Preparing for the Town Hall Meeting on the New Championships Format

[IKE]

From the notes I took and some personal thoughts about the meeting:

FIRST said they would open with about half the meeting explaining their thoughts and what went into the decision. The discussion would try to answer/cover what they deemed the 5 most frequently requested questions of:

Questions:

- What are FIRST's objectives with this decision?
- What process was used to make this decision, and why wasn't the FIRST community asked for input?
- How does this reduce travel costs, especially for West Coast teams?
- Doesn't having two championships weaken the competition aspect that helps make any sport exciting?
- What elements of the decision are set in stone and what elements can the community still help decide?

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Don Started with Objectives and Core Values and the importance of the organization to stay mission focused.
They wanted a solution taht scales. They wanted more kids to have access to the life changing experience of FIRST and FIRST Championship.
Enable more teams to participate in the FIRST Championship by reducing travel distances and transportation costs for a significant number of teams.
They reviewed a nice graphic that showed the growth of FIRST and the relative portion of population that attend FRC championship throughout the years.
Don brought up the desire to get to around 20% (up from 15%), and cited the 600 team events this year and next as the current method followed by teh 2 event as the follow on method.
Don frequently stated that in the 9 months of working towards the current plan, they did not find what they felt was an ideal solution, but did feel that what they found was the best options that they had.
Don mentioned some of the dificulties from a venue size and more importantly availability out through 2020. Don mentioned that the convention industry has had a lot of growth since their last contract award (IE going to St. Louis) which only makes sense from an eceonomy standpoint. (In MY Opinion, Don seemed to reference that some locations they really wanted were just not available until some time after 2020).
They mentioned again that the locations were chosen in part due to the number of teams within a given mileage (600 miles), that they cited as the range for persons to drive to the event. They basically cited that they felt really bad about California, and especially PNW, but it sounded like their hands were tied from venues standpoint.
There was some commentary on the weakening due to two events, but frankly that one was glazed over during this portion and they went into what was set in stone vs. what was flexible:

Non-negotiable:
2 "Championships" through 2020
400 FRC teams at each event (800 total)
Must have FIRST Progression of programs at each event (IE FLL/FTC/FRC).


FIRST is "exploring":

- Options for a post-season, broadcasted, event between winning alliances
- Opening a percentage of slots at each Championship to teams from the other Championship region
- Other options for adding to the value of Championship for teams

At the end, they covered that FRC used the bulk of floorspace citing about 80-90%.

This opened to Q&A. People were asked to go to Mics (there were two), they asked persons to keep their questions to about 30 seconds, and they would be allowed a follow up if they didn't feel their questions was adequately covered. They did remind people of "Gracious Professionalism". People giving Questions were asked to give Name, Location, and team affiliation. I will save names and teams, but will cite location as it seemed relevant for some:

From NH mentor: Asked if there could be a focus on conferences and other Championship items be brought to District Champs and Regionals.
I believe Frank ansered that it was an idea that would be investigated. NH mentor asked how to get involved and Frank asked her to email him.

CA mentor #1: Asked why "Community" was not engaged in decision making process. Don Bossi cited the need when negotiating for venues that they cannot involve everyone, but the survey they sent out hopes that they can keep the good and important stuff of th championship at both events. My notes are bad on CA mentor's follow up as it was something about Michigan Model and FIRST Core values (more on this later).

NY Mentor- FIRST time at Champs wanted to know more about location selection. ?? cited that FIRST from a geopgraphy standpoint would have liked Salt Lake City Utah & Detroit, but that could not be worked out.

CT Mentor: Brought up the need for this to follow the sports model and the need for a Champion (1 champion). Compared this to a divorce and splitting up the kids. This was more of a statement than a question.

CT Mentor/Student: Brought up the importance of international teams and cultural exchange, and wanted to know how their location was decided. ??? responded that they were still working through details on that. Additional exchange about the importance of international with accidental "rip" on Canadians not being real international, but was OK as the person was Canadian... A small chuckle from the crowd, but only answer was "we understand it is important, but are still working through those details."

CA Mentor #2: Asked about Super Regional model rolled out a couple years ago, and why that was not being followed. Answer was that FIRST thought districts would be more widespread by now. Some discussion about local leadership needing to take on District efforts, and that FIRST could not force their hand. Some good back and forth about districts from mentor that posed question. Follow up question asked how many FIRST Alum are on FIRST Board. Answer was "0", and mentor mentioned that was an issue.

