Information on Hosting Needed

[Ken Leung]

Hi Kymber,

I can't stress enough how important it is the point Arefin made about a planning committee. An off season event takes an incredible amount of work, and without a small group of folks sitting together talking about everything, you will go nuts very quickly.

I would say the most important part of beginning an off season's planning process is:

Location, Date, playing field, and teams.

Lacking one and you won't be able to have your event. It took us a month to select a venue and date for Cal Games, and we are still in the process of completing out playing field and recruiting teams. You can have your event in a High School gym, a community college, or a university. You will have to avoid important dates such as holidays and SAT test dates. You can also contact FIRST about using their field and the cost of shipping it to and from the venue, and you have to find enough interested teams to participate in your event.

Then come your kickoff meeting, where you are officially announcing the venue and the date, and gather support for your event.

For Cal Games, our kickoff event was held on June 28th. We just had our 4th planning meeting, the volunteer recruitment meeting. Our 2nd planning meeting was used deciding what kind of event we want, while our 3rd meeting was for working out logistic and registration issue.

In the coming two months, we will be visiting Pioneer High School to complete our floor plans, showing exactly where we are going to lay down floor protection, carpets, where we are putting the playing field, side event and displays at, and how the pit area is going to look like. All at the same time we have to determine if there's enough power in the pit area for the teams to use their tools, where the extension cords and power outlets are in the main gym for the field and scoring table, and what kind of A/V setup we want to have.

All at the same time, there will be meetings with teams and volunteers to go over the setup plan and jobs that need to be done during the event. The volunteers will have to be trained for their jobs, and provided enough information to show up at the right time and the right place.


It's a complicated job planning an off season event. Chances are you won't get a lot of these things right the first time. It's the 6th years for Cal Games, and we are still learning new lessons as we dive into the planning process.

I don't want to flood you with too much information here, so, why don't you PM me your e-mail, and I can send you some files from the Cal Games planning handbook.

In the mean time, keep asking those questions on Chief Delphi and talk to as many people as you can. You are going to need a lot of help.

-Ken L
06' Cal Games Manager