Quote:
Originally posted by nick reynolds
Andy, its true for many teams, and if you look at our regional in CT you will see its on the 6th of april. The Nationals is on the 25th thats 19 days later.
In that amount of time including the sunday after the regional and the Wednesday that we arrive in Florida we would have to collect $30.000 or more from sponsors and book airline tickets, and reserve rooms in Disney. All the Adults who would be with the students would then have to upheave all the places where they work so they could get the time off to go.
I dont know your situation at work but many Adults and Parents who would normaly go to Florida with the team requier more than "19 DAYS" to make this happen. Last year we fund raised the whole year, we did Tag sales, Can and Bottle drives, Bulbs, calenders, Raffles and a whole lot more, but other than 1 main sponsor of $10.000 we had to raise every other dollar by nickles and dimes. I dont think we will find a sponsor in our town ( pop 23.000 ) thats going to give us $30.000 or more in 19 days.
FIRST is not being fair to the Adults and thats not an opinion, Thats a FACT.
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Actually, that would be an opinion and not a fact. It would be unfair if FIRST banned specific teams from going or made it nearly impossible for certain teams to go. But they haven't. They've simply put in place a way to qualify for nationals. In fact, they've only made it difficult for odd numbered teams to attend this year. Next year, it's first-come/first-serve for odd numbered teams. It's very hard not to read "FIRST is not being fair to the Adults" as "it's unfair that I don't get to go to Nationals" and I'm sure some people are going to make that mistake; so I'll assume you're not. But I think the important consideration is for who's benefit exactly is FIRST? Is it for the adult mentors? Or is it for the students? If like me, you think FIRST is around for the benefit of the students than you realize that improving the experience of nationals is beneficial for the students; whether on your team or on others.
But I digress. Given that you've never actually attempted to raise enough money to go to Florida in three weeks time, then I would say that you're not in a position to say that it's impossible. And having done it before, I'd say that while it is hard work and not every team will be able to do it, it is possible.
But you may end up evaluating your alternatives and realize that it's not worth the effort to do so. And then you may just have to learn to live with the fact that you won't be going to nationals this year. And realize it's neither the end of the world nor the end of FIRST.
Matt