Is Missouri Headed Toward Districts

[New Lightning]

Heard a rumor that Missouri may be moving to a district system sometime in the near future. Any truth hear? Any timeline about when this might happen?

[Knufire]

Better than rumors, just contact the people in charge of your local FIRST organization or regional director and ask?

http://www.stlouisfirst.org/ContactU...3/Default.aspx

[I_AM_Clayton]

Originally Posted by New Lightning

Heard a rumor that Missouri may be moving to a district system sometime in the near future. Any truth hear? Any timeline about when this might happen?

I haven't heard anything about a district system in Missouri (at least not yet). I personally don't see how it would work, we have between 80-90 teams here in Missouri, compared to Michigan (district system) with over 400 teams. If it did occur how would we split it up, a St. Louis area event, Kansas city area event and possibly a Jeff city or Sedalia (where we have the state championship) event,for the teams out in rural Missouri?

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by I_AM_Clayton

I haven't heard anything about a district system in Missouri (at least not yet). I personally don't see how it would work, we have between 80-90 teams here in Missouri, compared to Michigan (district system) with over 400 teams. If it did occur how would we split it up, a St. Louis area event, Kansas city area event and possibly a Jeff city or Sedalia (where we have the state championship) event,for the teams out in rural Missouri?

You would not want to have to launch districts with 400 teams - it would require launching over 20 events.

With 80-90 teams, that means 4-5 district events and a district championship. Michigan started its district with 7 district events+champ, and MAR started with 5+champ. It sounds like Missouri is at a good size.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by I_AM_Clayton

I personally don't see how it would work, we have between 80-90 teams here in Missouri, compared to Michigan (district system) with over 400 teams.

Sure, if you compare it to the largest district system (Michigan), Missouri seems small, but not when compared to the North Carolina district system (52 teams), Indiana district system, (51 teams), or Georgia district system (66 teams).

[Ryan Dognaux]

Missouri and Kansas are in discussions to form a district. It may not occur until 2018 though. There's hope that inter-district play will be in place by then so our Illinois friends can come to the St. Louis area events.

[New Lightning]

Thanks for the info, just wanted to see what was going on.

[Joe Johnson]

All I can say is, "Come on in, the water is fine!"

Districts have some down sides but for my money, they are an almost unalloyed good thing.

I think it is better for teams, better for FIRST, and better for FIRST's growth.

On that last point take a look at the attached chart. I know, I know, I KNOW! Correlation is not causation but FiM has a strong case for causality.

When FiM formed, there were about 100 teams in Michigan and the team count was asymptotically approaching about 125 teams and then... ...DISTRICTS. Boom! Exponential growth returns.

FiM has been like a dog on a ham bone about driving the costs down for teams. And THAT is the Causation Component. Lower costs has lead to more teams.

FiM has lowered the cost for teams with subsidies where they can get them and by running dirt cheap districts in as many localities as they can.

So... ...MO, I urge you to follow the MI path. Join the move to Districts and then fight hard to lower the costs for teams to participate.

Dr. Joe J.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by I_AM_Clayton

I haven't heard anything about a district system in Missouri (at least not yet). I personally don't see how it would work, we have between 80-90 teams here in Missouri, compared to Michigan (district system) with over 400 teams. If it did occur how would we split it up, a St. Louis area event, Kansas city area event and possibly a Jeff city or Sedalia (where we have the state championship) event,for the teams out in rural Missouri?

Indiana does fine with only 40+ teams. You don't need a hundred teams to run districts.

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by I_AM_Clayton

I haven't heard anything about a district system in Missouri (at least not yet). I personally don't see how it would work, we have between 80-90 teams here in Missouri, compared to Michigan (district system) with over 400 teams. If it did occur how would we split it up, a St. Louis area event, Kansas city area event and possibly a Jeff city or Sedalia (where we have the state championship) event,for the teams out in rural Missouri?

I think we'd need at least two events in both KC & STL; the events need to have fewer teams than regionals. One of the problems will be travel; we're so spread out that almost no one will be able to attend out of town events and still sleep at home.

[IKE]

Sub 100 is a great time to form a District. (team count/20 rounded to nearest whole number is the number of districts you need). With 5 events, you could have your championship week 7 (nice two week delay), and then Worlds two weeks after that. If you are a larger geographical district, this helps allow teams to make travel arrangements.

You can do a Championship event with about 60 teams which is a great size, that will have noticeable difference when compared to 40 team districts. You have the option of likely another year going to 6 events or 20% growth before you absolutely need a second field and crew supporting. At 120 teams, there is a really nice progression with a 60 team Championship with 50% of teams going to champs. Note it starts getting a little "weird" when advancement only gets to about 25%. The districts can get really competitive.