FIRST Competition Entry Fee Increases for 2005

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=28820


FIRST's most recent Email Blast reveals they have decided to increase the base team entrance fee to $6000 and the Championship fee to $5000. Additional regional fees remain the same at $4000. They have also taken several steps to help cushion the financial blow these increases will have on everyone (see the link above for details). They haven't raised rates since 2000, so I think it's justified for them to ask for more money, especially if it leads to an improvement in the quality of the overall FIRST experience. Hopefully, they will use the money to address many of the issues and problems expressed by FIRST'ers on these forums.

I am afraid this is one of those cases where there is no perfect solution.

FIRST cost a lot of money to run, we all understand that. Robots takes a lot of money to build, we all surely must feel that pain by now. In order to host a 3 day competition for 36-70 teams each weekend, you need a lot of money. In order to bring 20-50 kids to a robotics competition for 3 days, you need a lot of money.

Many people have commented their concern of how expensive FIRST is for many years now. Some of them might not have done FIRST at all, some of them has done FIRST but moved on and form their own organization or teams, some decide to remain in FIRST and support its cause. It is not a new problem. There is no right or wrong in this. It is a phenomenon we have to deal with if we want something in return: the education and inspiration of our future.

Is it worth all the trouble? The sleepless nights? The endless headache? Is it worth the energy to find enough resources to keep this going? That's probably the same questions many before our time have asked when they found a noble cause they are willing to chase after. In the modern time when its harder and harder to feel a sense of purpose, we are lucky to have a community to care about, and ideas to uphold. Is this worth it, you might ask to yourself... For me, I can't tell for sure, but I feel it's a right direction for me. Certainly it feel more right than any other directions I've seen.

What we shouldn't do is ask why this is happening to me. What we should do is ask how we can fix this problem, because giving up is not acceptable for those of us who care enough. In my experience, when everyone contribute a little more than they are expected, you can get amazing results from a group of individuals. Maybe that's something we should do.

If we can think out of the box and get just a little more money for the teams, it will help. If we can come up with a way to build a cheaper goal for the field, it will help. If we can volunteer just a little more time to help FIRST run competitions, it will help.

After all, all we can do is a little more than 100%, and hope for the best, right? ;-)

[JohnBoucher]

FIRST is still a bargain.

I agree that this will be a major concern to many teams. Of all the functions on a team, fund raising is the hardest and the one that is perceived as the least glamorous.

But it is no less important than any other function.
From my perspective (former parent only and now a mentor), The FIRST experience is about being self-sufficient. A robot team is a company and a company needs to make (raise) enough money to be a success. That is a fact of life for a company.

FIRST is a life lesson on steroids.

As an employee of that company (team) you have roles. The success of each of the roles contributes to the success of the company. If one role isn’t successful, then the company fails at achieving their goals. Each of the roles is as important as the next. Design can fail, manufacturing can fail and fundraising can fail. All roles need to be successful for the company (team) to succeed. It’s all about making everything work together.

I apologize if this sounds like a rant. It’s not. I have seen this both work and fail. It is such a wonderful thing when it works and a heart breaker when it doesn’t.

I feel bad for the teams that try their best to raise enough money and cannot raise what they need. This will make it harder for them.

But, I really feel bad for the teams that have the deep pockets and don’t need to have their members raise money. It’s all part of the experience and they miss out on that part.

[Doug G]

I'm still agast at hearing about teams' confidence in raising $20k. This past year we sent proposals to over 150 companies in our area with only 2 sponsorships in return for a total of $200. Idealy we would have students / parents doing follow-ups with many of these companies, but I have yet to have any parent volunteer to do this. Even our PTA, err Boosters organization, is just a handful of parents that try to get $$ for our athletics teams and our Band. They did what they could to get us $250. All of the parents on our team work (no stay at home moms/dads to help us) during the week and they do what they can for us on the weekend (bringing food, running to hardware store, make sure students wear their safety glasses, etc..). Luckily our saving grace has been the continued support of our local Rotary ($1k) and the addition of our only large corporate sponser, Goodrich, which contributed $2k. Other than that our district has bailed us out by chipping in $5k. The rest of the $$ came from selling pizzas afterschool and the students holding a LAN party. So we absolutely struggled to raise $10k (for 2 comps + materials), and left students to pay any expenses and sometimes materials. Will we be able to raise $1k - $2k more next year - I don't know? But we will try? Yep... As the sole adult on the team that organizes the fundraising - I'm just starting to worry about getting burned out. I guess I just lack that entrepeneurship attitude - maybe I should have watched more of Trump's reality show. The extra $1k - $2k will be hard on us, but we we'll try.

