Team fee?

[wendymom]

1902 has $50.00 dues at the beginning of each year. Travel costs this year run $250.00 per trip. Everyone had to purchase a team shirt. $11.50 per. (most everyone got more than one)

The "dues" help with admin costs and start up robot budget. We do lots of fundraisers that can be put towards dues and travel costs. We also have about 15 different sponsors but most of that money goes to robot costs and registration fees.

We have found that "dues" will help separate the kids that truely want to be on the team from the ones that don't.

[smurfgirl]

Team 1124 does not have a team fee. We do a lot of local fundraising, and have recently been active in getting local businesses to sponsor us in addition to our corporate sponsors.

Students are required to pay all travel fees (airfare, hotels, food, etc.), but this only occurs when we go to the Championships. The Connecticut Regional is two towns over, so we go back home every night, and the school covers our busing.

We've talked about having a small fee at the beginning of the year to cover the cost of the team t-shirt, since everyone ends up buying one later in the year, and the money gets collected either way. Our sweatshirts, hats, and additional t-shirts are optional, thus would not be included in the team fee that has been discussed.

[Andrew Schreiber]

As a RUSH alum I can tell you we always had to raise some money for the team ~$500 a year. This came from an agreement with our old sponsor in which they matched whatever we raised. This was our solo contribution, on top of that we also had to work other events and raise money.

397 does not require any monetary contribution but it does require members to work at fundraisers which are held throughout the year.

Personally, I think a small fee that can be raised via fundraising or outright paid is a good idea to discourage the students who are just doing it for bad reasons.

[bduddy]

Our team is free to join, and since we only go to 1 local regional, there are no travel costs. We do require members to purchase T-shirts (usually $15, but we had 2 this year) and we ask parents for donations of $100 or up. Both, of course, can be waived if necessary.

As for the original topic, I think a "team fee" is a bad idea. There are some people for which a "small fee" really matters, and these are the people that need the skills FIRST offers the most; even if the fee is waivable, prospective members may not know that or be ashamed to ask. As for the "barrier to entry" thing, I think that teams should be trying harder to lower barriers to entry. Teams should, in my opinion, be inspiring people that didn't care that much in the first place; trying to cater to those students that already really want to join the robotics team is, IMO, missing the point.

[Pat Arnold]

MARS asks each student to fundraise, both by helping at team activities (car washes, a homecoming carnival booth, a "Guitar Hero" tournament) and by soliciting business or family sponsorships. Each student is expected to bring in $175.

As stated in other posts, we too have found this responsibility to be an effective way to find students who are willing to invest some effort into the team, so that we end up with committed members by the time robot build begins. With over 40 active students for the last 2 years, members don't appear to find the task too difficult. One mentor with an advertising background provides a fundraising workshop each fall explaining how to approach businesses. A deadline for earning $ is set in late Nov. or early Dec.

Outcome: We currently have 2 main business sponsors together contributing $11,000 and approx. 50 small business supporters who donate anywhere from $25 to $2,000 each.

[afi419]

I've had to pay like 100-200 or so dollars to go to regionals.

[Viper37]

Originally Posted by A_Reed

Team 48 has a team fee system, typically around $150. But we also give the students an opportunity to work off the fee by encouraging fund raising, i.e. every x dollars raised in profit = y dollars off of the individual's fee(typically not a 1:1 Ratio). allot of students end up not having to pay a dime because of their efforts in fund raising.

Our team does something very similar. It works well and is very fair across the board.

[Tomasz Bania]

Looking at the posts in this thread, I see that we pay quite alot every year.There was no join fee prior to my freshman year (afaik), but the join fee my freshmen and sophomore year was $300, and it was lowered to $200 this year. The join fee includes shirts, sportcoats, and the regionals/nationals, but does not include food or "entertainment" during the regionals/nationals. On the other hand, our team isn't a "fundraising" team, but we have GM and our school district as great sponsors, and have many other sponsors in the works.

[lukevanoort]

I don't believe we've ever had a joining fee (although I personally like the idea), but we have to pay for our hotel rooms, food, etc. We don't have to pay much for travel because we are close enough to all the events we attend to travel in private vehicles (although I did make an attempt to convince the team to go to Waterloo this year... for some reason the 13hr drive didn't appeal to them). Travel costs for VCU are usually around $120 + food; when we went to Palmetto, it was $150ish + food (I may be a bit off on this one, I don't remember very well); and the Championship was around $150 + food back in 2005, but is $200 + food this year (rising cost of hotels, I guess). The team subsidized some of the cost for Palmetto and, IIRC, the Championship this year.

[MasterChief 573]

Because of the funding our team gets from the Chrysler Foundation we don't have a "team fee". However, we have started a travel fee that ends up being $300. $75 dollars for our one out of state regional that we drive to and stay at a hotel for and $225 for the championship which we fly to.

[jacob07]

I don't believe that my team has ever had a fee to be on the team. To go to the competitions the students have to be at the meetings (most of them, 100% participation is not required, but never turned down ) and we do Little Caesars Student appreciation where we get a certain percentage of what they sell of the medium pizza's that we help make. That is one of our big fund raisers, it works really well also. Our sponsors help pay for the rest, along with other fund raisers to get the students to go to the comp. and not kill their wallets.

[thefro526]

For us we pay twenty dollars every year which includes a team, shirt, and any trips that we take a bus to. Anything overnight we pay out of pocket and fundraise for. The only trip I have paid out of pocket for is The Championship and I wanna say it cost about $530 this year. I suck at fundraising though so, I pay a lot more than other kids do.

[HOT_SOUP]

I know of several teams, though ours does not have one, that have a fee system or a dues policy. I think the dues policy is more effective as it tends to be less intimidating than a large all-in-one fee.

[MayaPapaya27]

On RUSH, we have to pay $500 for the season, but since the team is considered a club, students that attend Clarkston High School have to pay an additional $50 as a club fee to the school.

[PizzmasterP27]

Another thing we do on Team RUSH is alot of fundraising.
We have no major corporate sponsor, just like alot of rookie teams. We have many smaller sponsors, but still, our fees do not even get paid. We ask every student to donate a 500$ team fee and then we ask them to be a part of all of our fundraising. Fundraising is not easy or fun (COLLECTING AND RETURNING 100$ IN RETURNABLE CANS IS NOT FUN)...but the students build ownership in the team. With the prices for everything on the rise... we have had to do 10 times as much fundraising as last year. This year we actually volunteered to clean up our football stadium after homegames...making about 400$ per game.