[Joe Johnson]

Just to keep the balls in the air, let me toss this out there.

Mixing matters. Both at the CMP and at the lesser events. There is value to FIRST to have the cross pollenization between regions.

What do you think of the idea of an Ambassador System where the Winners of a regional championship as well as the Chairman's Award winners (and perhaps even the Finalists) are invited to compete in a different district/regional the following year. It would not be mandatory and I think it would be best if the Ambassador teams were financially subsidized for the extra travel/shipping/etc expenses. I am thinking that of those 9 teams (3 winners, 3 Chairman's & 3 finalists) perhaps 3 become ambassadors.

In this way, teams from various regions would still mix and the culture of FIRST could be spread around but the costs are still kept reasonable and the Ambassadors would be charged specifically with spreading the culture. We could leave it to the creativity of those teams to define what that means, but I think that by charging them with the goal, you will see 1000's flowers bloom.

keep the thoughts and ideas coming.

Joe J.