Attention Mascots (and teams with one)

[Jon Stratis]

wireties, you'll notice that I didn't say it should be handled by just any mentor, teacher or event volunteer - it needs to be handled by the appropriate event personnel - in other words, those in charge of the whole event. By bringing it to the attention of your key volunteers, they will pull in the individual(s) who need to be involved from the event (chairman of the regional planning committee, volunteer coordinator, FTA, or the ShowReady individual responsible for running the event come to mind). You don't leave it up to some random individual who happens to be manning the safety glasses table.

Those people responsible for overseeing the entire event will escalate things as appropriate, and will know/follow FIRST's guidelines for these types of incidents. Further, FIRST has incident report forms that do need to be filled out by the event personnel when something like this happens so that FIRST, as an organization, is aware of it. The last thing you want is an overeager individual calling the police and creating a large public incident without the knowledge of the event personnel. Please don't try to skirt the system that's already in place - raise the issue with the appropriate individuals at the event and allow them to follow the established process.