Submitting Chairmans?

[Lil' Lavery]

Some of my points have been alluded to already, but teams are absolutely entitled to submit wherever they please.

First off, teams should submit each and every year. A team should not be forced or pressured into taking a year off for any reason, even to let other teams win. Especially considering you have to win a regional to be considered for the Chairman's Award in Atlanta, which should be that teams ultimate goal (in terms of Chairman's).

Seconly, teams are entitled to submit wherever they please. Some teams only attend on regional, and that limits their choices. Others prefer to submit at local/home events. Others prefer to submit a new place each year (612, until this year when they're submitting at VCU for the second time, had submitted at and won a different event each of the past three years). If they want to factor in other teams, they can, but taht's up to them.

Thirdly, do you really want to win knowing that another team had to bow out in order for you to do so? Is that win really any more meaningful than placing behind them now? At least to me, seeing a feedback form praising my team and telling us how to improve is satisfactory enough.
I know I was ecstatic when my high school team won RCA at the NYC regional last year, but ultimately (aside of the evening of joy afterwards) it's no more meaningful than the four years of feedback sheets with the "currently strong" boxes checked in every category that we recieved before we won. We knew that we had done our part, we had impacted our community (and beyond), spread love and dedication to science and technology, changed lives, and presented the hell out of our submission to the judges. We knew that the judges were impressed. But we also knew that 341, 612, 1002 and every other team we "lost" to had done the same, and we strove to be even more like them. We worked harder and longer, and continued to improve.


I guess my bottom line is; If you're in the Chairman's Award just to win the Chairman's Award, you're doing it for all the wrong reasons. The award is there as a goal to strive for, but it shouldn't be the reason why you conduct yourself and reach out to your community and beyond the way you do.

[JaneYoung]

I'm reading this thread and I understand some of the thoughts and questions posed. I can understand the frustrations that come with the thoughts and questions. At the same time, there are teams that make strides every year in the development of their team, their program, their outreach, their impact on the community, continuing to strengthen their team and motivate or create change. They should have the opportunity to be recognized.

Think about the team website development. If you submit for the website award and you have continued to keep the information current with this year's information, it is an improvement because of continued change and development. You are continuing to archive your team's work/efforts. Same with Chairman's. Yes, there are teams that don't continue to develop and move forward but that is for the judges to determine and not necessarily for us as participants to judge.

Hope this makes sense.
Jane

[Elgin Clock]

I think we've all attended a regional event (or multiple ones) where the same team has won the C/A many years in a row & it seems like no other team is going to have a chance.

The saving grace to this (in the eyes of the non-winning teams) is that once you win C/A at The Championship Event you are no longer eligible to win at the Regional level.

Even if we started this year & just started handing out the Championship Event C/A to every team who has won at a regional multiple times, but never won it in Atlanta, we would be here for 5+ years.
(I'm not certain how many teams have won it multiple times at the regional level, but never in The Championship Event, but it's gotta be around or even higher than 5 teams now)

This is certainly a touchy subject, seeing as we all know the teams who have won it at regional events certainly have earned it, but when a team wins it 5 years in a row in your area, your team's chances of winning it are pretty slim (but certainly not impossible) until they are out of the running by winning it in Atlanta.


Moral of the story: If your "multi-year" winning team wins at your event again this year, lobby on their behalf to every judge you see in Atlanta to choose them to win!

[waialua359]

The ultimate goal is to win the CMP CA.
Regardless of which regional you enter in, its not about "giving" others the CA. Each and every team should have to make strides in earning it.

Sure, there are strategies on where to enter and who is entering, but it doesnt stray away from the fact that the best team can and should win based on the judges collaborative opinion.
To have an opinion that a team doesnt merit having one again because they won before is not fair to anyone.
People seem to forget that teams that win work the hardest vs the others that dont and complain about it.

There were years where we felt disappointed in not winning. BUT, our attitude has been to look at what the judges point out as areas of improvement, and work towards being better and seeing the "big" picture on why you do FIRST to begin with.