Volunteering at an event you have a team at?

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by KelliV

I believe that once upon a time we had a DESSERT CART FIELD SIDE at the Connecticut. Probably the best food hands down.

Did it have cheesecake on it?

[KelliV]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

Did it have cheesecake on it?

It had all the cakes.

[MarcD79]

Originally Posted by KelliV

I believe that once upon a time we had a DESSERT CART FIELD SIDE at the Connecticut. Probably the best food hands down.

That was insane! I was an FTAA & there was no dessert at the volunteer lounge at lunch & that it was late. They promised it to us & would bring it down to the field & we could, at our discretion, quietly grab dessert 1 or 2 a t a time. Well that didn't happen. All the volunteers at the field stopped what they were doing at the next reset in between matches & raided the dessert table. Now that was such a sight in front of all the crowd! They never did that again!

[MarcD79]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

Did it have cheesecake on it?

Yes it had multiple cheesecakes!

[MarcD79]

Volunteering at event that may have your team there shouldn't pose any problems. There are certain volunteers who have to sign a "conflict of interest" form, which you have to divulge your team association if you have a team. That being said as all the others have said, just go in with a neutral mind & treat your team just like all the others. As you can see by my credentials I have been Field Super for the Suffield Scrimmage since 2003 & started volunteering in 2009. Almost all the roles have been key volunteer role & it hasn't caused any conflict. I just tell my team what I expect from them & warn them they will not get any favors. I am usually more stern with them & they expect it. Those who know me find that I am very happy, funny, helpful & give accolades to all teams I meet both on & off the field.
Just remember 1st & foremost, you are there for the students. You will have a great time while volunteering, and that is a bonus. But if you are not having fun, don't do it. They can read you better than you think.

[EricH]

If you want food options... Ventura hit a home run with the volunteer food this year, with a local barbecue place. And the same place that is doing the volunteer food is also doing the snack bar. Not to mention the food trucks outside at lunchtime if you're so inclined...

'Nuff said.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by brandon.cottrell

Would volunteering for a job like field reset or assistant MC (Jobs with minimal to no impact on the actual game), and scouting for teams at the event be considered non-GP?

If you are asked for your opinion on robots based upon having been field side and seen a lot of matches, you should feel free to give your opinion and share in the scouting discussion. You should not be sitting down there with scouting sheets collecting data during matches.

I've volunteered a fair bit, both at events where I've been involved with 1 or more teams and at events where I've no connection to any of them. Since I've been on 2914, we've tried to provide 2 volunteers at every event we go to. They have mostly in positions like awards assistant, crowd control, field reset. I've been an FTA at events where I've had teams I've affiliation with, and I don't see any way around that anymore. I've been a mentor for 13 years now on 5 different teams and currently work with 7 different teams on a regular basis.

With the need for volunteers increasing as we move to more events, particularly when an area jumps to districts, people associated with a team will end up in positions where they could have a direct impact on a match. Something that I think is important to remember, however, is that all volunteers have a direct impact on the student experience, and the student experience is what I try to keep in the forefront of my decisions and actions, and I would hope all volunteers do as well.


Wetzel

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by Metonym

<snip>
If you really want to volunteer go ahead, but remember that you can't be there to help your team, you are there for the entire event.

This is not necessarily true. You do not have to volunteer for the full event.

I know a guy that inspects on Thursday and then works with his team on Friday and Saturday. You can tell the volunteer coordinator the times you are free and they will put you in a position to take advantage of that.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by rtfgnow

This is not necessarily true. You do not have to volunteer for the full event.

I know a guy that inspects on Thursday and then works with his team on Friday and Saturday. You can tell the volunteer coordinator the times you are free and they will put you in a position to take advantage of that.

We've also provided 2 volunteers for safety glasses, but we rotated team members through on 4 hour shifts so we had 6 or 7 different people fill one position. This doesn't work for everything, but VCs are awesome and can usually fit your needs with the events needs.

[jds2001]

Realize that this is something of a necro, but since I'm the OP....just figured I'd let folks know that I've been assigned as a ref at the NYC regional. The VC's know me pretty well from my general involvement, and I'm reffing FTC as well this year (and will continue doing so - it's fun!). Still waiting for the other events I've applied to (Mt. Olive MAR district to get some week 1 experience, and Chesapeake DCMP, and CMP), but NYC is in the books. Looking forward to it!

[rich2202]

If you have mechanical tendencies, I recommend also volunteering as a Robot Inspector for the 1st day (or 2/3rds of the first day). During the first day, they can use all the RI's they can get. Not much to do as a Ref during the practice rounds when few robots show up. During that time, they can use RI's to get robots passed inspection. If you are doing multiple competitions, then you don't need the Ref practice the first day.

When I am Ref'ng, I don't call RI type faults, but I will tell an RI what I see so they can follow up.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by rich2202

If you have mechanical tendencies, I recommend also volunteering as a Robot Inspector for the 1st day (or 2/3rds of the first day). During the first day, they can use all the RI's they can get. Not much to do as a Ref during the practice rounds when few robots show up. During that time, they can use RI's to get robots passed inspection. If you are doing multiple competitions, then you don't need the Ref practice the first day.

When I am Ref'ng, I don't call RI type faults, but I will tell an RI what I see so they can follow up.

