[Rich Kressly]

On the surface, this appears to inhibit the abilities/creativity of those creating the submission and I understand how this may disappoint some people.

However, let's also look at these positives. Submissions are four pages in Word format and consistent across every submission. This will most certainly help put these documents in the hands of judges earlier than ever before. The consistency also allows a judge to be much more efficient (let's remember these are volunteers who have rearranged their lives for the events). This means more available time for the judges to provide the full ten minutes for each interview. It also will get those Chairman's judges out of that "room in the back" and allow them more time than ever before to see the teams in action.

In addition, as others have stated, video can easily be used as part of the presentation. Video production is labor intensive, thus the purposes of creating a team oriented video should also be to inform the community, spread the message of FIRST, solicit for more sponsorship, and highlight team achievements. All of those purposes go directly to what the Chairman's Award is about.

In the end teams with all kinds of budgets and expertise can submit on a level playing field and those who are skillful at video production still have a whole lot of wonderful reasons to go forward and produce a quality product utilizing the skills they have acquired.

Good luck to all CA submitting teams in 2004.