Georgia Districts

[Zflash]

First off congrats GA for reaching district potential. We will miss competing with you all if things go this way however districts are rather appealing and that is where it is at.

Somewhat off topic I would like to suggest the following....

F.I.S.
FIRST In the South

South Carolina:37
North Carolina:42
Georgia:49
Tennessee:38
West Virginia:4
Virginia:69
Kentucky:12

Total of 251 teams.

You could easily have 12 district events and 1 district championship and qualify far more teams. After a year or two of team growth you could break this large district into smaller ones potentially having one district for each state at some point.

Low registration fees for all, more matches for all, and lower travel costs for most.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Zflash

First off congrats GA for reaching district potential. We will miss competing with you all if things go this way however districts are rather appealing and that is where it is at.

Somewhat off topic I would like to suggest the following....

F.I.S.
FIRST In the South

South Carolina:37
North Carolina:42
Georgia:49
Tennessee:38
West Virginia:4
Virginia:69
Kentucky:12

Total of 251 teams.

You could easily have 12 district events and 1 district championship and qualify far more teams. After a year or two of team growth you could break this large district into smaller ones potentially having one district for each state at some point.

Low registration fees for all, more matches for all, and lower travel costs for most.

Florida?

[Zflash]

Originally Posted by dodar

Florida?

Why Not?

[Nathan Streeter]

Glad to hear Districts will be coming to the Southeast US in the next year or two! It's a huge improvement to the regional model, imho! You can really see it helping out FIRST teams throughout New England... many teams, young and old, had become stagnant and just hadn't been as productive... now you see many teams really thriving (again)!

My suggestion would be to try to create Districts larger than a single state... while Indiana has definitely proved you can do it with a ~40-50 team state, I think the dynamic really works best when you have ~80-150+ teams. That's large enough to really get the benefit of playing with teams at the DCMP you haven't competed with before, and to create a big group of teams with a strong sense of solidarity.

While the 'Super Southest Region' of everyone south of the Mason-Dixon and east of the Mississippi seems a little unreasonable for a District CMP, I think having 3 or 4 districts that encompass this region would probably be a reasonable number. Obviously if Districts got well above 250 teams or so, they may want to start splitting apart... but then again Michigan seems to be doing well with its 350 team district!

Seems like the 'cores' of some potential Districts in the SE could be:

- Virginia & Maryland
- Georgia & South Carolina
- Florida?
- Tennessee?

- West Verginia would most likely join with Virginia and Maryland (but could perhaps join an Ohio & Western PA district).
- North Carolina could probably join with either Virginia and Maryland or with Georgia and South Carolina.
- Florida could potentially become it's own district, but joining with Georgia and South Carolina would also make some sense (more so if NC were to join VA and MD)
- Alabama would probably join with Georgia and South Carolina, although with plans to host their own Regional in 2016, that would seem to push that timeline out to at least 2017.
- Kentucky could form a smaller district (~50 teams) with Tennessee, or perhaps try joining with TN, VA, WV, and MD for a large district of >200 teams... although spread out across a larger and longer area than the PNW.

A Possible Set of Combinations:

- Capital Region: Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina and Washington DC

- 178 Teams (in 2015)
- 133,300 sq mi

- Southeast Region: Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and Alabama

- 175 Teams (in 2015)
- 209,700 sq mi

- 'Central' Region: Tennessee and Kentucky

- 57 Teams (in 2015)
- 82,600 sq mi

- Mississippi River Region: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi

- 54 Teams (in 2015)
- 153,500 sq mi

[Alex2614]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

- West Verginia would most likely join with Virginia and Maryland (but could perhaps join an Ohio & Western PA district).

Current plan is for West Virginia to be joining Ohio and western Pennsylvania when they form their district. And the plan is for 2017 las I heard. This actually makes much more sense than Virginia geographically. I hope that eventually western MD could join us, though.

[Billfred]

Hate to see a solid event like Peachtree come off the board, but congrats to our neighbors for seeing the growth to make districts viable. After three years of 60-some-odd-team regionals, I know I can't wait for the change either.

-----------

For those that keep asking about South Carolina: I've talked with Frank Lanford (the Palmetto RD) about this one at length. There has been no down-to-brass-tacks talk about us playing in any district system next year, either alone or as a multi-state region. Judging from how Indiana pulled it off and from our neighbors, my bet is on a one-state district around 2017-2018 once our team count gets north of 50. (We were at 41 this year, Indiana had 49.) The other Good Guy Frank wouldn't flip the switch without plenty of dialogue first.

