[duckyday]

wow.. interesting questions.. this is a topic i have considered myself with us running for chairman's this year... it is weird because this year we did a lot with the community and the team... it is only our third year and a lot of the original core group is graduating, so i think we wanted it to be special for them...everytime we did something, in the back of our minds the chairman's award team was thinking "will this help us get the award?", and every once in a while we suggested something to the team to help us be a more qualified team... it carried more weight coming from us...

The chairman's award shows a team straight off how important it is to embrace gracious professionalism and your community... when a team understands what the chairman's award is about, they understand the spirit of FIRST... this is something that beyond a doubt is a benifit of the chairmans...

You have to wonder if the award is becoming a bribe for a team to embrace that spirit, but i think it is pretty obvious when a team does something for no other reason that to get the chairman's award. if my team, with our 1 lego league team and lack of mentorship of other first teams, both of which are traditionally valued by the chairman's award judges, can win at our regional over teams who had many more of those things, I think you have to admit that the award works the way it is supposed to.

We put a lot of effort into winning the chairman's award, but we also put a lot of effort into being a good team... i think the seniors will go off with the memory of that and that the freshman will continue with the memory of that and carry it into the next few years...

Winning the regional chairman's rocked on every level... it let our entire team see how important our other activites are and made some of the more engineering driven members recognize the value of the chairmans and marketing teams. To watch our team come together with this award and our pursuit of it, was so important and amazing that i can't help but think it is an incredibly powerful award.

Were our team to win a Regional Championship that would be great too, but that would almost be just another subteam winning something... like the software group getting Leadership in Control, or the Marketing team getting the imagery award... The chairmans involved our entire team, in all the activities and presentations we did this year and in the history of the team.. it involved both past and present members and mentors... and we all are better for having been involved with it.

It is FIRST's most prestigeous award, and for me there is no question that it deserves to be...