win chairmans award, check. Get to st louis. how?

[TEAM1100soft506]

my team just won Chairmans at WPI and we would like to know how other teams in the past have gotten funding quickly to go to st. louis (or atlanta or epcot.)
also what cost and travel accommodations come with chairmans.

[Akash Rastogi]

Good place to start is by sending out press releases and newsletters as soon as you can to your current sponsors. You should also have your leaders set up presentations for your town council/school admin/board of education. You also have plenty of time left to do small fund raisers which can quickly add up.

For example - car washes this time of the year are a good idea because the weather gets a bit warmer and people want all the salt cleaned off their cars! You may also consider having students pay for the travel/hotel rooms themselves. If this isn't as easy for some students, they can try setting up fund raisers like bake sales to offset some costs.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

[cgmv123]

Biggest one: explain to your sponsors and your school what winning the award means. Give them your presentation. To your school, emphasize what you do to help students from the district (i.e. Lego League). Remember, out of 42 teams, the judges thought you were the one that all other teams should seek to emulate.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by TEAM1100soft506

my team just won Chairmans at WPI and we would like to know how other teams in the past have gotten funding quickly to go to st. louis (or atlanta or epcot.)
also what cost and travel accommodations come with chairmans.

Congratulations! This is a great accomplishment.

Sorry, but nothing* comes with Chairman's aside from an invite to CMP.

The first thing WE did was get a good press release out to the local paper. After all, it IS the most prestigious award you can get at a regional... Then we spoke to all our sponsors and told them the good news. (How you mention the lack of funding is up to you. Most sponsors will "get it", some need to be asked).

Parents made up the majority of the funding for the travel and food. Not everyone was able to come with us.

The school found some money towards the entry fee. We had a little 'extra' in our account, and we started running bake sales, pizza sales, and lots of other fundraising events. A Carwash! (Pre-sold tickets at $5 each, you get the money even if they don't show up)

Good luck, now get busy...


* Other than what you got at the regional, of course, plus fame. No fortune, sorry.

[Lisa Perez]

Another way to fundraise is setting up a pledge form to send out to friends and family. 830 was able to raise a few thousand dollars within a week when we qualified for Championships during Week 6 last year.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Congratulations! This is a great accomplishment.

Sorry, but nothing* comes with Chairman's aside from an invite to CMP.

The first thing WE did was get a good press release out to the local paper. After all, it IS the most prestigious award you can get at a regional... Then we spoke to all our sponsors and told them the good news. (How you mention the lack of funding is up to you. Most sponsors will "get it", some need to be asked).

Parents made up the majority of the funding for the travel and food. Not everyone was able to come with us.

The school found some money towards the entry fee. We had a little 'extra' in our account, and we started running bake sales, pizza sales, and lots of other fundraising events. A Carwash! (Pre-sold tickets at $5 each, you get the money even if they don't show up)

Good luck, now get busy...


* Other than what you got at the regional, of course, plus fame. No fortune, sorry.

I believe that Chairman's winners receive ~half their registration fee to Championships. Unless this changed from last year.

[VexisDarksteele]

Congrats! Our team just recently won Chairman's at our first district event, too. We're also desperately scrambling to find the funds for the State Championships at the moment...

One thing we've done in the past for fundraising is reaching out to local restaurants to see if they'll host us for an event. I know Applebee's and Big Boy both do these fundraisers. Basically, we bring a bunch of display pieces (including the previous year's robot) to show off and some merchandise to sell, have a few team members act as servers for the fundraising hours, and sell raffle tickets for prize baskets. Ten percent of all profits within the fundraiser's time slot goes to the team. The one we did two years ago, which actually wasn't as lucrative as more recent fundraisers we've done, generated a good $700 for a mere 3 hours of service. It's not a huge amount, but it sure helps!

[HBarea]

We had a similar situation, but in FTC. Our team FTC 5070 N.U.T.S. qualified for the FTC World Championship. In one of our fundraising efforts we set up a web site (http://www.gofundme.com/29v0pg) to accept donations. You may want to consider this option also.