[alicen]

I would/will be sad to see Peachtree go and be replaced with a district model. Mostly because I've been attending Peachtree pretty much since the beginning.

The district model gives teams a lot more chances to play, but it also means that we would need a lot more volunteers. For the most part Peachtree is run by an amazing group that comes back each and every year. GSCR (Kudzu) was run by that same amazing group.

I personally also volunteered at the Orlando regional. If we went to district model, had like 4-5 events + a CMP, I would maybe be able to be at 2 of those. 3 events and working full time took it out of me, and my employer wasn't overly pleased. Knowing some of the people who do a lot of the legwork to get the event going (head ref, scorekeeper, etc) they would do ANYTHING to give teams more chances to play and have a great event, but then we also might need body doubles for them to run all the events

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by Zflash

First off congrats GA for reaching district potential. We will miss competing with you all if things go this way however districts are rather appealing and that is where it is at.

Somewhat off topic I would like to suggest the following....

F.I.S.
FIRST In the South

South Carolina:37
North Carolina:42
Georgia:49
Tennessee:38
West Virginia:4
Virginia:69
Kentucky:12

Total of 251 teams.

You could easily have 12 district events and 1 district championship and qualify far more teams. After a year or two of team growth you could break this large district into smaller ones potentially having one district for each state at some point.

Low registration fees for all, more matches for all, and lower travel costs for most.

From what I have heard, districts in VA is likely, but not with NC or one of these other states. It will likely be a National Capital district with MD and DC.

[Alex2614]

Originally Posted by Zflash

First off congrats GA for reaching district potential. We will miss competing with you all if things go this way however districts are rather appealing and that is where it is at.

Somewhat off topic I would like to suggest the following....

F.I.S.
FIRST In the South

South Carolina:37
North Carolina:42
Georgia:49
Tennessee:38
West Virginia:4
Virginia:69
Kentucky:12

Total of 251 teams.

You could easily have 12 district events and 1 district championship and qualify far more teams. After a year or two of team growth you could break this large district into smaller ones potentially having one district for each state at some point.

Low registration fees for all, more matches for all, and lower travel costs for most.

I love love love this idea! WV will be moving with Ohio District very soon, but I think this is a more viable option, especially because the biggest deterrent to districts is volunteers. If you're pulling from volunteers across the south instead of just a single state, it might be easier.

I think that once districts become more universal, things will probably get re-aligned. Since districts are coming from the region level and not FIRST, sometimes they're not necessarily the best for everyone involved. Once districts are more universal, it is possible that some re-alignment based on team clustering and also number growth will happen. As different areas grow, we might see a new trend - instead of going districts, it will be district re-alignment. For example, as WV gets more and more teams, we might find that staying with Ohio may not be as good as going with someone else. Or maybe we will see districts start to combine together.

I'm excited to hear about Georgia, though! Very cool! Although, I was looking forward to advocating for going to Peachtree next year in our potentially last year in regionals.

[Qbot2640]

NC is already pretty much confirmed for a district next year already...three events, plus a championship from what I hear.

But as a Western NC resident who is already burning through all my vacation time with my own team - if you do an Atlanta area event as a Saturday-Sunday, I will volunteer (provided we're not competing that weekend).

[FrankJ]

We had good fun in Orlando this year with some great Fl teams as well as teams from other parts of the world. But combining Ga & Fl into one district would be too big geographically.

While going to districts make sense on several levels, loosing the interaction of teams from other places than here is a downside.

When Ga goes to district, that will mean the loss of 2 regionals in the southeast. Will the inaugural Georgia Southern Classic (Goober Pea) be the last?

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Zflash

First off congrats GA for reaching district potential. We will miss competing with you all if things go this way however districts are rather appealing and that is where it is at.

Somewhat off topic I would like to suggest the following....

F.I.S.
FIRST In the South

South Carolina:37
North Carolina:42
Georgia:49
Tennessee:38
West Virginia:4
Virginia:69
Kentucky:12

Total of 251 teams.

You could easily have 12 district events and 1 district championship and qualify far more teams. After a year or two of team growth you could break this large district into smaller ones potentially having one district for each state at some point.

Low registration fees for all, more matches for all, and lower travel costs for most.

Originally Posted by dodar

Florida?

Originally Posted by Zflash

Why Not?

Between those states, you already have approximately 10 regionals.

The sheer size of this district would downplay quite a few of the other logistical benefits (reduced travel, deeper penetration of involvement, maintainability, etc.) that the district model traditionally provides.

- Sunny G.

[guniv]

I would personally love to see districts in Tennessee or in the region. We have a lot of talent around here and the district model looks better to me than the regional one.