From experience, I will NOT ref and inspect at the same event. It will wipe you out. Will I put in for both? Sure. Will I ref and inspect at different events? Sure. But if push comes to shove, I'm more likely to be on the field.

Now, that may have something to do with my having to help train refs during 2014, having previously reffed the game, but even the first event was rough (and I did both then). Refs need the practice too, particularly at your first event of the season--and robots do show up, particularly with practice starting later.


My personal tendency is that if I have >1 team I am or have been affiliated with at an event, I'll try to stick to inspecting--I only have to avoid those teams (2/40 is actually pretty easy). If I'm reffing, it's a lot easier to work around 1 team than 2, particularly at smaller events when they'll come up every 4-5 matches or so each. (1 or 2 matches out of 6-7 matches is a bit harder to deal with.) And regardless of what teams are in the match, I do my best to call it the exact same way every time. Offseason events are another story--I'll call the same, but the number of teams I'm affiliated with doesn't matter (to me at least).

[bEdhEd]

TL;DR

If your volunteers are affiliated with your team and they are model graciously professional members of the FIRST community, then integrity/bias and conflict of interest should not be an issue. As far as I can tell, it would be pretty hard to form a staff of volunteers at an event where none of them are affiliated with ANY of the teams, especially champs. It's logistically impractical.

______________________________
Members of my team who are parents or graduated students tend to do a lot of volunteering at local and distant events inside and outside FRC, including myself.

Sometimes we have too many 701 affiliated volunteers. I think one dilemma this season that I was discussing with our head coach is that we nearly had all 701 affiliated referees at a regional we would be attending. This is because our members are so eager to referee! Obviously we as a team, and the regional planners, would no allow that. I think it was Sacramento. It's not unusual to have a couple 701 affiliated referees - and sometimes head referee - at a regional we attend (mainly Sacramento and Central Valley) since these regionals are ones we attend regularly if not annually.

When we have a distant regional, we might have a referee or two from our team come with us because they volunteered at that regional for the convenience of coming with the team to the event.

I've never had integrity problems with our affiliated referees. They're super professional, and will not hesitate to call a well deserved foul on our own alliance. If they seem shady, then I'd have to address it personally. But again, this has never been a problem and I am confident that it will never be.

Refereeing an event that has an affiliated team on the roster doesn't have to be a problem, provided that the team's affiliated referee is absolutely GP and doesn't play favorites. This goes for any other volunteer position like inspection and queuing, which we also tend to have a high rate of 701 affiliated volunteers active in such positions. We just like to give back and contribute to the success of a well-run regional.

Now think about this: how many volunteers do you expect to be team affiliated at any given event? Well, if they're volunteering for an FRC event, chances are that they are! If there is a volunteer not team affiliated, then they have to had been contacted by someone from FIRST as an outsider (this is probably most common for judges), has gained a personal interest in the organization and is affiliated with NO teams whatsoever, or is affiliated with a team not attending. This would be impossible at champs, and the only way to keep volunteers away from their own teams at champs is to assign them to a different division.

Logistically, it would be quite impractical to plan an event where all the volunteers are unaffiliated. If this sort of event were to be planned, the first case is that volunteers would probably have to be contacted if they are not a part of FIRST since they may not be aware of event dates as compared to someone actively on a team. As mentioned, I usually see this case with judges. We even sometimes have a few 701 affiliated judges, and we don't let them talk to our team, so sometimes the choices of judges to talk to is further limited for us. It's great that we can provide our own members to judge, but it can get frustrating seeing someone in blue in the pits, and then realizing that they're one of your own and you gotta ignore them.

The other case is that the volunteer has to come from a team that is outside the region or is not attending. Finding the people out of the area willing to volunteer is not as easy as finding people from the area that are active in FIRST, and likely have a team competing at their respective event to which they are a volunteer. This is my own speculation of course, so anyone should correct me if I'm wrong.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

When we have a distant regional, we might have a referee or two from our team come with us because they volunteered at that regional for the convenience of coming with the team to the event.

I've never had integrity problems with our affiliated referees. They're super professional, and will not hesitate to call a well deserved foul on our own alliance. If they seem shady, then I'd have to address it personally. But again, this has never been a problem and I am confident that it will never be.

I'll vouch for that personally, having been on the same ref crew as at least a couple of 701 refs at an event 701 was at.

[alicen]

Originally Posted by rich2202

If you have mechanical tendencies, I recommend also volunteering as a Robot Inspector for the 1st day (or 2/3rds of the first day). During the first day, they can use all the RI's they can get. Not much to do as a Ref during the practice rounds when few robots show up. During that time, they can use RI's to get robots passed inspection. If you are doing multiple competitions, then you don't need the Ref practice the first day.

When I am Ref'ng, I don't call RI type faults, but I will tell an RI what I see so they can follow up.

This is what I've done for the past several years. I'll RI for the first day, and then ref for the following two. Luckily enough for me, I'm just out of college and still have the energy to do it, and I love it. Our volunteers are all like family at my home regional, so I get to see a bit of everyone.

Also, during ref times, the head ref usually asks me to just keep a general eye out for RI faults that are major while teams are queuing or getting on the field. So that we can try to get those taken care of and let the team still compete in their match