FIRST Community Social Events?

[Dorienne]

Originally Posted by Noah

To me, there is one big problem in the FIRST community - I only am in contact with most of it during about eight weeks of the year! During the rest of the year I'll haunt these forums, and talk to members of my team, but my contact with members of other teams has been fairly limited.

What I would like to propose is that during the off season, perhaps as often as once every month or two, there be a "FIRST Celebration" held in sites all around the country. These don't have to occur in tandem with each other, each can be an isolated event for that region, but the idea is that we find a large area like a public park or beach, someone sets up a grill, and everyone is invited to come and meet your fellow FIRSTers.

I think that this would be a great way to open additional channels of communication, especially between teams located near each other geographically. It's a way to build comraderie and friendship. It's a community event, and if any community looks after it's own, it would have to be the FIRST community.

I completely agree with this. I always wonder every now and then if there will ever be something like this in the future. I agree, it is a wonderful way to meet people from other teams, and would be just fantastic to see so many people from all over come and spend time with other teams. An event like this would blow me away..(not that regionals haven't..)

Originally Posted by Noah

My question, then, is this: If such an event was taking place near you, would you attend it? Would anyone be willing to coordinate events in your respective regions? Would your team be willing to take a few hours out of a saturday to attend?

I would definitely attend an event like this. Honestly, I think my whole team would love to go to this kind of thing. They'd love it, and so would our mentors and engineers.
I think our team would like to chip in a bit on some things. I'm sure we could come up with a place here in Maryland for this event.
As I said before, my team would most definitely be willing to spend a few hours and attend. Who knows, we would probably go to more than one!
Excellent idea, Noah!