Introducing Newbies!

[alextried]

Hey guys! After a brief veteran meeting today, my lead mentor suggested that I organize some activities for pre-season (after I suggested that more kids is not necessarily better; he shot down an application idea). We hold weekly meetings starting Oct. 8, which is our school's club sign-up day.

As my team enters the 2015 season, we're looking to organize ourselves much more. To be honest, we barely did anything pre-season last year and I want to change that! If you wanted to be in a sub-group, you had to get yourself there.

This year, I'm tentatively suggesting we set up a series of "stations" almost, for each sub-group throughout the pre-January weeks. I think it would help people find what they're good at, what they're not, what they enjoy and weed out those not ready for FRC (consider it an application sans paper; I think some people's abilities don't show up on forms, honestly).

Sometimes, you have to be put in a group to realize you enjoy it, and it's good to have a general familiarity with all parts of your team! I was part of the shooter group on my team for two years and had a lot of fun, but when I started scouting I realized I did it much better and truly loved it.

And so, my question remains:

tldr; What does your team do to help newbies find their niche?