What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?

[nlknauss]

It takes a few years for a team to form reliable, on-going partnerships with corporate sponsors. It also takes about the same amount of time for teams to create their own structure for spending through the course of a competition year. Having a regional structure in place to work with teams as they develop their programs can be helpful with this whether it is a regional director, FIRST senior mentor, or team of volunteers.

The other side of this is team management and support. There are many ways to do this, but many teams do spend a lot of time in their second and third years thinking about how this should look. A similar support group can be a great deal of help for mentors, teachers, and students on young teams.

Basically, the rookie year isn't the only year a team needs assistance with its formation.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by nlknauss

It takes a few years for a team to form reliable, on-going partnerships with corporate sponsors. It also takes about the same amount of time for teams to create their own structure for spending through the course of a competition year. Having a regional structure in place to work with teams as they develop their programs can be helpful with this whether it is a regional director, FIRST senior mentor, or team of volunteers.

The other side of this is team management and support. There are many ways to do this, but many teams do spend a lot of time in their second and third years thinking about how this should look. A similar support group can be a great deal of help for mentors, teachers, and students on young teams.

Basically, the rookie year isn't the only year a team needs assistance with its formation.

Actually, there is an organization to help with team management and support: FIRST NEMO, the Non-Engineering Mentor Organization for FIRST teams.

FRC teams certainly have business-like components: staffing (students and mentors), finance (fundraising and expenses), facilities (build site, tools, IT, etc.), marketing (PR), and other logistics (transportation, communications, etc.). NEMO's purpose is to provide team with resources to do these things without having to re-invent the wheel.

I strongly recommend teams intending to sustain (or grow) their operations check out NEMO!

[AdamHeard]

Allow regionals to run their own lights and sound, and find a way to pass that savings on to teams. This doesn't have to be in terms of reduced registration for all, but could in grants, etc...

Considering most of CA is running regionals in district venues, it's a bummer that they are forced to raise the additional funds required to pay Show Ready Productions to run the event.

The savings could also be used to build up the fund for the eventual switch to districts (which I would assume is years off due to the difficulty the houston champs date puts on a District champs).

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Allow regionals to run their own lights and sound, and find a way to pass that savings on to teams. This doesn't have to be in terms of reduced registration for all, but could in grants, etc...

Considering most of CA is running regionals in district venues, it's a bummer that they are forced to raise the additional funds required to pay Show Ready Productions to run the event.

But Adam, we want FRC to be like all the other local high school sports that pay $40k to bring in 30 union workers to run unnecessary lighting and sound for 2 day tournament! Wait...

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Allow regionals to run their own lights and sound, and find a way to pass that savings on to teams. This doesn't have to be in terms of reduced registration for all, but could in grants, etc...

Considering most of CA is running regionals in district venues, it's a bummer that they are forced to raise the additional funds required to pay Show Ready Productions to run the event.

The savings could also be used to build up the fund for the eventual switch to districts (which I would assume is years off due to the difficulty the houston champs date puts on a District champs).

Ditto, so much money wasted. Plus it would be much easier to add more regionals. There are so many venues that can't host regionals because the lighting exceeds the building safety standards in cali.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Allow regionals to run their own lights and sound, and find a way to pass that savings on to teams. This doesn't have to be in terms of reduced registration for all, but could in grants, etc...

Considering most of CA is running regionals in district venues, it's a bummer that they are forced to raise the additional funds required to pay Show Ready Productions to run the event.

The savings could also be used to build up the fund for the eventual switch to districts (which I would assume is years off due to the difficulty the houston champs date puts on a District champs).

While I do understand this makes sense, why did we pay $5000 to do Inland Empire last year in a high school gym?

As much as I like many of the Show Ready event personnel and the job they do, if its the choice between that and substantial reduced registration fees (as demonstrated by district events), I'd take the latter.