MAR

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Carol

Not everything is set in stone with FIRST yet which is why not all details have been made public. There will be a webinar shortly for all teams to ask questions and get more details. Stay posted.

Not to try to insult the awesome folks who are part of MAR, but is there a way that anyone can get involved in the planning process? Because right now it seems they are the only ones who know anything other than the 1 public MAR meeting that was open to teams.

I don't want to sound rude, but the fact that we launched a campaign in 2009 requesting transparency from FIRST about their 5 year plan, yet we who are not part of the MAR planning stages, are being left in the dark about anything going on until "it is just right" to make public, sounds ironic and hypocritical to me and other mentors who I spoke to.

We generally do not care to hear something only when it is set in stone, we want to be updated about things being discussed and deliberated upon. FIRST might have been translucent, but right now "MAR is opaque," to quote a friend. Its a little sad when I have to go to my old team to ask what the plans are for districts and what rules are being discussed along with the prices still. We want information as it is being discussed, just like so many mentors in FIRST wanted to hear these same things back in 2009.

Hope that did not sound rude, as I deeply respect some of the folks in MAR. Please let me know if there is a way to join the planning committee. A simple list of "This is what's up in the air" and "This is what is concrete" is all I ask for.

To quote the specific paragraph from the 2009 letter:

We’re not complaining about these actions but about the lack of transparency in their planning phases. While it is reasonable to be without a “fully fleshed out” plan yet – particularly for the District model – surely some of the basics are known, and uncertain or speculative points can be identified as such. We certainly all know that plans can change and we can work with that.

+.02

Edit: Who is the "head" of MAR?

[Chris is me]

Maybe it's FIRST who's insisting on non-disclosure rather than MAR. Just a thought.

[Carol]

The board meetings are public and notices of them were sent out to the membership list in advance. Many people have dialed in to them. Are you a member? You should have received email notification.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Carol

The board meetings are public and notices of them were sent out to the membership list in advance. Many people have dialed in to them. Are you a member? You should have received email notification.

Nope, the only notification I received was from someone else about the MAR meeting on 9/17. Might be because we registered the new team and aren't on any other mailing list?

Do you mean member of the board? If so, then no. PM'd you to keep the thread clear.

Thanks Carol!

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Not to try to insult the awesome folks who are part of MAR, but is there a way that anyone can get involved in the planning process? Because right now it seems they are the only ones who know anything other than the 1 public MAR meeting that was open to teams.

Are you kidding?

Um, not to be insulting, but I remember at least 3 web meetings and 2 face-to-face meetings in the past several months. Plus a pile of e-mails.

Are you a MAR member? If so, you know this. If not, why not? Send an e-mail to Ed Petrillo of team 293 SPIKE (his e-mail is edward.petrillo, in the gmail dot com domain) and he'd be tickled pink to sign you up. Membership is free, open to anyone in the MAR region, and everyone gets a vote.

That being said - and as the guy who penned that 2009 letter - this is not FIRST, it's MAR. Two different organizations. And I haven't seen a more open and transparent group in a long time. (Though, I admit, they don't communicate via the web very well ).

Before I enter rant mode, join up, then we'll talk. Or ask Ed your questions, he's a nice guy.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Are you a MAR member? If so, you know this. If not, why not? Send an e-mail to Ed Petrillo of team 293 SPIKE (his e-mail is edward.petrillo, in the gmail dot com domain) and he'd be tickled pink to sign you up. Membership is free, open to anyone in the MAR region, and everyone gets a vote.

Thanks Don!

And like I said, my intention wasn't to sound rude or insulting, just trying to get more information. Not trying to grind anyone's gears. And if they did communicate via the web more my comments may have never been brought up.

[EricH]

Maybe it's hard to join up if you don't know how to join up. If that bit of info did not get out to Akash (or his team), or any other team within the region, that is a problem--and it's not that team's problem.

Let's just say, as an example, that I were in the MAR area. (I'm not.) I've noticed the (relatively few) CD discussions on the topic--but very few even of those have the "how to get information" stuff posted. Now Bill's Blog comes out and says, "MAR is a go, welcome!" I have very little information on what is going on within MAR (besides what I've managed to pick up on CD). Maybe I haven't gotten a message, electronic or otherwise, from anybody within the organization group on how to get in on the information loop (and I'm in the target area, for the sake of this example). I'm going to want the missing information--and having people tell me "You should have the info from all these meetings" (that I didn't know how to be a part of, at the very least) is NOT going to make me any happier about not knowing what's up!

If that is the case--that the info did not make it out to all the teams in the region--then it may be a really, really, really good idea to contact all the teams and verify that they did or did not get the information on joining up. As a matter of fact, it probably wouldn't hurt to do it anyway, especially any rookies that sign up.

If, after someone has learned how to get the information, they don't use that option, then that is their choice. But if they don't have that information in the first place, then it is the responsibility of whoever is making the decisions to get that information to those people.

[Lil' Lavery]

MAR has done everything in their power to try and inform everyone in the region that this is happening and how to get involved in the planning process. That is absolutely not MAR's problem. They were even handing out flyers at regionals last season. Honestly, any active mentor in the region pretty much had to intentionally avoid MAR not to be exposed to it at some point this summer.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

MAR has done everything in their power to try and inform everyone in the region that this is happening and how to get involved in the planning process. That is absolutely not MAR's problem. They were even handing out flyers at regionals last season. Honestly, any active mentor in the region pretty much had to intentionally avoid MAR not to be exposed to it at some point this summer.

