District Feasibility/Potential

[Siri]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

I wonder if the districts led to more offseason events or if the offseasons came first? I know that Midknight is new in MAR this year, and I'm not sure when girlPower started. So that's 3-4 offseasons in MAR before districts. Does anyone have info about Michigan's offseasons in 2008?

MidKnight is new, but girlPower is in its 4th year now. Further, there were BR^2 and PARC before districts--it's more of a shuffle than an increase. MAR was a very high off-season area well before districts. Michigan is an anomaly for me; it may just be the calendar, but it seems very low.



I didn't assemble the list--it's basically just FIRST's calendar. I know it's missing events, (including Duel on the Delaware, that we're actually competing at).

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Add in Suffield Shakedown as well.

And 151's Week Zero event they have held the past 3 years.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by AlexD744

On the topic of Florida districts:
I agree with James that Florida could feasibly pull off the districts with ~100 teams and districts spread similar to the way he described, on a similar timeline (~2016). I think as far as volunteer bases, it would be a softer transition than going directly to 10 events. Although it would be a slightly harder transition for the teams.

Also, with 150 teams, that means 300 "competing slots" as each team plays twice. At ~40 teams per district, that means only 8 districts to accommodate the number of teams suggested for transition.

Regarding timelines, here is the growth in FL FIRST teams since 1999. We will, assuming growth continues, hit 100 by 2017. (I used the average growth since 1999 since I couldn't find a trendline that made any sense).


I'd be more interested in seeing the amount of churn in teams. I've got the data to compute that I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe tonight.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Regarding timelines, here is the growth in FL FIRST teams since 1999. We will, assuming growth continues, hit 100 by 2017. (I used the average growth since 1999 since I couldn't find a trendline that made any sense).


I'd be more interested in seeing the amount of churn in teams. I've got the data to compute that I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe tonight.

Churn in teams? Like team size?

[AlexD744]

Originally Posted by dodar

Churn in teams? Like team size?

I think he means, how many are lost and gained each year? But I say that reluctantly.

The growth chart is interesting... it's kind of all over the place.

Again, does anyone know what official talks have been had about Florida's future with districts, if any?

[dodar]

Originally Posted by AlexD744

I think he means, how many are lost and gained each year? But I say that reluctantly.

The growth chart is interesting... it's kind of all over the place.

Again, does anyone know what official talks have been had about Florida's future with districts, if any?

Of the states with a pretty good number of teams, I think Florida would be the last to go into the district system.

[mdituri]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

And you don't need as many volunteers for a district event as you do for a regional.

At MAR, on the first day (after school/evening) we need to feed 65 volunteers. On days two and three (the full days) we need to feed 100 - 110 volunteers. We need the same number of volunteers for a district event as for the region championship event. We simply have people volunteering at multiple events; thank goodness for the amazing MAR volunteers.

The big problem came in 2012 when we went to districts. We had enough volunteers, but we impacted NYC Regional significantly. The individuals that volunteered at NYC as their second regional ended up volunteering at MAR districts and we basically stole a decent portion of their volunteer base. This didn't happen on purpose, and we didn't realize how many individuals volunteered at NYC from MAR until the month before NYC when they were still looking for a large group of volunteers.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by AlexD744

I think he means, how many are lost and gained each year? But I say that reluctantly.

The growth chart is interesting... it's kind of all over the place.

Again, does anyone know what official talks have been had about Florida's future with districts, if any?

I mean how many of the teams are new each year. If we have 26 teams one year, 36 the next you'd naively assume that there were 10 rookies. Sadly, it's not. There's a lot of things more important to sustainable growth than looking solely at team numbers. Basically, that plot is a horribly bad way to look at growth and feasibility. I'll try to write up more of my thoughts when I'm not working.


And yeah, that was the point... that growth is all over.

[PayneTrain]

It's no coincidence that the areas that have moved over to districts and have concrete plans to evolve into the system are not only the oldest and most dense areas, but also areas that train major key volunteers that ship out to other regionals across the country and are integral to championships, and the areas with districts are anchored by their multiple HoF inductees.

