[Pauline Tasci]

Originally Posted by jpetito

In SoCal, the big elephant in here with is is the Volunteer issue. The higher up you go on the event food chain (as far as skill and experience is concerned) the more you see the same faces repeatedly. Judges, Refs, Volunteer Coordinators, FTC's, the like. And these faces are doing ten other things: FLL, VEX, FTC, Academic Decathlon, etc., and some holding down a real job in public education, which has become a seventy hour-a-week thing.

As for the volunteer issue, it's addressed very clearly in this document.
For the 2017 season every role should have an understudy so that individual could fulfill the role as needed as we move to districts.
I know first hand what it's like to try to find volunteers, or for that matter find qualified volunteers.

But this is the thing, so many people want to volunteer for the "cool" positions and one's that seem to matter but they are told they are not qualified enough. Not many people want to volunteer at an event to pass out safety glasses. Thus, making them either not show up or just not volunteering for the position. Having someone be an understudy to let's say a Judge Adviser, a CSA, or an FTA would really help CA grow in the volunteer pool. I've heard from so many people that they wish they could do the higher roles but the older volunteer crowd seems to have it covered. Having them understudy these roles will also grow their want to continue helping out at events since many of these roles have a direct impact with teams and the event itself.

Another note on volunteering. FiM's approach to how they got over the volunteer hurdle when they were changing was to ask for volunteers from teams. This could cover our smaller roles. How many people do you see in the stands at our events just on their phones? Or sitting there bored out of their mind? I bet if teams required two people to volunteer those people would feel more apart of the event.

On Code Orange, this year at LA, the event needed more field re setters and I had a couple students who weren't going to be doing much at the event and we sent them over. Guess what? They loved it. They felt important to the event, could get a great view of the matches, and they wanted to continue volunteering in those roles for our next events and future events.

The volunteer issue is a definite one, but to be honest, I'm very tired of hearing it as an excuse and want to see people execute getting more key volunteers.