FIRST Competition Entry Fee Increases for 2005

[JohnBoucher]

FIRST is still a bargain.

I agree that this will be a major concern to many teams. Of all the functions on a team, fund raising is the hardest and the one that is perceived as the least glamorous.

But it is no less important than any other function.
From my perspective (former parent only and now a mentor), The FIRST experience is about being self-sufficient. A robot team is a company and a company needs to make (raise) enough money to be a success. That is a fact of life for a company.

FIRST is a life lesson on steroids.

As an employee of that company (team) you have roles. The success of each of the roles contributes to the success of the company. If one role isn’t successful, then the company fails at achieving their goals. Each of the roles is as important as the next. Design can fail, manufacturing can fail and fundraising can fail. All roles need to be successful for the company (team) to succeed. It’s all about making everything work together.

I apologize if this sounds like a rant. It’s not. I have seen this both work and fail. It is such a wonderful thing when it works and a heart breaker when it doesn’t.

I feel bad for the teams that try their best to raise enough money and cannot raise what they need. This will make it harder for them.

But, I really feel bad for the teams that have the deep pockets and don’t need to have their members raise money. It’s all part of the experience and they miss out on that part.

[Doug G]

I'm still agast at hearing about teams' confidence in raising $20k. This past year we sent proposals to over 150 companies in our area with only 2 sponsorships in return for a total of $200. Idealy we would have students / parents doing follow-ups with many of these companies, but I have yet to have any parent volunteer to do this. Even our PTA, err Boosters organization, is just a handful of parents that try to get $$ for our athletics teams and our Band. They did what they could to get us $250. All of the parents on our team work (no stay at home moms/dads to help us) during the week and they do what they can for us on the weekend (bringing food, running to hardware store, make sure students wear their safety glasses, etc..). Luckily our saving grace has been the continued support of our local Rotary ($1k) and the addition of our only large corporate sponser, Goodrich, which contributed $2k. Other than that our district has bailed us out by chipping in $5k. The rest of the $$ came from selling pizzas afterschool and the students holding a LAN party. So we absolutely struggled to raise $10k (for 2 comps + materials), and left students to pay any expenses and sometimes materials. Will we be able to raise $1k - $2k more next year - I don't know? But we will try? Yep... As the sole adult on the team that organizes the fundraising - I'm just starting to worry about getting burned out. I guess I just lack that entrepeneurship attitude - maybe I should have watched more of Trump's reality show. The extra $1k - $2k will be hard on us, but we we'll try.

[Astronouth7303]

Charge $5 dollars for 2 minutes of driving the robot. You'll all set!

[SuperDave]

In 2002 and 2003, there were 4 teams in the Las Vegas area. But this year, 2004, two of the teams folded because of the lack of money. This next year, our team which survived, hopes to restart these teams, but now, im not too sure we will be able to. In addition we would like to start other new teams in the Las Vegas area. I'm not sure we will be successful, becuase we are going to have a hard time finding enough money for ourselves to compete. I'm not completely against this price increase, but for a team like ours to continue competing, this increase will definetly have us scrambling to find money. Last Saturday we raised almost $900 at a Yard Sale for our team. That made me feel like we were going to be in a good position for next year. Not anymore... Is there a thread or forum for fundrasing ideas on CD?

[Joe Matt]

*sigh* I hate price increases, but I know this is necessary for FIRST to survive. Now I gotta send out a team email.... more fund raising is needed now....

[Sean Schuff]

I was surprised when I received the email blast regarding the price increases. Not so much that they raised the entry fee but because there was no hint that this was in the works. Usually there are rumblings throughout the FIRST commnity that give us an idea that something is coming. I certainly didn't see it coming but was not surprised with what I read.

I, too, feel for the teams that are hanging on by a financial thread. It makes me cringe when I hear/read that teams have folded for lack of funding. Why aren't more companies stepping up and supporting our teams? Especially in a country where 7 years and $750 million dollars (yes, three-quarters of a billion dollars!) was spent on R & D for a men's shaving razor! Priorities?!

Our team will adjust our strategies to stetch our dollars and find new ways to raise funds. Fortunately we have a sponsor (Plexus Corporation) and a school district (Appleton Area School District) that are both EXTREMELY supportive of what we are doing and they see the "big picture" value that it has. $2,000 will make us rethink how we spend our money but that isn't such a bad exercise every once in a while.

I look forward to discussion on CD regarding which fundraising ideas/methods work the best. The silver lining is that this is just another obstacle to overcome, another opportunity to seek new sponsors while at the same time spreading the message of FIRST. Sort of like having to develop a strategy, design a robot, build a robot, test a robot, and ship a robot...all in 6 short weeks!

Our two options: throw our hands in the air and say "Ugh. It's not worth the cost!" or develop more real-life skills in finding the extra $2,000 to support a team. Choose, but choose wisely!

Sean

[LauraN]

Originally Posted by SuperDave

Is there a thread or forum for fundrasing ideas on CD?

This is ChiefDelphi. There are threads on everything!

In fact, there's an entire forum for fundraising ideas here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=63

But here are two specific threads:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=24178

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=24233

So, in the good old FIRST spirit, let's all start brainstorming and sharing ideas, ok?

[Ryan F.]

And now we’re back to the good old debate over funding. The big problem here is that there are really two classes of first teams in this department. Those who easily have it, and those who barely get it. So here’s my opinions from someone on a team who doesn’t readily have loads of $$.

First stresses teams being self sufficient organizations, almost your own mini-business. This is where I have a big problem with the price increases. Why?...I’ve asked…is the price being increased so much. People have nicely responded and offered me financial reports and such, but nowhere have I ever found a dollar for dollar breakdown that justifies a need for 1000 extra dollars.

First is our supplier. If you were running a business, and your supplier all of a sudden said that they are increasing your fees by 20%, you wouldn’t just blindly accept that. Your first reaction here would be to demand evidence of why these supplies cost more now. What you would expect in return would be the exact cost of what you were receiving, such as our kit of parts+regional. In order for FIRST to increase the prices such as they are, they need to justify it by showing the cost of the kit+ the realistic cost to them of one team at a regional. Its bad business not to be giving us anything like this, and business in the real world that did this would lose their contracts. The reason they FIRST will never is that they are a total monopoly. No-one else has anything like this, and that is completely understandable. FIRST must respect that, and act responsibly.

Then we get back to the problem between some teams having lots of money, and others having none. In my belief, FIRST could have worked out this price increase a lot better than they did. Many teams, like us, barely have the money to do one regional and build our robot, yet you see other teams that seem to have more money than they know what to do with. I think it would have made a lot more sense for them to increase the cost of a second regional by 1000. This would shift the extra financial burden to those who can handle it. You have teams saying 1000 isn’t much to raise, when that would have been 1/7 of our teams total $ this year.

People need to remember that money is a big part of FIRST, and that tons of money isn’t readily available to everyone. It’s one of those inevitable things we must accept, but there are many better ways it could be dealt with.

[Pierson]

Originally Posted by rforystek

...The big problem here is that there are really two classes of first teams in this department. Those who easily have it, and those who barely get it. So here’s my opinions from someone on a team who doesn’t readily have loads of $$.

I would add one more class, those who have it, but have to work really really hard to get it.

Some teams have one dedicated person who does the majority of fundraising. But oh no, if that person graduates.