POLL: Friday-Sunday events vs Thursday-Saturday events

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Siri

This. Friday-Sunday is much better for filling the many shorter- and smaller-job volunteer slots, not to mention attracting other community engagement.

This is something interesting that has not been brought up yet in this thread. From my personal observations (I'd be interested if anyone has actual data on this), Friday Day 1's are a lot quieter than Saturday Day 1's. It seems that for the most part, the only people there on Fridays are teams (and many teams do not even have their full team) and maybe a few non-mentor parents. However on Saturdays, there are more students from teams, families, friends, and local spectators. The vibe on Friday day 1's also just feels a lot more laid back whereas Saturday day 1's, it feels like competitions get off to much more of a running start (when there isn't 45 minutes of connection issues before the first match). I know that all competitions still have day 2 on the weekend to "make it loud," but 2 loud days are louder than one (maybe?) and matches are just more exciting when there is a large crowd.

[jgerstein]

As much as I enjoy the rest day after a Thursday/Friday/Saturday competition, I went with Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

Unfortunately, while each individual competition is not a big deal, the missed days add up and all happen very close to each other. Missing five days over the course of the year is inconvenient but can be dealt with, but missing five days over the course of three weeks right before AP tests for DCMP and CMP definitely caused some concern at my school this year. If I were pulling my students out of school for two or three Fridays (and potentially Thursday if we travel to an event) in the six weeks before that, we'd be pushing the limits of what our students, parents, teachers, and administration would accept.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by rwodonnell

I agree that that mix would be ideal. Unfortunately, of the 10 NE district events, only 3 were Thu-Sat, and two of those were the same weekend (Easter weekend). It makes me wonder if those would also have been Fri-Sun in a year when Easter is after competition season, as it (almost) is in 2017 (April 16th, 2017 - only the 2champs are after Easter). In NE, only the Pine Tree event was Thu-Sat on a "normal" weekend, and because of the double on Easter weekend, had to be the 2nd event choice for teams needing a Thu-Sat event. I hope next year there are a couple more Thur-Sat events to choose from in NE.

Venue selection has a lot of facets to it. Many of the venues used in New England are extremely busy, with many sports, concerts and event schedules to work around. Many events fell to Fri-Sun due to scheduling constraints at venues. In an ideal world we could satisfy every requirement, but unfortunately last years cards landed heavy on Fri-Sun events.

Its quite a balancing act to schedule all of the events that satisfy 1. Budgets 2. Competition season schedules 3. Geographic requirements 4. Volunteer breakdowns, etc.

-Brando

[rwodonnell]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Its quite a balancing act to schedule all of the events that satisfy 1. Budgets 2. Competition season schedules 3. Geographic requirements 4. Volunteer breakdowns, etc.

I certainly don't want to suggest that it's easy! I was just making a hopeful statement that next year will have a more even split. Please know we are all very grateful to the volunteers for all the work that goes into these events, not the least of which, I'm sure, is the planning phase that lays the groundwork!

[kristinweiss]

As a college student, I am 100% in favor of Friday-Sunday events, primarily because my GPA cannot afford to miss the extra day of class. While a rest day on Sunday can be nice, I much prefer to suck it up on Monday and not get behind on class material or lower my grade by missing a mandatory class, and I feel like most college student volunteers can agree with that.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

So I don't get this "I need a recharge day so let's do Thursday - Saturday" - is it just that you feel guilty about taking a day off when there isn't an event, or something?

Yes. Also, I get away with taking time off for events without really taking time off. I don't feel good about doing that on the following Monday.

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by jgerstein

As much as I enjoy the rest day after a Thursday/Friday/Saturday competition, I went with Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

Unfortunately, while each individual competition is not a big deal, the missed days add up and all happen very close to each other. Missing five days over the course of the year is inconvenient but can be dealt with, but missing five days over the course of three weeks right before AP tests for DCMP and CMP definitely caused some concern at my school this year. If I were pulling my students out of school for two or three Fridays (and potentially Thursday if we travel to an event) in the six weeks before that, we'd be pushing the limits of what our students, parents, teachers, and administration would accept.

This comment sums up my views when I was a student pretty well, considering I was one of jgerstein's students.

1257's school is a challenging all-honors/AP school. With the block schedule system they use, missing a day of school meant missing an hour and a half in each of four rather difficult classes. On top of the baseline onslaught of homework, it was a hassle to catch up, and when AP classes with AP exams mere weeks away are thrown into the mix, missed days become a real PITA. My senior year, a TFS event could have easily cost me four or five hours of AP class time.

FSS events help keep students sane, especially ones with a challenging courseload. I am very glad MAR ran FSS events my senior year and that MARCMP fell during my spring break.

