regulations to force a decision that doesn't make any sense or to turn down "free money".
In addition to seeming unrealistic IMO, I think it treats the symptom rather than do anything to address an issue.
To be fair, I don't have a solution that I think is sufficient either. Do you allow teams to duplicate their score from attending 1 event if they justifiably can't attend 2? Do you reduce their registration fee to do only 1 district event? Do you allow west texas teams or border teams to compete out of state to count for district points? Do you only have districts for the parts of texas with a required team density (basically east texas)? Do you allow teams that aren't within XXX miles of a district event to decide on their own to opt-in or opt-out of districts? All of these come with their own set of obvious problems.