[Astronouth7303]

Charge $5 dollars for 2 minutes of driving the robot. You'll all set!

[SuperDave]

In 2002 and 2003, there were 4 teams in the Las Vegas area. But this year, 2004, two of the teams folded because of the lack of money. This next year, our team which survived, hopes to restart these teams, but now, im not too sure we will be able to. In addition we would like to start other new teams in the Las Vegas area. I'm not sure we will be successful, becuase we are going to have a hard time finding enough money for ourselves to compete. I'm not completely against this price increase, but for a team like ours to continue competing, this increase will definetly have us scrambling to find money. Last Saturday we raised almost $900 at a Yard Sale for our team. That made me feel like we were going to be in a good position for next year. Not anymore... Is there a thread or forum for fundrasing ideas on CD?

[Joe Matt]

*sigh* I hate price increases, but I know this is necessary for FIRST to survive. Now I gotta send out a team email.... more fund raising is needed now....

[Sean Schuff]

I was surprised when I received the email blast regarding the price increases. Not so much that they raised the entry fee but because there was no hint that this was in the works. Usually there are rumblings throughout the FIRST commnity that give us an idea that something is coming. I certainly didn't see it coming but was not surprised with what I read.

I, too, feel for the teams that are hanging on by a financial thread. It makes me cringe when I hear/read that teams have folded for lack of funding. Why aren't more companies stepping up and supporting our teams? Especially in a country where 7 years and $750 million dollars (yes, three-quarters of a billion dollars!) was spent on R & D for a men's shaving razor! Priorities?!

Our team will adjust our strategies to stetch our dollars and find new ways to raise funds. Fortunately we have a sponsor (Plexus Corporation) and a school district (Appleton Area School District) that are both EXTREMELY supportive of what we are doing and they see the "big picture" value that it has. $2,000 will make us rethink how we spend our money but that isn't such a bad exercise every once in a while.

I look forward to discussion on CD regarding which fundraising ideas/methods work the best. The silver lining is that this is just another obstacle to overcome, another opportunity to seek new sponsors while at the same time spreading the message of FIRST. Sort of like having to develop a strategy, design a robot, build a robot, test a robot, and ship a robot...all in 6 short weeks!

Our two options: throw our hands in the air and say "Ugh. It's not worth the cost!" or develop more real-life skills in finding the extra $2,000 to support a team. Choose, but choose wisely!

Sean

[LauraN]

Originally Posted by SuperDave

Is there a thread or forum for fundrasing ideas on CD?

This is ChiefDelphi. There are threads on everything!

In fact, there's an entire forum for fundraising ideas here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=63

But here are two specific threads:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=24178

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=24233

So, in the good old FIRST spirit, let's all start brainstorming and sharing ideas, ok?

[Ryan F.]

And now we’re back to the good old debate over funding. The big problem here is that there are really two classes of first teams in this department. Those who easily have it, and those who barely get it. So here’s my opinions from someone on a team who doesn’t readily have loads of $$.

First stresses teams being self sufficient organizations, almost your own mini-business. This is where I have a big problem with the price increases. Why?...I’ve asked…is the price being increased so much. People have nicely responded and offered me financial reports and such, but nowhere have I ever found a dollar for dollar breakdown that justifies a need for 1000 extra dollars.

First is our supplier. If you were running a business, and your supplier all of a sudden said that they are increasing your fees by 20%, you wouldn’t just blindly accept that. Your first reaction here would be to demand evidence of why these supplies cost more now. What you would expect in return would be the exact cost of what you were receiving, such as our kit of parts+regional. In order for FIRST to increase the prices such as they are, they need to justify it by showing the cost of the kit+ the realistic cost to them of one team at a regional. Its bad business not to be giving us anything like this, and business in the real world that did this would lose their contracts. The reason they FIRST will never is that they are a total monopoly. No-one else has anything like this, and that is completely understandable. FIRST must respect that, and act responsibly.