Originally Posted by NorthernTaco

As a college student, I am 100% in favor of Friday-Sunday events, primarily because my GPA cannot afford to miss the extra day of class. While a rest day on Sunday can be nice, I much prefer to suck it up on Monday and not get behind on class material or lower my grade by missing a mandatory class, and I feel like most college student volunteers can agree with that.

Last semester, I was fortunate to only have two hours of class on Fridays. If I had the schedule I have this upcoming semester, I would have missed a total of 21 hours of class due to events (7 hours of class on Fridays, and three TFS events). As a conscientious student who hates missing class and having to play catch-up, I would much rather have the choice of skipping all/some/no classes on Monday than be forced to skip all of them on Friday.

[Greg Hainsworth]

A point that need to be considered here with a TFS event schedule.

Most of these competitions are held in high schools. In our area, all visitors need to be checked in through the main office. A Friday event of qualifying rounds would essentially require the school to be closed. You couldn’t secure the school with all the spectators. There would aslo be nowhere to park because the lots would be reserved for buses, teachers, and students.

Our school districts would never allow it.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Greg Hainsworth

A point that need to be considered here with a TFS event schedule.

Most of these competitions are held in high schools. In our area, all visitors need to be checked in through the main office. A Friday event of qualifying rounds would essentially require the school to be closed. You couldn’t secure the school with all the spectators. There would aslo be nowhere to park because the lots would be reserved for buses, teachers, and students.

Our school districts would never allow it.

There was a discussion on this somewhere in the California District thread. Apparently FIM and PNW have most of their events TFS in high schools. I thought the exact same thing as you, but it has been done before.

[Michael Kaurich]

Originally Posted by ASD20

There was a discussion on this somewhere in the California District thread. Apparently FIM and PNW have most of their events TFS in high schools. I thought the exact same thing as you, but it has been done before.

It is a regional thing. Maryland public schools typically do not allow this to happen due to how the schools are booked for "extra curricular events" that FIRST tends to fall under for their purposes. Like most things it boils down to liability and how a locality deals with it.

[MamaSpoldi]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I could go either way. Having to take one less day off work per event would be nice. But on the other hand, some of those events leave me so exhausted that I need Sunday just to recover.

+1.

I always plan to take the next day off from work if it is a Monday because I'm too old for this. My body needs a day of rest. So I either take a vacation day on Thursday/Friday (with District events even when they start on Friday we don't actually need to be there until 5ish)... or I take a vacation day on Monday. Either way I am still using that vacation time to ensure that I remain a healthy and functioning member of society.

On the other hand, I do worry about our students not being allowed to take the day off on Monday if they need it. This is explicitly not allowed per our school rules. However, the more days we take off as required (ie. a TFS event) also makes it harder to get approval to take the team to the events, so again both options have their up- and down-sides.

Save

[smitikshah]

Originally Posted by ASD20

This is something interesting that has not been brought up yet in this thread. From my personal observations (I'd be interested if anyone has actual data on this), Friday Day 1's are a lot quieter than Saturday Day 1's. It seems that for the most part, the only people there on Fridays are teams (and many teams do not even have their full team) and maybe a few non-mentor parents. However on Saturdays, there are more students from teams, families, friends, and local spectators. The vibe on Friday day 1's also just feels a lot more laid back whereas Saturday day 1's, it feels like competitions get off to much more of a running start (when there isn't 45 minutes of connection issues before the first match). I know that all competitions still have day 2 on the weekend to "make it loud," but 2 loud days are louder than one (maybe?) and matches are just more exciting when there is a large crowd.

Agreed. Some of our school board members (Director of Science, Director of Math, Superintendent of Technology) all came to stop by our pit at NYC on Saturday and Sunday with their families and young kids.

After getting feedback from them, they not only understood FIRST a lot more by being able to come to watch, making them more likely to work with us on things like funding, space, and more events, but their kids (around age 6-9) were so inspired and wanted to do FIRST in their districts. Apparently 2 of the 3 kids of our Superintendent of Technology said that they want to be engineers now, after being able to come to watch the competition for two days.

Some of my family was able to come watch over the weekend, and they understood FIRST a lot more as well. Having them come watch meant a lot to me, and made it just that much better.

Seeing the crowds full on the weekend during events really gets the atmosphere a lot more energetic and makes me want to compete even harder.

All in all community and personal involvment in FIRST has increased a lot thanks to FSS events, at least in my experience.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

What about taking the Monday off as a rest day instead of missing the day of work the week before?

Monday is a FAR too important day at my work. Everyone wants to start the week out right, so much happens.
Half of the Fridays are uneventful anyway.

[Tom Line]

I have a family. I need that Sunday to devote to them, and to recharge before work.

[smitikshah]

It's split 50/50 right now. Excited to see which way it'll sway