Those of us who imagine a utopia where one could open the proverbial floodgates and let a low cost, high match-volume structure cover the earth and unleash a bountiful harvest of successful teams gloss over the fact we need the seeds of volunteers to grow the programs.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

It's no coincidence that the areas that have moved over to districts and have concrete plans to evolve into the system are not only the oldest and most dense areas, but also areas that train major key volunteers that ship out to other regionals across the country and are integral to championships

You mean like Koko Ed? That guy must have several clones...

On the topic of Florida Districts: Waiting for 150 teams is a bad idea, it just hurts when you try to do it with such a large mass.

I think FL is close to being ready; if planning starts now, 2015 seems reasonable. Trust me, although you may have a few nay-sayers, that disappears once the first District season has passed. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Just remember to be as transparent and inclusive as you can.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

You mean like Koko Ed? That guy must have several clones...

On the topic of Florida Districts: Waiting for 150 teams is a bad idea, it just hurts when you try to do it with such a large mass.

I think FL is close to being ready; if planning starts now, 2015 seems reasonable. Trust me, although you may have a few nay-sayers, that disappears once the first District season has passed. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Just remember to be as transparent and inclusive as you can.

Oh wow, I didnt realize that MAR has only had 5 and 6 districts these last 2 years. For some reason I thought it was closer to 10. That does make it seem a little bit more feasible earlier on, but the team density of Florida vs MAR does seem quite a bit larger.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

..... Trust me, although you may have a few nay-sayers, that disappears once the first District season has passed. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
.....

I remember giving Don this exact same advice in 2011 at the Championship...

I was pretty freaked out in 2009. One of the neat things about doing more events are there are more volunteering opportunities. It is always a challenge to get all the folks you need, but I don't know too many FIRSTers that step down from a challenge.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

You mean like Koko Ed? That guy must have several clones...

I'm pretty sure he worked like 12 official events this year.

[cadandcookies]

As Boe said, the main thing stopping MN from adopting a Districts model is volunteers-- but it is being seriously considered and steps are being taken to increase the number of active volunteers. Talking with Laurie Shimizu (the regional coordinator up here, otherwise known as dragon-lady), they're making a push to get 3-5 previously uninvolved volunteers from each team by next season. If they can pull off even a fraction of that over the 2014 and 2015 seasons, Minnesota will probably be able to feasibly run a districts model in the 2015 or 2016 season (at least that's the estimate I've been hearing; frankly I'm just a student observer in these sorts of discussions, so I can't comment on how accurate that is).

Also, off-note, Minnesota also has the Minne-Mini-Regional competition, which is hosted typically by 2169 every year in collaboration with a broad assortment of teams (we provided staff and the field for a few years, but moved on to helping with River Rendezvous and Detroit Lakes). I've also heard tell of something coming together with 2512 and 1816, but I haven't seen much out of that.

I'd love to see Minnesota districts, but it won't happen in my time as a student...

[Ivan Malik]

Payne you kind of touched on something that most people don't realize about districts: Volunteers in key roles are what is needed most. Your FTA's, Head Refs, Field supervisors, etc. are what is really the limiting factor to do districts. Here in Michigan these folks are not just doing one, two or even three events; they are at an event every single week of competition season, maybe having one week off... If nothing goes wrong. The worst part about this "glitch" is that training a key role volunteer takes time and effort. They are not the types of positions that can be filled by just anyone. These almost have to be seasoned FIRSTers that are groomed over a few seasons for the positions. There is a group of I'm going to guess and say 20 or so folks (don't quote me, its an estimate) that travel the state of Michigan and are volunteering almost every single week in some regard or another, often key positions. Michigan's district system is only possible because these folks effectively put their lives on hold for 7 weeks, on top of supporting their own teams. You can fill positions like field reset and queuing with random students and parents, but if you think that you can fill even one "key position" with them then your event will grind to a halt before it even starts.

Also when you guys throw out numbers on team density for Michigan, you might as well lop off the UP. (I hate to say this because I go to school up there) The UP pretty much breaks the district model, it is just to far for to few teams to travel and be worth it. If you are looking for an example of what to do, don't base it off something that is broken, you basically are shooting yourself in the foot before a marathon.