[JaneYoung]

What I've been thinking about for a couple of years, after meeting so many teams and learning from and about them, is that I think there are teams who believe they are student-run, but if they spent more time thinking about it, they would realize they are closer to the 50/50 mark. The mentors are working side-by-side with them and are supporting and guiding them. Where the mentors are failing the team is in not helping them understand the value of everyone working together. If the mentors are there and helping support the team effort and also encouraging the students to be actively involved in the different areas of what it takes to be a competition team - but are not acknowledging their own value and contributions to the efforts of the team, then there is still a distorted view that occurs on the part of the students. We have seen time and time and time again, that people like to argue about student-led and mentor-led. What we are seeing surface in this thread is: team-led. Working together. Mentors mentoring and students participating and learning. What I've thought about is that teams who spend all of their energy promoting and marketing themselves as a student-led team with little input from the mentors - are losing out. They are losing out by not taking the time to understand their team dynamics and what is really going on. Their mentors are losing out by not recognizing their value and how they contribute to the sustainability of their team. They also lose out by not acknowledging their wisdom and experience.

There's another facet of the team that is often downplayed by the team and is sometimes never fully embraced or acknowledged by the team: the value of the parent support. We see it everywhere - 'I'm just a mom' or 'I'm just a dad' or 'I just do what needs doing.' Parent support doesn't mean running the team. Parent support means providing the support so the team can run more efficiently. I'd much rather hear: "I am a parent for xxxx team and have been for 3 years.", than hear, "I'm just a mom." That doesn't tell me much about the parent or the team and sadly, I hear it all the time.

The more time a team takes to really spend looking at how it runs itself and what/where the keys contributions are, the less smack talk we'll hear or have to listen to. We'll see the evidence in how the team conducts and promotes itself. Very few teams (and I know there are some), are truly student-led, student-run, student-everything. Those that are or claim to be, should be able to break it down, financially, organizationally, and competitively. The rest should really take a good look at themselves. Many never will and will not strengthen the areas they are weak in. Those areas will reveal themselves during the competition, one way or another.

.02
Jane