Competitions and Holidays

[Levin571]

I decided to start this thread to point out some of the dates that FIRST chose for this years regional and National event.


First off there are these regional competitions:
Regionals: OH, CO, IL, NY, PA, SJ, WAT March 24, 2005

These 6 competitions fall on Easter weekend, and some of the teams that go to these regionals from far away would return back home on Sunday which is already easter.


The other religious conflict is National itself:
Championship: Atlanta, Georgia April 21, 2005

This falls on the first two days of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The first two days are the most important where jews are supposed to go to synagogue and have a seder at night which is essentially a meal involving a lot of different religious aspects. Also during this time one cannot eat food with yeast in it like any bread products, and i wouldn't assume the Georgia Dome to have all the proper kinds of food that we can eat.


I'de like to see how other people/teams are dealing to this predicament, and to possibly find out who i can write a letter to from FIRST about this.

[tckma]

Originally Posted by Levin571

These 6 competitions fall on Easter weekend, and some of the teams that go to these regionals from far away would return back home on Sunday which is already easter.

My team was considering registering for a second regional. We are a Catholic high school, so the regionals falling the weekend of Palm Sunday and the weekend of Easter are out.

Now that I know the nationals are during Passover, I agree that FIRST seems to have picked some lousy dates this year. I'm going to follow this thread to see what people find out.

*shrug* I think there were budgetary concerns for a second regional anyway. I'm not sure.

[Elgin Clock]

As I said before, we were going to go to Philly Easter weekend.. but plans get changed. Dumb holidays.

Now we are going to Rochester, and back to Jersey to defend our 2004 title.

[Tuba4]

I had the same thoughts. Why pick what to some is a very sacred holiday? It would seem that FIRST has inadvertently alienated a whole group of participants this year. And for our school district, the weekend before is the beginning of spring break, so our choices were even more limited.

[Joe Matt]

Holidays, AP tests, this is nothing new. FIRST is on a very tight schedule they they have looked at all the options and this was the only one that worked. No matter when you hold the competitions you will run into some scheduling conflict, it's reality.

[David V]

We're not going to any of those regionals, and I really doubt any of the people on our team would miss Nationals for anything, seeing as it's less than half an hour away.

[Manoel]

Originally Posted by Levin571

I decided to start this thread to point out some of the dates that FIRST chose for this years regional and National event.
These 6 competitions fall on Easter weekend, and some of the teams that go to these regionals from far away would return back home on Sunday which is already easter.

That happened before, in 2002, and it wasn't really a big of a deal. As far as I know, living in the country with the largest Catholic population in the world, the religion doesn't require you to go through periods without having meals, or punishing yourself for sins and things like that. You can't have meat on Holy Friday (is it the right term in English?), however, and competition venues don't usually offer fish. Just stick with nachos

Originally Posted by Levin571

This falls on the first two days of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The first two days are the most important where jews are supposed to go to synagogue and have a seder at night which is essentially a meal involving a lot of different religious aspects. Also during this time one cannot eat food with yeast in it like any bread products, and i wouldn't assume the Georgia Dome to have all the proper kinds of food that we can eat.
I'de like to see how other people/teams are dealing to this predicament, and to possibly find out who i can write a letter to from FIRST about this.

Now that seems to be more of a problem, as Judaism is a bit more strict with religious holidays. As others said in this post, FIRST will not change any events dates, but, considering the large number of people that will be affected by that date, you should make FIRST aware of this situation (and note they may already be), perhaps by arranging with the venue to have special food, or maybe even find a nearby synagogue to contemplate the needs of everybody involved.
Have your team officially contact FIRST, preferably with the support of other teams, and tell them about your situation.

PS: If I sounded offensive towards any religion, please forgive me, it is definitely not my intention.

[Cory]

You can write all the letters you want to FIRST, but the fact of the matter is they won't change anything.

Believe me, FIRST does all they can to accomodate religious holidays and such. There are only so many weeks they have to work with though. Administartors and teachers already think that the FIRST season is too long, and FIRST ABSOLUTELY cannot extend into May when there are AP tests.

FIRST does the best job they can with things like this. Let's not hassle them for something out of their control.

I'm Jewish, but I wouldn't be celebrating Passover here at WPI anyways, so if I go to Nationals, I won't have any problem

[Ian W.]

Originally Posted by Levin571

The other religious conflict is National itself:
Championship: Atlanta, Georgia April 21, 2005

This falls on the first two days of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The first two days are the most important where jews are supposed to go to synagogue and have a seder at night which is essentially a meal involving a lot of different religious aspects. Also during this time one cannot eat food with yeast in it like any bread products, and i wouldn't assume the Georgia Dome to have all the proper kinds of food that we can eat.

Just to be picky, many Jews don't go to Synagogue on Passover unless their congregation holds a gigantic Seder for the entire congregation (which I have seen some reform synagogues do before), instead, they have a big family gathering, similar to Thanksgiving, minus the bread of course ;-). This is what my family does, as well as pretty much everyone I know who is Jewish.

