[EricH]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

2. If the two districts will be separate, allow Teams on border lines to declare which district they wish to be in. This could result in some headaches but lets say a team pops up in Inyo County (yes I looked up the names of the counties), it is a "Northern" California Team, but depending on where in the county it is, it's to closest events may be in the "Southern" district. This may become an issue later if the area develops enough to host it's own district event but could be brought up on reevaluation.

I agree strongly on this one; it's one of the biggest disadvantages of district borders. I can think of at least one team that would need to make that decision, as they're on the northern/southern border for practical purposes. (They typically go south, BTW--hard to break old ties.)

3. Extend the Shadow Program to include offseasons. Basically have key/essential volunteer roles be shadowed or overbooked for the offseasons. Now I know that this may seem challenging but getting more volunteers can be done by informing teams ahead of time that their will be sign ups for students to learn how these roles work. Now many of these roles can not be filled by students at official events, but students don't stay students forever and getting them the basic training will help in the long run.

Working on it, and I think I can say that it works if you can do that. On another note, anybody want to ref or shadow a ref at Fall Classic?

Now I have a question about the district proposal: Why are you planning on Friday/Saturday for your events as opposed to Saturday/Sunday?

I can't answer that one for sure, but there's only been one FSS event in this area, and they went to TFS last year. (Not counting offseasons.)

I don't agree with the statement that "FSS means less vacation time taken for volunteers/mentors". Personally, and I'm not speaking for anybody else, if I have an event that has me there on Sundays, I take Monday off to recover and recalibrate for the work week ahead! While I can see how it can work, it certainly isn't true for all volunteers. Also, as some folks in NE found out last year, some teams have a hard time doing Sunday events. (That's also a variation by team, but it is something to be aware of.)