Up-Front money

[Wayne Doenges]

For the 2000 FIRST season we had a problem with students saying that they would go to the Nats and than backing out after the tickets were bought. The tickets were discounted and not refundable.
My questions are: How many teams required their students to give earnest money to help defray costs?
If a fund raiser was done, did the money raised go towards the students up-front money or was it put into a general fund for the robot?

Thank you in advance

Wayne Doenges

[Lora Knepper]

The way it was done when I was on 69 (and i'm sure it still is the same) - around October you were required to pay a $200 downpayment on the trip. To show you will "put you money where your mouth is" so to speak. Starting in January then, a monthly installment was due on the trip. That way, you have enough to pay the bills. And for us, once they were paid, your money was non-refundable (and that first 200 was non-refundable no matter what) - so if you screwed up and were not allowed to go, you lost everything.

~ lora

[Carolyn Duncan]

My team last year was so small that we didn't have to pay for regionals or nats. The thought came up at one point of what to do if we did need to pay. We decided that everyone would pay before the tickets were bought. 2 people ended up not going after tickets were bought, but 1 was an unavoidable thing, the other didn't matter to us because we didn't think he should be allowed to go anyway.

[Tom Fairchild]

Personally everyone on our team had to pay 35 bucks to go to Nationals. Not bad for a multi-day vacation to Disney World, and for most of your food while you're there..... only problem then was having the free-loaders come along. We weeded most of them out, but some had to stay for political reasons.

~Tom~

[mike o'leary]

only $35?

[Carolyn Duncan]

My old team didn't have to pay anything for regionals or nats.

[Stacy]

Each person on my team had to pay $1000 for disney, but nothing for the regional. A few reasons it was a lot: we had to pay for the teacher, our school didn't give us enough money AT ALL, and we didn't decide we were going untill March 10, when we got first place in the LI regional.

Did other teams get all the money (except for the $35 or so) payed by the school or was it from fundraising? Also, how many students/teachers/parents came on the trip?

[Clark Gilbert]

$1000!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

[Stacy]

Isn't that CRAZY!?!?! But it's true!!! We had about 15 kids come ( i think 31 was the total with parents and siblings and teachers), and EVERYONE payed (except for the teachers).

You didn't answer any of the other questions though!!!

[David Kelly]

Originally posted by Stacy
Each person on my team had to pay $1000 for disney, but nothing for the regional. A few reasons it was a lot: we had to pay for the teacher, our school didn't give us enough money AT ALL, and we didn't decide we were going untill March 10, when we got first place in the LI regional.

Did other teams get all the money (except for the $35 or so) payed by the school or was it from fundraising? Also, how many students/teachers/parents came on the trip?

dang stacy, i thought we had it bad. we paid bout $500 this year and have estimated next year to be around $700

[Stacy]

It's not too bad considering how much we would've had to pay if the parents hadn't raised as much money as they did. Also, a lot of teams from Long Island couldn't go because they didn't have the money. I think out of the 5 teams on the winning alliance, 4 went, but the 2nd place only 1 or 2 went.
Anyway, next year we're going to try to get rid of some of the kids who didn't do much, and raise more money.

Hey, it's DISNEY AND NATS AT THE SAME TIME!! IT"S WORTH IT!!!

(david, look how much I'm posting!! AND look at my pics!! i even got an AVATAR!!!)

I'm almost catching up with you guys!!!!

[David Kelly]

Originally posted by Stacy
It's not too bad considering how much we would've had to pay if the parents hadn't raised as much money as they did. Also, a lot of teams from Long Island couldn't go because they didn't have the money. I think out of the 5 teams on the winning alliance, 4 went, but the 2nd place only 1 or 2 went.
Anyway, next year we're going to try to get rid of some of the kids who didn't do much, and raise more money.

Hey, it's DISNEY AND NATS AT THE SAME TIME!! IT"S WORTH IT!!!

(david, look how much I'm posting!! AND look at my pics!! i even got an AVATAR!!!)

I'm almost catching up with you guys!!!!

you should be considered a post a holic now...lol. now you have everything you need to start posting more. you'd better start posting a lot to catch up

[Carolyn Duncan]

Originally posted by Stacy
Did other teams get all the money (except for the $35 or so) payed by the school or was it from fundraising? Also, how many students/teachers/parents came on the trip?

My old team didn't get any money from the school. The only thing from them was the technology room we used, a teacher to supervise (neccesarry for any group meeting at school), and they allowed us to miss school for competitions. Over all our school got a lot of publicity for nothing. All of our money came from sponsors, after one of our mentors used his credit cards to buy everything then got reembursed. That was because the school made us put our money in one of their club bank accounts (pain in the...). We got Fedex to ship our robot for free and Papa Johns donated pizza to us. It all worked out good I guess. Hope this answers your questions.