[gblake]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

For the sake of inquiry, how many of those claiming they would quit FRC if Kickoff was moved up would quite FRC if Stop Bag Day is moved back? Is it purely the holiday concerns that drive your reasoning? Or is it general burnout? Do you feel FRC would be an equal time commitment as a September-April program as it is currently?

Originally Posted by waialua359

I wouldnt participate in a sept-april program primarily because that would mean all of the pre-planning would take place during the summer. My guess is that you would lose a lot of teachers who arent willing to do that.
While many such as ourselves come in during the summers to prepare many of the same things, we do it at our own relaxed pace vs. an intensified one.

Many schools do not start at the same time. There would be a huge disparity/advantage for some teams and not others. We started our school year the week after IRI. I know of many schools who dont start school until after Labor Day weekend.

...

I don't disagree that FRC's volunteers and semi-volunteers are affected strongly by FRC's annual rhythms, but an observation is that ...

If FRC wishes to continue to grow globally (along with trying to saturate North America), finding ways to continue to be attractive regardless of any given community's school calendar is only going to become more important.

As you point out, in just the USA, plenty of variation exists, such as instances of year-round public schools, or different Fall start dates.

And then when you think globally, the number of student calendars (and holidays, and testing schedules, and ...) really explodes.

You have the north/south hemisphere differences, and oh-so-many cultural differences.

My magic wand is broken, so I'm imagining that some current FRC schedule eggs are going to be broken when FRC makes their future omelets.

Blake