Now, since it's my first year away from home for Passover, and there's pretty much no way I could make it to the Seder at my grandparent's house, it doesn't affect me much, especially since it'd be hard enough up at school alone to not eat bread (doable, but not exactly something I'd look forward to). Of course, I'm not thrilled with FIRST's pick of dates, but to be honest, for Championships at least, the amount of Jews going will most likely not be a significant portion of the crowd, and it's unfortunate, but FIRST has to pick the best date for everyone, and sometimes it's a horrible date for others.

To the people who are affected (which, I suppose includes me), all I can say is that this year you either have to bring your own matzoh/matzah (we could make it something cool, BYOM!), or just pretend you're extremely reform for a year. Yeah, it sucks, but short of paying FIRST enough money to reschedule, I don't think you're going to be able to change it.

The only thing I can think of is if you're not a team that "needs" to go to Atlanta (competition winners/chairmans/etc), just don't go this year, because you'll move up (down?) a tier and you'll definitely be able to go next year.


Ohhh, one more cool idea. We can have a "FIRST Seder", if someone seriously tried to organize one, it could have interesting results. If I go to Atlanta this year, and there was a FIRST Seder, I'd definitely make it a point to go. Someone should send FIRST a letter about organizing that, and possibly setting up a special area for "Kosher for Passover" food.

[rbgorbet]

As someone trying to organize a regional on the Easter Weekend, believe me, it's frustrating! Especially since Good Friday seems to be a bigger deal up here than it is in the US. Not only are we having our rookie regional on Easter, but it's also March Break for our biggest catchment area, AND the only weekend in the season with 7 regionals!

As a result, we have the smallest regional going, but it's going to be great anyways!

I agree with other posters, though: it's not FIRST's fault that Easter comes so early this year. And since events are always on weekends, whenever Easter comes early it will coincide with a FIRST weekend. I'm not sure what drives the choice of the Championship weekend, but I'm pretty sure FIRST would take into account religious holidays if they could.

Rob

[Elgin Clock]

Yay! Jersey regional lands on St. Patricks Day weekend!!

<-- Green Grin!

[Peter Matteson]

Elgin you beat me to the punch on that one.

FIRST didn't really make any big schedule changes from the last to seasons to end up having these holiday's occur during the competitions. They have the competitionthe same time every year it was bound to happen so if it's really an issue schedule around it for your team. There will always be some kind of conflicts to schedule around and appeasing everyone just won't happen.

On that note they could be more considerate on asking the food vendors to be considerate of religious issues. As a catholic I hope they actually provide some adequete vegitarian meals at competitions that occur during lent. Also for myself and my fellow Irish for St. Patrick's day they could, nevermind.

[RoboMom]

FIRST is aware of these issues, but has so many issues on so many levels to deal with for scheduling. It was discussed during the Senior Mentor meetings in NH. I sure wouldn't want the scheduling job they have to cope with and obviously they are not trying to purposely alienate anyone.
That said, I have a couple of suggestions.
I think there will many students and adults at the Championship who celebrate Passover, which is a major Jewish holiday and starts on Sat. night, including, hopefully, some of the Israeli teams. This could be a great opportunity to at least do a little Seder. I'm sure that FIRST would be willing to work with anyone who took some initiative. Any ideas? If the group can put together some realistic ideas and suggestions, these could be presented to Bob Hammond. I'll help you deliver the message, if you come up with what you would like to do.

[Ian W.]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

I think there will many students and adults at the Championship who celebrate Passover, which is a major Jewish holiday and starts on Sat. night, including, hopefully, some of the Israeli teams. This could be a great opportunity to at least do a little Seder. I'm sure that FIRST would be willing to work with anyone who took some initiative. Any ideas? If the group can put together some realistic ideas and suggestions, these could be presented to Bob Hammond. I'll help you deliver the message, if you come up with what you would like to do.

First thing you'd have to do is find out if there's enough people who would attend one. That could mean a simple poll here, or perhaps FIRST sending out an email to all team mentors, and seeing if it's something enough people want to do. If there is a big enough response, then continue with planning a Seder.

For the absolute minimum, you'd need a lot of matzah (I suppose that's a given :-p), and a few "symbols" for lack of a better word, to be placed on the "Seder Plate" (it's basically things to remind you of spring and the whole story of Exodus, as Passover is an agricultural festival as well as religious). It really wouldn't be too hard to plan, but just make sure that people would go to a Seder before someone goes and plans it all out.

[Wetzel]

Robomom and Ian, you beat me to it.

As far as having a Seder goes, I know I would attend. However, all I think you would get from FIRST is a room in which to hold it and a broadcast email about it. Think like the confrences last year, which were run by volunteers.

Ian, I am sure there will be enough people to have a Seder, the real question is on what scale will there be a Seder.

Wetzel