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#31
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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According to the MN numbers last year you'd need 11 events based on a 40 team max per event. Last edited by notmattlythgoe : 31-08-2015 at 13:29. |
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#32
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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Also from conversations with smarter people than myself, I've learned that running an event of any size requires a pretty similar amount of volunteers. Especially key volunteers as you stated. That's without even considering the workload of the volunteer coordinator... Assuming you do need to run 2 events per week for 6 weeks rather than our current 5 events (counting Iowa) during 3 different weeks, that's 7 more events in total. Focusing solely on key volunteers, it would require more than double the current number if they maintain the same workload. It's not feasible for an LRI to take 6 weekends off to help run an event. TL;DR: As Minnesota gets older, the number of key volunteers will go up, which is the limiting factor for going to districts. The non-key volunteers will be there when we need them. |
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#33
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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MN 192 WI 41 IA 9 Dakotas 5 Total Teams 247 Max Number of Teams per Event 40 Number of Events Needed 12.35 Number of spots (13 events): 520 Volunteer quality would suffer for the first year (like it has in just about every other area that has transitioned to districts) but it would recover after that. More importantly, what MN is lacking currently is a non-profit running FRC in the state. We have a few organizational issues we need to fix before anything else. Last edited by ehochstein : 31-08-2015 at 13:39. |
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#34
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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Agreed that you can't expect the key volunteers to work for six straight weekends... BUT you're only in need of enough staffing to run 12-14 events (including DCMP; 14 would include surrounding states)... maybe that's 4 key volunteers each working 3 or 4 weekends or 3 key volunteers each working 4 or more weekends. At any rate, I think Matthew's spot on with his "If you build it, they will come..." more volunteers - including key volunteers - will step up as need arises. I'll also kindly point out that there have been a diverse group of regions to go to districts... none of them have suffered from the change and I've hardly heard anyone saying "I wish we were still going to regionals." Look at the PNW as an example of a large region geographically with tight population pockets that also lacked the "region age" that Michigan or New England have... the PNW has definitely benefited from the change! Also, it seems to me that FIRST HQ is really pushing regions to go to districts... a few years ago they were hoping most of FIRST would be in districts in 2016; it's more, but not nearly as much as they were expecting! |
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#35
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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#36
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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You can get creative with venues, space and schedule are your only limiting factors. Power can be brought in. I'm also assuming that since there are currently 2 off-season events in MN that there are at least 2 planning committees that would be willing to assist in planning district events. |
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#37
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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#38
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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It is a work in progress, but it isn't going to happen over night. As of the 2015 FRC season, we had 1 returning FTA, 1 new FTA, 1 local FTAA, a handful (4 or 5?) scorekeepers, 1 local field supervisor, and 1 field supervisor from Iowa. That's obviously just a couple of the key positions, and some of them (LRIs) we now have a fairly healthy number of. However, people can't just show up and start volunteering for these roles. Many of these roles require a high level of familiarity with FRC, a high level of interpersonal skills, and a high level of commitment to volunteering with the program. Once we have identified those people, we need at least a year to train them in for their role. As Mr. V's post touched on, I think the biggest issue is that we grew incredibly quickly. The majority of our participants since when MN launched its first regional are either in college or only a couple years out of college. Obviously the rapid growth isn't a "problem" we can fix in MN- it is already done. What we can do is continue to work towards fixing our immediate problem, which is getting more volunteers and making some MN FIRST organizational changes to better support the program. |
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#39
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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I think it would be great for southern/eastern Wisconsin to join IL, but it seems like FIRST doesn't want states split like that anymore. Realistically, though, splitting Wisconsin diagonally so the northwest joins MN and the southeast joins IL is the only real way we could enter the district system, unless we add something like 20 teams. Wisconsin only had 41 teams last season, and the team distribution doesn't really help. ![]() |
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#40
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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#41
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
From the point of a view of a student in Indiana, prior to the 2015 season (as in Spring 2014), we were under the impression that Illinois and Indiana were going to form a district together. Not sure why that plan changed, but it probably was through FIRST mediating their smaller district trial and IndianaFIRST's and Illinois FIRST's own discussion.
As for coming years, I think that an Iowa/Illinois district makes more sense than Wisconsin/Illinois geographically. The Iowa teams may have to travel quite a bit, but then, when don't they? Adding Missouri in would also be pretty easy if they wanted it to be a larger Midwest district, since there would be enough teams/events that Chicago teams won't have to go to Southwest Missouri or vice versa. Also, St. Louis would be a great place for a Midwest DCMP.Obviously, volunteer base would have to be flexible and available for such a large (area) district to work out with a lower team density than, for example, Michigan. Also, I would be sorry for Wisconsin if that district happened along with Minnesota. |
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#42
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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#43
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
I would be surprised if at least Missouri & Kansas aren't in a common district by 2017. Kansas doesn't have enough teams to survive on their own and their closest regional is in Missouri as well.
Illinois is wanting to form their own district, but hopefully by 2017 we will have inter-district play. There are a few Illinois teams that always attend the St. Louis regional because it's less than 30 minutes away for them and I'd hate to see them have to travel 2 - 3 hours just to attend one event. |
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#44
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
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The non key event volunteers are easy. As mentioned you can require teams to provide volunteers like MI does or just ask nicely. We've done pretty good rounding out the volunteers for most events by just asking teams if they can provide someone. In my opinion this year MN really really needs to push for people who want to be key volunteers in the District system and have them shadow the existing key volunteers. It would also be a good idea to strongly encourage mentors from the influential teams and key volunteers to attend district events in one of the current districts that is most convenient for them. The earlier you start preparing the easier the transition will be. The longer you say we aren't ready the longer it will be until you are ready and the harder it will be. Last edited by Mr V : 31-08-2015 at 17:10. |
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#45
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Re: Current Districts Map. Who is next?
Im still trying to figure out why IN went to districs. We are waaay to small IMO to be a district.
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