During last season and in the summer, the 3553 main contact was, let's just leave it at less than a great communicator. This is why the information never reached the people involved in our new and old team. Due to the team folding (school whatnot/long story, we were not at offseasons either.

Aside from that I've already been in touch with the parties I need to be in touch with thanks to Don and Ed. I have also apologized already to Ed if I came across in a bad manner. I will also be helping them get the info out to teams likes ours who were in limbo during the summer and in the previous season and did not have all the info, including newly registering teams.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

MAR has done everything in their power to try and inform everyone in the region that this is happening and how to get involved in the planning process. That is absolutely not MAR's problem. They were even handing out flyers at regionals last season. Honestly, any active mentor in the region pretty much had to intentionally avoid MAR not to be exposed to it at some point this summer.

Sean, I wouldn't go as far to say that 'Any Active Mentor in the region had to intentionally avoid MAR'. I consider myself, and many others that I'm in frequent contact with to be 'active' (which I guess is a relative term) mentors. Yes, I was copied on the e-mails, but there wasn't much information in any of them, or at least none that I saw. It seems like the only way to get information (Other than who was on the board of directors and an assortment of resolutions) is to actually go to one of the MAR meetings - which I did.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by EricH

Don, just a little hint.
(snip)

I don't have any involvement in MAR, but it seems to me like Akash had concerns, posted a question, and got a very helpful concise answer from the people at MAR. A great example of what CD is incredibly useful for.

Eric, since you are not even close to the target group, does it make much sense that you would have been hit with MAR informational minutes or information? Perhaps another rookie team could comment on how that has actually happened, and it would be much more useful to the MAR planning committee. Finally starting with "X, just a little hint." sounds pretty condescending to me. Even if someone was giving me the best advice in the world, if it was delivered like that I'm not sure I would listen.

Still waiting for a District/Qualifier to come to a region near me...

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

Eric, since you are not even close to the target group, does it make much sense that you would have been hit with MAR informational minutes or information? Perhaps another rookie team could comment on how that has actually happened, and it would be much more useful to the MAR planning committee. Finally starting with "X, just a little hint." sounds pretty condescending to me. Even if someone was giving me the best advice in the world, if it was delivered like that I'm not sure I would listen.

Ian, I gave an example. No, I'm not in the area. I never asked to be involved; if I had wanted to be, I wouldn't have had much of an idea how to get involved. But let's say that CA (or some other area I'm in) starts a district system up. Let's say that I'm in the target area, with a team (a bit of a stretch). Now, if it's something I need/want to know about, like planning meetings, and I don't know about it for whatever reason, I'm not going to be too thrilled months later when I look and all I know about is one meeting--and I find out that there were a bunch of others, and didn't know the contact info or anything for involvement. That not-thrilled-ness is going to be directed towards wherever the communication break happened--or where I see the break happening, which may not be the same place.

That was my point. I've been following this thread today, and it just seems like the folks that are active in MAR are assuming that their information on how to be involved with planning and meetings and all that made it to everybody. This information is incorrect, or was...but operating under the assumption that everyone who wants to be involved has information on how to get involved is not ideal.

Flyers at events, assuming both that they have the information needed to get involved and that they are distributed appropriately, do have a tendency to end up in piles of paperwork or in the trash or buried in someone's bag. Email, though better, can still break down, as shown here. Hey, maybe a post on CD about "Hey, we're forming X group, here's how to get involved" would work--but I didn't exactly see that info in a post. Definitely a good effort, now that I hear what they did. Team communication breakdowns are not the fault of the organization. Just maybe a general announcement via some non-email communication might have been a really good idea.

Ian, I'll be editing that part about "hint" out of my original post. I apologize if anyone took that the wrong way. I just tend to get rather irritated about communication breakdowns--the more critical the communicated information, the more irritated I get.

[KathieK]

Since I anticipate the Connecticut teams asking me, can someone please clarify which teams can attend MAR events? Some of my teams have been going to NJ and PA Regionals for a long time... And no, I haven't been in the communications loop for this.

[Dancin103]

Originally Posted by KathieK

Since I anticipate the Connecticut teams asking me, can someone please clarify which teams can attend MAR events? Some of my teams have been going to NJ and PA Regionals for a long time... And no, I haven't been in the communications loop for this.

Teams ONLY in New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Delaware may attend. Sorry.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by EricH

Flyers at events, assuming both that they have the information needed to get involved and that they are distributed appropriately, do have a tendency to end up in piles of paperwork or in the trash or buried in someone's bag. Email, though better, can still break down, as shown here. Hey, maybe a post on CD about "Hey, we're forming X group, here's how to get involved" would work--but I didn't exactly see that info in a post.

No offense Eric, but emails to official team contacts and flyers passed out at events are far more likely to reach people than CD posts. There are a huge number of teams that have no presence on CD.

If lead mentors don't pass on information received, that's not the fault of the sender. I know how that works. I relied for years on people reprinting email blasts here on CD, because our mentor didn't read his emails (from anyone) on a regular basis.