Help starting a team. Unusual situation

[Spen-curr]

Considering the costs involved in running a FRC team, costs which most schools cannot pay, I would encourage you to join the existing team or another team in you're area. An FRC team is a fascinating social microcosm, and it can be interesting to use a poorly functioning team a s a case study.

Also, the team may appear to be run poorly only to you. Perhaps if you give it a try, you will see that the governance is functional.

[BeardyMentor]

You say it can't be changed, but you are a freshman, you can not have been at it long. It takes years of effort to change a team. For our team, it took the mentors and motivated students more than three years of very hard work to change the team culture into something we could be proud of. Trying to create a new team culture can be just as hard. What happens when you create a new team with a few friends and new people join and feel left out because of how tight knit the existing group is? It is easy to say "we won't let that happen" but I know from experience that it is far easier to let it happen than not. Please consider that it is probably harder to start and build a lasting team than change one that already exists in your 4 year tenure. At some point you will be the upper classmen and can change things to be more like how you wished they were.

[gblake]

Folks - Until the OP says something different, it's a mistake to assume that the OP and his/her colleagues want the team to exist for more than the next three (or fewer) seasons - Blake

[mrnoble]

As a 12 year veteran coach, I've had several students come through who believe that the only solution to how poorly our organization is run is to leave and start their own organization, or to attempt to lead a literal mutiny. I am quite happy to let those students leave and do as they please elsewhere. The students who remain, if there are any, provide the culture of the team and are testament to the success or failure of the program. So far, it seems to work out. Students who dislike what we do don't have to be around us, and we don't have to try to please them. We've got only this (anonymous) student's side of the situation, but I'm not finding a lot in her/his two threads that make me want to encourage her/him to try to work it out with the existing team.