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Originally Posted by Joe Matt
And while this is NERD centric, why limit yourselves? I sometimes get the feeling that NERD is like a snotty country club that only invites based on geographical location, not a tool to spread the message of FIRST.
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Edit: In hindsight this post came out totally different than I had intended it to be. I never really meant to be come out sounding so defensive, and I was strapped for time when I wrote it so I didn't fully reread through it the way I normally do when posting. I'm sorry.
Way back in the summer of 1787, several dozen delegates from the thirteen original colonies met in complete secrecy to rewrite the laws on which this country was founded from the ground up. As a result of these secret meetings, the United States Constitution was born. One might argue that why should the formation of a democratic nation be solely the work or an "elitist" group of rich and wealthy delegates?
What it all comes down to a case of having too fingers in the pie at once.
The N.E.R.D. organization wanted to start small at first with a small group of people to help set organization in the right direction. And once everything is moving in the right direction we said we would begin to get more and more people involved in the program - which is what we are doing at the moment. Over the last few months, we have added literally dozens of new N.E.R.D.s; the only difference is that we have stopped posting pictures of every N.E.R.D. here on Chief Delphi.
We are extremely sorry that you may feel offended by us, as we have never meant for any of that reaction to occur. This is not any different than IndianaFIRST promoting FIRST in Indiana. Would I call InFIRST elitist because they primarily focused on supporting FIRST only in Indiana? No. Would I call N.E.R.D. elitist because our primary goal is supporting FIRST in New England? No.
The only difference I can see between the two organizations is that N.E.R.D. hit a sweet spot among the FIRST community - where many consider themselves nerds or geeks. One may argue that our organization is a victim of its own popularity, in that
everyone in FIRST wants to be a "nerd", while the primary goal of our organization is growing and maturing FIRST in the New England region - but we are also working on a lot projects to help or benefit FIRST and FIRSTers everywhere.