Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Safarley2901
Well, Its not the building part thats the problem. Our mentor has barely time right now to come one night a week. Last season, we had no mentors there, and just people parents and one coach who came to watch.
|
So you need more funding and mentorship support - never hurts to start looking within your community now, even if your team does take a one year hiatus.
Has your team ever gone out into the Alliance community seeking help from area businesses? Many teams have developed a "tiered rewards" program that grants different levels of promotional advertising to companies and individuals based upon the level of financial and personal commitment they donate to the team. Here is one such example from one notoriously successful team
:
http://moe365.org/prospective_sponsors.php
Teams 48 and 2010 are working on their own sponsorship drive plans (geared toward the current economic state of affairs in Northeast Ohio) and are preparing to go out into the Warren and Champion communities to seek out help from area businesses, which have long been an untapped source of support for 48 (who has relied almost exclusively upon Delphi for corporate support for nine years) and will hopefully be a primary source of support for 2010. We are integrating rewards for personal time commitment and team mentorship into the overall plan, to go along with the standard promotional considerations for monetary donations. Time is money, after all! We'd be happy to share this plan with your team leaders.
One other potential source of income - NASA provides a one year grant to veteran teams who want to attend new regionals. This year, that includes the New Orleans Regional. 10 such "veteran grants" are available for New Orleans. Get a bus and go! Here's the link to the application page:
http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/firs...ication_07.php
In addition to the competition itself, I can think of many educational opportunities travelling to that competition and that region of the nation would provide to 808's students, considering the events that have affected that region over the past year. Maybe that would be a unique selling point to your school and your team advisor? Just an idea.