North Carolina Mentor: Brought up concern for Safety and bringing students to DETROIT. Don brought up the extra efforts FIRST does with Cities to ensure Safety. Brought up the extra police, and some of the newspaper reputation St. Louis has. Mentioned he has been to Michigan and Detroit and felt safe. Some back and forth with the mentor about concerns about Detroit. Concern about finding safe lodging "just outside the city" was follow up. No real answer by FIRST.*
*As someone that lives in Detroit Metro, I can assure you there is very very nice areas in the Metro area that are very reasonable drive to the city. I lived at 9.5 and Woodward for 5 years and loved the area. Downtown Detroit is actually really nice, but there are dangerous parts/areas, but that is pretty much every big city.

CA Mentor #1 Round 2: As this mentor had already discussed 2 topics, FIRST asked other questioners if they were OK waiting. They were, so CA Mentor discussed the District model, referenced people from FiM, and "its proven ability to generate new growth" and thus why 1 winner is needed. FIRST disagreed that the growth was primarily due to having a champion and instead cited growth as primarily FiM having a growth goal culture, engaging schools, sponsors, and engaging Gov. Snyder and State legislature to provide funding support for new teams. CA Mentor #1 referenced the need for 1 real world champion and the goal for that is a major driving force in his efforts.

NJ #1 Mentor: Asked why FIRST did not engage experts in decision. Cited airline experience and Detroit being a shrinking Hub. FIRST asked him to get to his question. He cited concerns about bringing kids to the most Dangerous City in the US. His follow up question was asking which FIRST member has vacationed in Detroit. FIRST cited some similar items about safety as earlier question, and the Mentor asked again who had vacationed in Detroit to which no one had.

*It should be noted that I believe there is a FIRST regional in or within 20 minutes of 7/10 of these most dangerous cities in the US, and St. Louis, current World Championship cite is #4... Just sayin....http://lawstreetmedia.com/crime-amer...ties-200000-2/
**Note there are several nice "I'm so tough I vacation in Detroit" T-Shirts available at various stores...

I got up to ask a comment/make a statement. I believe there were 2 more questions, one from:

CA Mentor #3, but I did not take notes.

NJ #2 Mentor, I also missed notes for his, but I think it was more of a comment than a question.

At that point, time was up.

These are my notes/shorthand. Overall, I thought a reasonable effort was given to explain their decision and their rationale. Like most town halls, there seemed to be a fair amount of airing of grievances and ensuring ones voice is heard. I admire the passion that all of the presenters and question askers showed for their topics.

I talked with one of the question/statement persons with regards to the need for 1 Champion. It was not terribly productive as I was trying to cite the "IMO" need for mindset beyond winning, and her and several supporters made it clear the need for role models that are pointed out by them winning.

As far as dodging questions, I really only felt that the "need for 1 champion" and "where are internationals teams going" were dodged. In general, the "need for 1 champion" weren't really questions and instead were statements of concerned persons. I can see how this may have come across as "dodgy", but again the comments seemed more like statements than questions when poised. In this scenario, those answering were likely wiser than I as they didn't try to change anyones mind, just asked if they had a question to follow their statement.

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The statement that I wanted to bring up, but ran out of time was that the citing of Michigan growth was not due to crowning a champion. FYI, at MSC, you have 1 Champion alliance, 3 MSC Chairman winners, and 1 team that has the most points (often but not always a MSC event winner). Since 2009, I have never heard any of the 3 MSC CA winners complain abuot getting a dilluted award. I have heard others talk about how unfair or difficult it is to win and MSC CA, but no one I talked to was sad when they won. IMO, the really important part of FiM was giving every team an opportunity to compete, improve, and compete each season (which all districts currently do), and a focus on improving middle and bottom tier teams to make a stronger overall community. This lead to more widespread support which in turn lead to more events and more cities being involved which lead to more impact to the community which eventually lead to getting the Governor and other Legislative persons engaged in supporting FIRST in Michigan.

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My favorite set of questions was CA Mentor #2. I too prefer the Super regional model and was curious why that seemed to go away. During the explanation, I sensed a great deal of frustration that the "District model" has not taken off in certain areas. I also thought that the question of "alumni" on the board was a very good point/question to make. When I was in high school, I was one of 2 Junior Leaders that sat on the fair council meetings. While we were outnumbered by adults, it was occasionally beneficial for them to get/understand the student perspective for decisions. I think having a former student or having a panel of say Dean's List students weighing in on some important questions might benefit FIRST a lot.

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