MAR

[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.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by EricH

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.

Eric- I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish. I agree communication is absolutely critical in almost every aspect of life. It too, irritates me, as it often leads to messy situations that can be avoided.

That being said, I don't have much knowledge of MAR. What I do know is from being in touch with my old teammates on MORT and seeing the few posts about it here on CD. I can understand how some people in the MAR region may be irritated if information was not communicated to them (if indeed, it was not brought to their attention). With all that said, I am not 'in the loop' so to speak. I don't know what was done by the MAR committee to reach out to teams, and I'm not going to speculate as to what did, or didn't occur. To me, just as bad as non-communication is over-communication. I personally don't see much constructive discussion in offering somewhat arbitrary examples of miscommunication.

I think Akash did the right thing and brought up the question to a body of people that could help (albeit he may have been able to say it a littttttle bit nicer ). He got an answer from a fellow FIRSTer, and now assumingly, he will have the communication channel he desired. Let's just leave it at that, especially if we have no direct view into what is happening in MAR. Otherwise, it's just extra discussion to cloud the clear messages people are looking for.

-Brando

[JaneYoung]

Just stepping into this discussion for a minute, I promise.

Texas has had some discussions about districting and I have not been in the loop. I'm not a lead mentor on our team and I haven't requested to be a part of the decision-making process. When I've read things that I've questioned - Bill's Blog comes to mind - I contact one or two of the people involved in the decision-making process and ask them to fill me in as best they can. It isn't anyone in CD although a few of them do participate in this forum. If one wants to know what's going on in the area and who to contact, it is always good to begin with the Regional Director, Assistant Regional Director, or the FIRST Senior Mentor of that area. If multiple states are involved, I would still follow that plan. They are the people directly connected to FIRST and to their region.

I also believe that too many people involved in the planning and decision-making process, slow it down. There's an element of trust that has to be involved - trusting that the decisions are being made carefully by people invested in making the FIRST programs stronger and better for the teams and their communities.

Jane

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by EricH

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.

I'm sure you'd quickly realize that contacting the Regional Director would be a great place to start.

If you wouldn't have come up with that on your own, and if you weren't part of a team in the area, and if you didn't go to any competitions where the information was available, then I don't know what to tell you.

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.

The information might not have "made it to" everybody, but it was certainly "made available to" every team in the area. That some team contacts failed to pass it on to anyone is unfortunate. It is also unfortunate that the MAR board has no control over such things.

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.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting should have been done. Don't flyers count as "non-email communication"?


I'm also more than a little confused about Akash's position. The team went defunct? If that's the case, I don't really see how anyone could expect its former members to be specifically targeted with useful information. I'd say that disbanding a team and not going to any events fits the description of "intentionally" avoiding MAR.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I'm not sure what you're suggesting should have been done. Don't flyers count as "non-email communication"?

CD and the FIRST forums are what I was thinking of. While not as many people read those, it would not hurt to have a thread saying "Here's how to get involved" in both places. Now, I don't know if there was such a thread/post on the FIRST forums. I don't remember seeing one on CD.

There are probably a number of teams that don't have an active CD presence that have a FIRST forum presence that's a little more active.

I wouldn't call disbanding a team and not going to any events intentionally avoiding something. There are probably quite a few teams that don't do anything over the summer/early fall as a team while they take time off. Saying that teams like that, especially with active mentors, are intentionally avoiding something is probably not accurate.