How do I help my area move to districts?

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by Mr V

You are certainly correct that becoming part of the district system is not something that can be done overnight, there is a lot of leg work that needs to be done to lay the foundation.

The sweet spot for district sizing is 36-40 teams based on our experience in the PNW. If MN was to get on this right away they could possibly pull it off in time to do 12 40 team events to provide enough capacity w/o the need for more than 2 events per week. Assuming of course that the venue scheduling can be worked out to make that happen, which is not an easy feat. It does need to be done the school year before the switch due to the fact that it can be difficult to connect with the right people during the summer and by the start of the school year they can already have many events on their schedule.

For inspectors at a district event I try to have 1 inspector for every 3 or 3.5 teams for the load-in and inspection night. That means 12 or 13 inspectors for that day. In the PNW our load in night (day 0) runs 5-9:30 and our goal, which we some times make is to have everyone inspected that night. The reality of course is that some teams have to make significant changes and we usually have a fair number of teams that need to be completed the morning of day 1. Knock on wood but we have always been able to have everyone ready for their 1st match. Because the demand drops off significantly many of those day 0 inspectors transition to other volunteer roles, CSA, Machine Shop, Que, Ref, Field reset are some of the other positions that they fill. Others go back to working with their team. A handful will return for the pre-finals inspections mid Day 2.

With that number of inspectors you have the ability to assign an inspector to a team that needs a lot of work and ensure that they keep moving forward with the deadline in place.

As far as the food for volunteers there are a number of advantages to being in the district which drops the costs significantly. I know for many of the venues we have used for Regionals in the PNW have strict contracts with one or a few catering companies that you are locked into using for any food in the venue. The venue contracts also usually disallow participants from bringing food into the venue.

That changes significantly when the event takes place in a HS or University. A number of the locations that we use have culinary programs. So they will cater the volunteer food and at a much more reasonable cost that the for profit companies. We have also found that many of the host teams are able to find someone in their community that donate some or all of the food, or at least offer it at a serious discount.

For the participants, usually the school's lunch room is open and teams are free to bring in their own food. Most will have their concession stands open and a few invited a food truck or two giving the participants and spectators a wider variety at a much lower cost.

In our first season in the district system it worked out that the direct out of pocket costs for the 10 district events was roughly equal to the cost of the DCMP which was a long time Regional location which was not the most expensive venue that had been used in our area.

Just to reiterate that, 10 yes 10 district events at a similar cost as a Regional at a moderately priced stadium. For most teams that also means 2 District events at a cost similar to the one Regional. For some teams it is less because they can stay at home for one event and only need 2 nights of accommodations vs 3 and the hotels near the suburban events are often much cheaper than the usual down town location of stadiums. Yes some teams see their costs go up because they do have to travel to both events and suddenly some of those traditionally "one and done" team have earned a spot at DCMP.

Could you share with us how you handle the movement of fields throughout the season? Do you rent a semi truck each week or do you have some means of transportation donated?