[Nate Smith]

...now here's why. I have been on both sides of the coin as far as travel expenses - there have been years when I've had everything covered, and years when I've had to pay a few hundred dollars out of my own pocket in order to go. So, needless to say, I know it's harder having to pay it out of pocket, but I know there are ways it can be done, so I'm not using that as a factor.

The other main argument I've heard for moving the event is "if we move it from Disney to site X, everybody would be able to go." While that may indeed be the case for this year, what about 2 or 3 years down the road, when FIRST outgrows that venue? Are we going to move again, so we have a home big enough for the next few years? Or are we then going to put restrictions on who can and can't go, sparking the contraversy that we saw this year, all over again? What the whole issue with qualifying for nationals boils down to, in my opinion, is those teams who have been around for a few years are used to being able to go to nationals every year. Now, the growth of the FIRST program makes that impossible. So, rather than accept the inevitable side effect of taking part in a program with the growth rate that FIRST is experiencing, people are looking for an "out," any way that could bring FIRST back to the way they remember it. Personally, one of the hardest things for people to understand in years past when I was explaining the FIRST program to them was the fact that you did not have to qualify for what we called the "national championship." At least partially, this is no longer the case, which I feel is a necessary step for the wider understanding and continued growth of FIRST. And while at this time, the methods FIRST uses for filling the remaining spaces at the nationals may be less than perfect, there will come a time, if their growth continues, that the even/odd methodology will no longer be needed, and all of the spaces will be filled by teams who have proved themselves during the regional events, either the current year or years past. And while I know the years past qualifying methods have been a source of contraversy themselves, if my memory serves me correctly, they were put into place as a compromise suggested by the teams at the team forum in August, so that not all teams attending the national competition would experience the same monetary "crunch" that some teams are now when attempting to plan their last-minute trip to Epcot.