FIRST Chesapeake Districts

[TDav540]

After the district town hall meeting today we now know:

District Championship: College Park, Maryland, University of Maryland Xfinity Center (old host of the Chesapeake Regional)

District Events: 4 in VA (West, Central, North, East), 1 DC, 2 MD

The district events seem to have gone as expected, but the Championship seems a surprise to me. I was expecting VCU to host it.

[MikLast]

Is this a new district for the 2016 season? or for a later season?

[mrmummert]

They have been talking about this for years....and years...They finally got
serious this past year about it. From what we've heard its supposed to
happen next year (2016) whether they are ready or not. DC and Md have been
ready for some time..Va. was the hold up. I haven't heard where the district
events will be yet. I have heard that the district championship is supposed
to alternate from year to year between VCU and U of Md.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by MikLast

Is this a new district for the 2016 season?

Yes.

Presentation is available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F3IhA6wftY

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by mrmummert

They have been talking about this for years....and years...They finally got
serious this past year about it. From what we've heard its supposed to
happen next year (2016) whether they are ready or not. DC and Md have been
ready for some time..Va. was the hold up. I haven't heard where the district
events will be yet. I have heard that the district championship is supposed
to alternate from year to year between VCU and U of Md.

I heard about the alternating as well. The championship was on the VCU calendar until very recently, but they were for Week 5 dates, which would be a pretty untenable situation. I didn't watch the webcast but I suspect the only thing locked in is a Week 6 DCMP and the locations for districts are unofficially locked in.

[Lil' Lavery]

Looks like the tentative locations are Fairfax (GMU?), Richmond (VCU?), Blacksburg (VT?), Portsmouth-ish, DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis.

[Lij2015]

I hope to god that district triangle for the southeast isn't going to be in Suffolk/Isle of wight...

[mrmummert]

Well for the Hampton Roads area 2363 was working on it being at Menchville, but they have a schedule conflict with it being there from what i understand. There are though a lot of large High schools in the area. At one time Patty Meade from Norfolk State University was talking about a event there...but i think she wanted to see a regional there...not districts. They do hold one of the FTC events there though. A very long time ago (like 8 or so years ago) someone from Old Dominion was talking about a event there...again i think it was for a regional.

In Suffolk you have three High Schools....Nansemond River...which isn't near
anything in the way of food or lodging, Kings Fork (which has a FTC team) while closer to food and lodging is still not really close to it and lastly Lakeland which isn't near much either. Nansemond River is home to FRC team 3168. Not mentioned are any of the private schools like Nansemond-Suffolk Academy which is just down the road from Kings Fork High.

In Isle of Wight only has Smithfield High which is about as close to food as Suffolk's Kings Fork high is...and lodging a even further away and not much of it. It would be better to look for something in Norfolk, Chesapeake or Va. Beach on the Southside. Across the James River you have Menchville, Warwick and Phoebus...and maybe some others. It might be possible to do something at Christopher Newport College if they could be talked into it.

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I heard about the alternating as well. The championship was on the VCU calendar until very recently, but they were for Week 5 dates, which would be a pretty untenable situation. I didn't watch the webcast but I suspect the only thing locked in is a Week 6 DCMP and the locations for districts are unofficially locked in.

District Champ is locked it; Sally confirmed College Park.

I imagine they are close to locking in the sites as well.

As for locations, I seriously doubt that VCU will house a district event, because I heard that holding VARI was 200k+. I don't know of any high schools in the area that have been approached/are suitable, but it wouldn't surprise me at all (in fact I expect it) that the Arthur Ashe Center near the Diamond in Richmond will hold the district event.

[wilsonmw04]

The concentration of 5 events (including the champs) in one small geographic location concerns me. Those teams could attend all their events and not have to travel.

Here is how I see a typical non-NOVA/DC/MD team trying to deal with the districts.
--1 event will be local (not sure if this will be true. They have not confirmed that geography will be a factor in adding teams to events)

--1 event will be a non-local event more than 2 hours away. travel will be required.

-- Champs. will require travel.

-- Worlds. Will require travel.

Champs MUST rotate to VCU for equity's sake.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

The concentration of 5 events (including the champs) in one small geographic location concerns me. Those teams could attend all their events and not have to travel... Champs MUST rotate to VCU for equity's sake.

The event distribution matches the team distribution.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Looks like the tentative locations are Fairfax (GMU?), Richmond (VCU?), Blacksburg (VT?), Portsmouth-ish, DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis.

My guess is that those triangles are guestimates, last I heard they are still deciding on locations.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure

The event distribution matches the team distribution.

Understood. This does not solve the inequity of the travel costs.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

Understood. This does not solve the inequity of the travel costs.

You shouldn't be asking if it solves inequity of travel costs. You should be asking does this make it worse most teams. There will always be inequity of travel costs and Districts can either exacerbate it, be approximately neutral, or be better. I'd like to see us at least make an effort to be neutral for the majority of teams.

I guess, more importantly, we shouldn't be whining about inequity of travel but instead we should be figuring out how to help teams most negatively impacted by these changes.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

You shouldn't be asking if it solves inequity of travel costs. You should be asking does this make it worse most teams. There will always be inequity of travel costs and Districts can either exacerbate it, be approximately neutral, or be better. I'd like to see us at least make an effort to be neutral for the majority of teams.

I guess, more importantly, we shouldn't be whining about inequity of travel but instead we should be figuring out how to help teams most negatively impacted by these changes.

So I shouldn't point out the inherent inequity to VA teams? This doesn't make sense. For my team this change is going to add a significant financial burden. A quick ballpark figure is an extra $10k a year. I can't imagine how this is going to affect the smaller teams in my state.
I have two ideas to reduce travel costs.
1. give geographic priority to teams out of the DC metro area to their local events.
2. rotate the Champs between Richmond and MD on a yearly basis.

These seems simple enough.