In Search of A Mentor

[Darbus]

At the end of this past season, our sole mentor announced that he was going to be focusing on his job, and that the amount of time he will spend with the team in the future will be greatly reduced. As such, we're in search of a new primary mentor, but we're not entirely sure where to look. Thus, we were hoping that the Chief Delphi community might have some suggestions as to what we can do, or even might know somebody who would be interested. For reference, we're in the south San Francisco Bay Area. For more specific details, please contact us at team751@gmail.com.
Much thanks in advance.

[jcbc]

I have some friends in the Bay area and so I have posted your info on my Facebook page. Other than word of mouth, you might want to reach out to other area teams directly, if you haven't already, to see if they can help you find mentors.

Good luck!

[EricH]

Contact your Senior Mentor and let your Regional Director know as well. Part of what they do is help teams find resources like mentors.

[DonRotolo]

What Eric Said ^^

For a "search committee" of leadership students.

Start by asking team parents if they might be able to help, or work at a company where people who might be interested work. Don't just focus on technology companies.

To help those parents, prepare a short (1 page) intro to FIRST and the team, explain what you need (without scaring them!) and abundant contact info for someone who is interested to get in touch with the team.

The start visiting companies near by, asking if you can briefly speak with an engineering manager or the Human resources department to discuss a volunteering opportunity. Take no more than 5 minutes of their time, unless they seem to invite a longer discussion.

Mentors will not just walk in your door, you need to find, inform and invite them.

[Akash Rastogi]

Along with what Don said, I believe if this is your "primary" mentor, you should also document responsibilities of the mentor. Would they just handle robot related issues, or administrative issues as well? Stuff like that is important to have in writing somewhere when asking for mentors.

Good luck.

[dcarr]

If your team is associated with a school, try and see if you can contact alumni who might enjoy giving back. They've been great resources in our case.

[Mc Kenna]

Also now is the time to be reaching out to other local power house teams and asking if they can step up and help you mentor your team. They might be able to include you in things like their cad workshops ect to help ease the transition for a new mentor.

[Darbus]

We've talked to mentors we know from three other teams in the area, and have received a few helpful suggestions as to how to go about our search. We hadn't thought of asking for more direct help as Mc Kenna suggested, but we'll definitely keep that in mind. We have sent an email to our regional director, but unfortunately haven't received a reply. We'll try emailing our area's Senior Mentor. Our previous primary mentor wrote a page about the role of the mentor for our team that we can provide to parents or any other such. Almost all of our administrative business is handled by students, with the primary exception of just a few things like hotel reservations that are taken care of by a teacher. Our previous mentor was actually the student who started our team, and seeing who all else in the way of alumni might be out there is definitely a good idea.

Thank you all very much for your replies.

[kellymc]

I'm a mentor for Team 766 Menlo Atherton High School in Atherton and have talked with Ken Mitchell about finding mentors for your team. I know that Ken and Jim are out looking for people to help support your team.

I'll see if I can reach out to some people that I know that might be interested in becoming a mentor.

If you need any help, please feel free to reach out to me as well as Team 766 and we can help in any way that we can.

Kelly

[tsaksa]

You might want to contact the exploratorium. They are likely to have information on individuals in the area with the kinds of skills needed for a position like this.

Oh no! 751 lost their mentor! I always like playing with 751. Therefore, I will not let you guys go mentor-less! If you ever need anything before/during/after the season, the team at 256 will be more than happy to help with whatever we can!