Does your team charge a fee to join?

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Our expectation for this year is that every FRC student brings on or retains one sponsor

That said, it does not have a big sponsor to satisfy the requirement. Getting the funding is important, but it also means our kids will have to be able to talk effectively about the team and what we're trying to achieve. Sneaky, no?

Those are pretty much same reasons we run a very similar program on my team. Instead of "dues" we run a program where each student is expected to bring in $200 to the team through whatever means are easiest to them. They can cut a check to the team if they like, which immediately helps the team. But they can also use profits made from the fundraisers we run (selling cookie dough, light bulbs, etc.) to build up that $200.

We also directly assign a minimum of two area businesses to each student and require that they visit these businesses to present about our team and request funding. The business visits are probably the biggest way individual students contribute to the team. These alone accounted for around 10% of our budget last year.

This method offers a good compromise for people who are turned off by a fee, and the need to bring money into a team. And it being a "requirement" only really means that students have to do it in order to participate in activities like Kick-Off or Competition. If a student fails to bring in $200 we aren't going to be kicking anyone off of the team.