New York Districts?

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

I cannot speak for the inner workings of FIRST. I can tell you that when we were in regionals, we spent $5K to get going and it covered the KoP and our first regional. This year, I paid $4K to start and it covered the KoP and two district competitions... It could be that rookie teams still pay the extra $1,000 - so $5K for both events.

I believe that the main reason for this is that renting a venue large enough for a regional competition is quite expensive, but HS gymnasiums are relatively cheap - sometimes free if the event is "hosted" by that high school's FRC team... That savings is passed on to the teams.

The fee is $5000 for a veteran team in the PNW. Well actually it is $8000 for veteran teams but at least $3000 of that is offset by PNW FIRST grants. You must have received one of the other grants if the net on your initial registration bill was $4000.

In the traditional regional system the $5000 doesn't cover the venue. The RD is charged with raising the funds to cover those costs. FIRST does cover the transportation of the field to and from the event location and the cost of the fields ect.

Now PNW FIRST, and all districts, gets to keep $1000 (or in other districts gets $1000 per team from FIRST) of the initial registration fee to offset some of the costs of running the district.

Yes the district events cost less, but there are more of them. There is usually not a rental fee for the venue but there are other venue costs that are passed along to PNW FIRST. For example there is usually a janitorial fee to cover the school staff that unlocks and secures the building and for them to take care of the garbage (they may empty a given can 4 or 5 times per day) and to hopefully insure that the bathrooms are stocked with paper products.

Note the PNW district is unique in its billing system where PNW FIRST bills the teams for the total cost of participating including registration, rather than US FIRST billing for initial registration. PNW FIRST then provides a team grant to bring that cost to teams back down to the $5000 level (or $6000 for rookie teams). This is done because many donors are happy to donate to teams but aren't interested in paying the janitorial fee, forklift rental trucking ect.