**FIRST ROOKIE ALERT**/Upcoming Deadlines/Recruit Help Now/Save Yourself Some Trouble

[Mark McLeod]

Greetings Rookies:

Upcoming Deadlines:

• 12/01/11 @ 8 PM EST: Regional Event Registration closes; Championship Registration closes.
• 12/02/11 @ 8 PM EST: Kit & Kickoff Registration closes
• 12/02/11: Payment deadline for Initial Regional Event Registration
• 12/08/11@ 12 PM EST: Deadline to submit Safety animation submissions (via STIMS)

Dec 15 team profile information in TIMS will be exported.
Why is this important to you? Program books are distributed to visitors, VIPs and teams at Regional Events and your team profile will be included if (and only if) you have completed the information in TIMS by the deadline. You want other teams to know who you are and you want to bring home this slick souvenir to your sponsors and supporters. To make sure you have the most up to date information included in your profile:

• Log into TIMS https://my.usfirst.org/frc/tims/site.lasso
• Under Teams I can Administer, click the Edit button for your team
• In the Team Profile section, Click the Edit/View button for Team Information

Recruit Help now:

After Kickoff your team will be too busy building a robot to even ask for help (let alone explain to others what kind of help you need) so start recruiting now. You need:

• 2-3 professional engineers to work directly with your students during the design and construction of your team robot.
• 2-10 additional adults – to handle everything else. Ease the burden on yourself and your technical volunteers by assigning parents and other volunteers to:

Make travel arrangements – how will you get your team to the competitions?

Communicate with parents/the school(s)/sponsors/local press

Communicate with other FRC teams/your Regional Director/FRC

Pick up supplies – keep your team focused on the work at hand and send someone else to the hardware store

Organize snacks – your team will put in long hours and everyone will get hungry

You should already have a Main, Alternate and Shipping Contact for your team (you needed these names to register for your first event.) but do these volunteers know what they’re supposed to do? Their roles are outlined in sections 3.2.1-3.2.3 of the FRC Administrative Manual: http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default...ganization.pdf

Save yourself some trouble:

Rookie teams from last year suggest you set up your record keeping methods and create a financial plan now. Set up your fundraising/revenue stream in advance and figure out how to pay for items you need to purchase during the season. Don’t let a few mentors charge everything on their credit cards. They might get stuck with the bill. More details are available in the FRC Handbook:http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles..._Resources/FRC Handbook.pdf

Go Rookies!

FRC Team Support
FIRST® is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) Not-For-Profit Organization
V603-666-3906
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E frcteams@usfirst.org
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