[WEHickok]

As a member of the Board of Directors of FIRST in Michigan, it is good to see what others are thinking about our "test". Let me respond to some of your concerns from my point of view (and I do not talk for the Board, but just for me).

I have been involved with this since our first meeting in Francois' living room last April or May. Our every move has been monitored by FIRST and the FIRST Board of Directors. This has not been done in a secret as some have stated.

The primary reason to try this is to come up with a way to have more teams in Michigan and not run the costs up too great. With three full regionals, we needed another. If you have not read the papers recently, Michigan is in financial trouble...worse than many other states...so a new traditional regional was out of the question.

How could be make better use of the dollars that we did have? How could we grow in a down economy? One way was to cut the costs of the regionals and make them closer to home so we could cut or eliminate the costs of travel.

There has been much hard work to get where we are. We have increased the number of volunteers to staff seven Divisional tournaments and one State Tournament. And all the time, we are still being watched. Dean K. and Paul G. will be in Michigan for Week 4 to visit two of the Divisionals to see for themselves. Brandis University (I hope I spelled that correctly) has already created a survey that will be used at the close of the season...asking teams, parents, students, volunteers, etc., for their reaction. This data will be studied.

We do not think we have a perfect plan, just a place to start. Some have indicated their displeasure about not giving ponts for the RCA and EA awards. I, also, am not pleased with that, and I raised that issue during our discussions on points. Discussions have already started on how to handle this in the future.

Speaking for my team, we will play in three divisional events. These cost us $5,500. If this had been using the traditional FIRST method, I believe this would have cost us $13,000. GM has cut much of our funds this year, so we would have done well to go to one event, not three. Shipping costs are down, since our robot is in the corner of our shop in a "baggie" and we will take it, in the bag, to our competitions and bring it home.

As to the rookies--from what I have heard, most of the rookies have received help from the veteran Michigan teams. I don't know of any that have been left out in the cold (bad Michigan joke) to fend for themselves. And many of the rookies have received financial help from FIRST in Michigan to get started.

So, Please give this a try. Let us see where this goes. I think it has potential to be a way to improve FIRST. There are a lot of questions...like how would you do this in areas where you only have one or two teams? ...will we ever get to see our friends in nearby states until we get to the Championship? ...will those in nearby states be able to come play in Michigan if we were to do this again? ...and the questions continue. We must look at this "test" and then try to get the answers. Just like teams solve the problems of the game, I think the FIRST community will be able to solve this one, too---not FIRST in Michigan, but keeping the excitement and getting more kids involved while reducing expenses. Keep an open mind and help us find the answers to better FIRST.

Thanks.