Then we get back to the problem between some teams having lots of money, and others having none. In my belief, FIRST could have worked out this price increase a lot better than they did. Many teams, like us, barely have the money to do one regional and build our robot, yet you see other teams that seem to have more money than they know what to do with. I think it would have made a lot more sense for them to increase the cost of a second regional by 1000. This would shift the extra financial burden to those who can handle it. You have teams saying 1000 isn’t much to raise, when that would have been 1/7 of our teams total $ this year.

People need to remember that money is a big part of FIRST, and that tons of money isn’t readily available to everyone. It’s one of those inevitable things we must accept, but there are many better ways it could be dealt with.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'm mostly concerned with the impact this will have on rookie teams and FIRST's overall growth rate. $5000+ is already a large amount for a team to raise to start out with, and adding a extra K will hurt. I think what will hurt most though, will be the NASA grants. NASA gives out hundreds of 5K grants to rookie teams, but I don't think they could bear a straight 20% increase in the money they're putting out. Especially without it going to more teams. If NASA has to cut the number of teams they fund, the growth rate is going to take a sharp dive.

Also, I know all this is going to fund FIRST and such, but I'm questioning the logic of a team paying more money to go to one of the new streamlined regionals with no party and reduced AV....

[JVN]

I'm excited.
Hopefully this price increase will cause FIRST to be a better experience for all involved. Bring on 2005.

John

[mtaman02]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I'm mostly concerned with the impact this will have on rookie teams and FIRST's overall growth rate. $5000+ is already a large amount for a team to raise to start out with, and adding a extra K will hurt. I think what will hurt most though, will be the NASA grants. NASA gives out hundreds of 5K grants to rookie teams, but I don't think they could bear a straight 20% increase in the money they're putting out. Especially without it going to more teams. If NASA has to cut the number of teams they fund, the growth rate is going to take a sharp dive.

Also, I know all this is going to fund FIRST and such, but I'm questioning the logic of a team paying more money to go to one of the new streamlined regionals with no party and reduced AV....

Which is why we should'nt just accept this. IS there a better way to raise the price with out shoving it all on registration fees or doing it in one lump sum maybe monthly payments

[Pierson]

Originally Posted by rforystek

...The big problem here is that there are really two classes of first teams in this department. Those who easily have it, and those who barely get it. So here’s my opinions from someone on a team who doesn’t readily have loads of $$.

I would add one more class, those who have it, but have to work really really hard to get it.

Some teams have one dedicated person who does the majority of fundraising. But oh no, if that person graduates.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by mtaman02

Which is why we should'nt just accept this.

See that's the thing. You have to accept it, or you don't participate. End of discussion. We aren't doing FIRST a favor. They're doing us a favor.

When they made this announcement, they weren't announcing a debate as to whether prices should be increased or not. They were telling us that they would be, and they did a good job of explaining why. As has been previosuly stated, it's been a good while since the entrance fee was last raised, and it's about time they did again.

As I already said, the bang for the buck is unparalled. Where else can $6000 change an entire group of student's lives forever? I know that FIRST has been worth every last cent that my team has payed, for me, and much much more.

Hey, at least they told us now, some 5 odd months before registration. They could've waited to make this decision and told everyone at the beginning of September.

Again, if you cannot find an extra $1000, you *are not* trying hard enough.

Cory

[Pierson]

It sounds like some of you have some animosity towards the increase in the entry fee. This would be understandable if it were a month prior to the payment due date and it would be very understandable if it were less than a month to the due date. However as Cory and Jessica and many others have said, we have over 5 months, which is plenty of time.

While I am now an alum, there are so many businesses that my team has not tapped and this is because we haven't had the financial need nor the student participation required to bring more sponsors on board. I would bet that there are many teams who are in this position.

Would it be great if FIRST could raise enough money to support a staff of 200 people, support 50 regionals, a major Championship event, along with 2,000 teams all without an entry fee? Yes. But is that possible? No. So let’s take this in stride work a little bit harder to raise more money and I will bet that everything will be better in the long run!