[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by ahartnet

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.

Andrew... everything you raise here is legit and the opposite of naive < ;-) > but there needs to be something done, at least initially, for these West Texas and Southwest Texas teams that are going to get killed by that second competition requirement.

Some of your suggestions above are _really_ interesting...

--Michael