Team Organization & Fund Raising Poll

[wireties]

We are revising team documents for next year and considering participation and fund-raising requirements. So I thought I'd gather a little data. One poll response per team please!

[GeeTwo]

Three notes -
We have opportunities during the summer, but these are optional. We do have expected number of hours of participation during the school year outside of build and competition season.

on "we require fund raising" is a bit too strong. A student can be a team member with five "bona fide attempts" at fund raising, though success at actual fund raising is a help in "lettering" and selection for leadership.

The only fund raising we have allowed students to "buy out" was our trip to CMP in 2015.

[EDesbiens]

There is not this option! : We are not associated with any school or booster club.

But, overall, the options cover pretty much everything in my opinion... The results are interesting to see!

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by EDesbiens

There is not this option! : We are not associated with any school or booster club.

I don't understand why you say that. If you're not associated with a school, don't check any of the boxes that say you are. If you don't have a booster club, don't check the box that says you do.

[Allison K]

You may consider a poll option around how travel costs (transportation, hotel, food) are covered - Team covers travel, Students/families cover travel, Team subsidizes travel, etc. Maybe just a line of "students pay to attend travel events" would cover it? Travel costs make up such a large portion of overall expenses there's a big difference between a team with a 20K budget where the team is covering travel costs vs. a team with a 20K budget where students are paying for each trip.

[Monochron]

What about fees that are neither > $200 nor < $200 eh!? Is there no love for the exactly $200 fee!!

I found the way you phrased the questions interesting though. I hadn't thought to use the term "buy out" for the $200 requirement that we have but that is a really clear way to put it. Might have to change our documentation

[EDesbiens]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I don't understand why you say that. If you're not associated with a school, don't check any of the boxes that say you are. If you don't have a booster club, don't check the box that says you do.

Technically, I would not check any of the boxes since nothing applies... This is why I think this option could be there... I can't submit the poll if nothing is checked.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Monochron

What about fees that are neither > $200 nor < $200 eh!? Is there no love for the exactly $200 fee!!

Are you a programmer by any chance?

[dougwilliams]

I'm curious about the "appointed student officers" selection. I'm surprised that more teams have that, then have elected student officers. For those teams - who are the appointers, and on what grounds do they make the appointment?

We happen to have elections, where both students and mentors elect for positions. We have elections after the season is over, so mentor votes and graduating seniors votes are weighted slightly more heavily.

We have gone back and forth the last few years struggling with funding, and our approach. We have had mandatory hours required to go to competition (but always take all). There are certainly students who could only support a few hours a week, but provided more back to the team with work in those few hours than other people on the team who were much less rigorous in their work ethic during meeting times; so hours never seemed to work fair.

We have also had "mandatory" fundraising events, but not everyone can attend all. This year we are switching to a contributed value model. At any given fundraiser we take the total raised and proportionally "apply" that to each student based on how many hours they worked at that event vs total number of student hours at that event.

We have a seasonal estimate of necessary funds, and we deduct off sponsorship money to the team, and then see whats left to make up and go down the list student by student with what each will need to contribute (if anything, we have yet to require finds paid, but we have told families that this is on the horizon if we don't get enough sponsorship money).

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by dougwilliams

I'm curious about the "appointed student officers" selection. I'm surprised that more teams have that, then have elected student officers. For those teams - who are the appointers, and on what grounds do they make the appointment?

We just started having a few appointed student officers for the upcoming year. Team captains are elected by student voting at the end of each year, and then during the fall sub-team leads are appointed by a committee of mentors and student captains.

We made the choice in order to increase effectiveness of our leadership structure. There is almost no way to keep elections from selecting the most charismatic or connected person, and that person may or may not be effective in the position. Appointment by committee (with the students having a say through their elected Captains) seems like a good way to help that effectiveness.

[ArtemusMaximus]

Also "IRS 501(c)(3) entity" is US specific. Perhaps it'd be better to generalize/categorize this selection

[MailmanDelivers]

Originally Posted by Monochron

We just started having a few appointed student officers for the upcoming year. Team captains are elected by student voting at the end of each year, and then during the fall sub-team leads are appointed by a committee of mentors and student captains.

We made the choice in order to increase effectiveness of our leadership structure. There is almost no way to keep elections from selecting the most charismatic or connected person, and that person may or may not be effective in the position. Appointment by committee (with the students having a say through their elected Captains) seems like a good way to help that effectiveness.

We tried the same thing this year. It worked really well for our team! The CTO (Chief Technical Officer) side had "build-leaders" that specialized or were group leaders for projects. I was the build leader for CAD this year, and I have to say it was very effective. We had meetings after every build session that was ~15 minutes long about what we did, what we need, if we need any help, and what purchase orders to create so we have cheaper shipping costs.

CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) and CAO (Chief Administrative Officer) also had a board of people working on projects and had meetings regularly. CAO, CMO, and CTO are all student elected positions.

[EDesbiens]

Originally Posted by ArtemusMaximus

Also "IRS 501(c)(3) entity" is US specific. Perhaps it'd be better to generalize/categorize this selection

There you go!

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by dougwilliams

I'm curious about the "appointed student officers" selection. I'm surprised that more teams have that, then have elected student officers. For those teams - who are the appointers, and on what grounds do they make the appointment?

Its a job application for Code Orange. Student apply for positions and the lead mentors interview and choose our student leaders. Its also like a sports team too.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

Its a job application for Code Orange. Student apply for positions and the lead mentors interview and choose our student leaders. Its also like a sports team too.

Very similar on 1678.

Students/Mentors can nominate any student for any position, including themselves. All nominees are interviewed by Outgoing Captain/Vice Captain and Lead Mentors. That group decides who to offer which roles.

Job application is a good way to put it.

-Mike