Recruiting?

[Bethie42]

Does anyone know if FIRST has any promotional videos on their website? I looked, but couldn't find any (tend to have trouble finding stuff on the website anyways )

Our team is based at a small school...this year (our best season in a while) we had a grand total of 8 students who stayed all the way through to regionals.

We've got the usual graduating-genius problem....the only returning students next year are two programmers/hardware people, and me (PR, communications, publicity, scouting, organization, Chairman's team-of-one, and wrench-turning).

I'm probably going to film a promotional video for the incoming freshman class (our school has middle school and HS combined...small private school)...but it would be nice if FIRST had something ready made, that really shows what FIRST is all about...enthused students...all that sort. Most of our team is rather quiet...heheh.

Also: what are some considerations when recruiting incoming freshmen? Since there will likely not be many upperclassmen on the team, there isn't the fear of being the newbie, so is it good to emphasize that part? passing the torch from seniors to freshmen...'you have the chance to Be the Team'...

(I'm a bit depressed that the most enthused student on the team is me--the public relations person, not really an engineering type.)

In the video, I'm going to try and strike a balance between showing non-engineers that robotics is Cool and Exciting, and not scaring off the quiet geeks

May as well make this post a bit longer! How do you deal with recruiting for organization and PR and so forth? It was a happy chance that I joined the team (my dad is the school liaison/mentor) but next year I'm a senior and after that the team may not attract a replacement.
Basically I do everything except actually build the robot (though I do that too when there's no-one more skilled around)....at competitions I am THE scout, I like to brag that I have a ready stream of memorized data on Every team at the event....I planned, filmed and edited the Chairman's Award video this year....wrote the Chairman's Essay...briefed the Chairman's team for their interviews (I was busy scouting at the competition)....took care of logistics....now I'm planning for grant-writing and recruitment....

Anyway, after that little self-promotion , how do you find someone to take care of those things? The organization students don't tend to join the team....and our team is usually small enough that everybody does everything, except for the PR which nobody thinks to do.....so how do you find your behind-the-scenes people? Do they just come out of the woodwork?