[burlymon33]

As I sit here watching the ceaseless snowfall out of my window, and dreading the 3 feet already accumulated on my driveway, I came across this thread.

The hardest thing for me to grasp about the Chairman's Award was that a team doesn't do things to win the CA. A team should instead do outtreach in hopes of replicating a similar enthusiasm for STEM among other youth.

It can be really difficult to think of unique community projects that will set your team apart from others in the presentation room rather than to emulate the outtreach programs of other winning teams. But as long as a team is putting forth the effort, they are a Chairman's Team in my book. It really is a shame that more teams don't apply for the CA, because so much outtreach by teams then goes unnoticed.

This can be especially difficult when your team is still struggling to form its own sense of identity. But in the case of our team, we identified the lack of FIRST in our own community, and wanted to change that. At the time, the only thing we knew about the CA was that our buddies the Falcons had deservingly won it the year before. We didnt even know that we would qualify to apply as a second year team.

The CA is, in my opinion, the epitome of cooperatition and GP, because without it teams would not have any incentive to spread the word of FIRST.

Teams should not be intimidated to submit a CA application in the face of teams who have won consecutive times. I encourage all teams to submit a Chariman's application! As other posters have mentioned, the CA application journey will foster valuable growth in your team.