[Church]

Hahah I was just asking most of these questions. Is this going to be your second animation, or have you guys been doing this a few years? This was my team's first shot and it's really hard to recruit when they don't understand what you're explaining. Show them the program, show them some finished pieces, and explain the basics of how it's made--modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, rendering... that way they have the gist of what they're going to be doing. When I was a student, and I learned that I would be doing what the animators over at Pixar are doing, I was hooked instantly.

Whether or not you can get started early is up to the teachers if you're using their computers, but the earlier the better. Keep your returning students in practice over the summer if possible. I plan on having them do the safety animation this coming year--even if they don't have a stunning submission, it will give them practice with every step of completing an animation with a deadline, not just doing tutorials (which are great, don't get me wrong! But knowing how to put everything together is important, too).

I'm in the same situation as you, this being the end of my first year as an adult mentor. So I'm not exactly a veteran, but I can at least lend some educated guesswork =D I've found that saying, "do the tutorials in your spare time," is not always wise. Some tutorials are very specific to certain techniques that you won't be using very often. Look through them, go online, and pick out the ones that are the most explanatory and the most useful to the team. I wish I had done that this year xD I had to teach them everything while we were trying to do our animation.

Good luck! Let us know what works best for your team, because some of us are stuck in the same boat ;D