[Kevin Sevcik]

FIRST is definitely involved in planning regionals, but they also depend greatly on local volunteers to fundraise and often organize and run the regional. I will say that starting from scratch now with no contacts or fundraising network is going to make a 2006 regional extremely difficult to pull off. A US/North American regional costs upwards of US$125,000 at a minimum. This is disregarding the exchange rate and extra costs associated with shipping a field overseas and flying regional staff out to support the event. This is also assuming there's enough staff to go around to support a European regional....

I don't mean to discourage you, a European regional would be a great way to get more teams in Europe, as their travel costs would be a lot less. I just mean to point out that you have a long ways to go here and probably without the kind of help that NASA usually gives to start new regionals here in the States.

Your best bet is to first and foremost gather up a nice group of like minded individuals and formulate a plan on how to raise money near the order of magnitude above. If you have a decent plan, then approach FIRST with it, Bob Hammond in particular.

Good luck in your endeavours.