A New Team Social

[mesamb1]

I am involved in planning the a new team social for the Smokey Mountain Regional. I, however, have only been to the Peachtree Regional team social, and I am hoping to find out how other regions team social work. What activities were fun? What stuff was lame? How much were the tickets? Is there any food that taste particularly great after a day of Robotics competition?

[ebarker]

Two big hits at the Peachtree

1 - rock band

2 - the really big giant bouncy tent that you run and jump through

I won't get into the worst I've seen....somewhere else.

[Josh Drake]

One of my favorite socials was when Palmetto was at Clemson. First teams were invited to learn more about the different engineering programs at Clemson. Then they opened up the dining hall for all the teams. The dining hall had everything from meat and 3 to pizza and hamburgers. After eating, teams could go to the bowling alley/pool hall and play games.

There wasn't a price; it was paid for by the organizers, not the teams. A lot of time organizers don't do the social because it means more fund raising for the event. I'm glad to hear Smokey Mountain is getting something together, but would warn about charging a ticket price. A lot of teams would perfer chilling in their hotel rather than pay an additional price.

[Taylor]

Good ideas:
Dodgeball, Ultimate Frisbee, other massively-large-team games
Cornhole tourney
Basketball, Wallyball, Touch Football
Dean Simmons & the Kamen Brothers

Bad ideas:
Karaoke
Junky food
Not enough food
Karaoke
Any situation where people sit in chairs or at tables with no reason to get up and mingle
Karaoke

[mesamb1]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Good ideas:
Bad ideas:
Karaoke

I take it you had a bad experience with Karaoke?

Originally Posted by DRAKE2751

A lot of teams would perfer chilling in their hotel rather than pay an additional price.

My thought would be that a team social ticket would be less then a descent dinner price. Is there a ticket price that you would think would be reasonable?

[Josh Drake]

Our team leaders most likely won't pay the students ticket price. They seem to feel meals are a students responsibility (don't get me started)
That's the reason for my previous post. We had a student recently stay home for an off-season event because they couldn't afford the two meals and were too embarassed by that fact to tell somebody. So this is a slight sore spot with me that the team leaders don't budget in meals on trips.
With that being said, if you charge a price some teams may balk. I would hope a price of $10 to $15 wouldn't turn anybody away because like you said, they would have to pay for the meal somewhere.

We went to the Florida regional two years ago (former team) and 1902 put on a team social that was awesome (ultimate frisbee, video game tournaments...). They charged a ticket price of $10.

I know if this happens, I would be willing to pay, but I can't speak for every member of the team. But that's more of an inside issue with us.

Good luck!

[Michael Sperber]

When we brought our Team Social back at the CT Regional, we elected to charge a nominal fee... not offset our expenses, but to ensure that we had a accurate head-count for food.

When planning an event like this, you need to let your food services provider know how many people to expect... you don't want to have too much or too little food.

[wendymom]

[We went to the Florida regional two years ago (former team) and 1902 put on a team social that was awesome (ultimate frisbee, video game tournaments...). They charged a ticket price of $10.


Good luck![/quote]

We did include a BBQ with the ticket. Last year we held the team social at a bowling alley. We charged 20 bucks per but it included a full all you can eat buffet and all the bowling (and shoes) you could do for 2.5 hours.

As a mentor, I'm always willing to pay for a team social if that means I don't have to figure out where to feed my students and how to keep them happy for a few hours.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by mesamb1

I take it you had a bad experience with Karaoke?

Loud and bad and the volume made it so that we couldn't socialize if we wanted to. It was amusing for the first five minutes, but I can only handle so many Journey songs before I crack.