The glasses table, volunteers, and event staff

[KathieK]

The Spirit of FIRST program at Championships tries to get to every team coach, mentor and volunteer to thank them on behalf of FIRST HQ. We expanded the number of SoF people to include FIRST Senior Mentors this year, but as you can imagine, it's nearly impossible to reach everyone! So if you didn't see us come by with our red, white and blue tie-dyed shirts, please accept my Thank You now!

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by DjScribbles

It made me wonder though, why not sign up the time slots for 5 minutes earlier than they start, and tell teams to get there 5 minutes early on top of that? (essentially always be running behind 5 minutes), sign up the time-slots every 10 minutes, as they are now, but the time on your card is 5 minutes before match-start.

I used to work for a executive who kept the wall clock in his office 5 minutes fast. The idea was similar to yours; to make sure he (and people in his office) wrapped up meetings in time for the next one. The problem was that everyone knew his clock was 5 minutes fast (after all, we all had watches). So everyone just mentally subtracted 5 minutes & used that time. The people in FRC are as smart or smarter than the people there.

Keep thinking, but I don't think that's the solution. And while you're thinking, just show up for your practice matches at next year's CMP 10 minutes early.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Jaxom

Keep thinking, but I don't think that's the solution. And while you're thinking, just show up for your practice matches at next year's CMP 10 minutes early.

Our biggest struggle with this is how crowded and difficult it is to queue to the practice field. This isn't a volunteer issue. I think it's a pure layout problem, but it's difficult to be early when there's no where to be. We went 10 minutes early every time and often ended up stationed in the middle of the aisle for part of it. More than once I saw teams in trouble for being "late" when in fact they were on the other side of the field or separated by lots of people weaving through them.

It's almost like, in addition to more room, we need a practice field meeting to--explain queuing procedure for the real and wooden fields while actually standing on them. Explain why being early matters. I think it'd save a lot of "where are we supposed to be?" "but we're not late, we were right there!" and "we tried to come earlier, but it was so crowded".