**FIRST EMAIL**/FIRST Adds District Event Model Alternative to FRC Program

[GeorgeTheEng]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Beside having the volunteer base* and exiting the pre-existing contracts with venues, you have to consider the planning time.

Agreed. These events are going need a fair amount of planning. FIRST also needs some time to put in place thier own process and standards for these district events. The MI events were watched closely by FIRST and were supported by a FIRST Bod member. As a number of other states take on this model, FIRST has to document and institutionalize thier requirements and standards. They may even end up needing more staff to help manage that process. On both the local and the national side, it's not worth FIRST jumping
in without spending the required time to get ready for the full deployment of the district model.

On a separate line of thinking, while contracts may be the legal and financial barrier, that what will truely make or break a region is the volunteer base. I know a number of areas have large volunteer bases, multipling the number of events stretches those people. Look at the Mid Atlantic region... From DC up to NYC and you've got 5 regionals. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but I am 100% sure that you do not have 5 regionals worth of volunteers. There is a large overlap in that area of volunteers that travel from event to event. If you add districts in 3 or three of those states you've double or tripled the volunteer need but not the volunteer base. There is a burn out factor that needs to be considered.

Look at FTC. The 1st year or two the events drew volunteers mostly from FRC and FLL with little of thier own base. That started to wear on volunteers and makes scheduling very hard. They had to establish thier own volunteer base. The same is going to have to be true of the district model.

Hopefully those of us that fall into the semi-pro volunteer category (i.e. you can go from January to April with less then 3 or so free weekends... in other words most of Chief Delphi's adult, many college, and a number of student readers) will be help create that base. Otherwise, that might be what stretches this system to the max.