Offseason event in Texas

[Pjohn1959]

I am trying to see if there would be any interest in having an off season event in Texas for next year. I see that most of the events are in the northern part of the US. I am thinking of holding it during the summer months (June/July) of ’09, probably here in Houston.

I am spear-heading this idea and would welcome any thoughts and suggestions. I am also looking for help in doing some of the legwork to make sure that this event comes off in ‘Texas’ style. You can PM or send me an e-mail if interested.

Thanks,

Paul

[JaneYoung]

I'm in.
Tell me what to do!

woohooooooooooo!

[CyberWolf_22]

Hoedown in H-Town!!

I am there and willing to help in any way I can.

[Pavan Dave]

I'm pretty sure I can speak for the entire state of Texas when I say we've been waiting for years!! I'll see if I can get some out of state buddies back to Texas if it doesn't conflict with Mission Mayhem, the IRI, or a the other competitions.


Pavan.

[Tazlikesrobots]

Originally Posted by Pavan Dave

I'm pretty sure I can speak for the entire state of Texas when I say we've been waiting for years!!
Pavan.

could not have said it better myself

[lynca]

I'm up for helping as well, however I think there are a few goals we should set on this thread.

1. Where will it be held (sounds like somewhere in Houston)
2. When (Paul could you someone provide possible dates)?
3. How much will it cost?

The more feedback we can get from everyone on this thread the better !

[Arefin Bari]

In order to organize a successful offseason event, the first step you should take is create a committee full of committed and dedicated members. Choose a team leader in the committee who would be able to oversee everything and delegate jobs to other members. At the same time, you have to get teams, parents and mentors involved. Chris Fultz uploaded a very useful whitepaper here regarding how to organize an offseason event. This is a very detailed document and I suggest to read through it. It can be found here. Good luck and I hope to see an offseason in Texas very soon. If I can be any help, please don't hesitate to contact me.

[Richard McClellan]

I'm definitely willing to help out as well. I'll be in Austin for the 08-09 season, but I can coordinate getting volunteers from Austin teams to help out, and anything else.

I think this event is definitely going to need a website as well...

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'm up for helping. I've run the scoring software before, plus by misspent youth as an AV tech, so I'd love to help on any techie side of things.

Question, however. Are we planning for this to be a reprise of whatever the 09 game is like IRI, or are we planning on a modification of it ala Ramp Riot?

[CyberWolf_22]

I would like to do it like IRI. So only a small number of rule changes that make the game better and don't require to many teams to change their strategy to compete.

Also do we want to do this a one or two day event. I am thinking a Friday and Saturday would be best since this is the currently the only off-season event planned for the region there is going to be a lot of interested teams and one day does not give teams enough matches.

[racer6]

ausTIN CANs #2158 from Austin are good to go on this.

We had started a similar conversation with our school principal. Summer 2008 our school will be getting some electrical work done, she suggested the following year 2009. My mom had talked to the 2 neighboring churches for use of the fellowship hall for students to 'camp in'.

While we are planning, is this something that we could rotate between cities?

[JaneYoung]

Looks like 2009 is going to be an exciting year in Texas. We'll all have to make sure we are working together well and that planned and potential events don't step on each other or cancel each other out.

Big big state, big big opportunities, and big barrels of fun.

Arefin, thank you for your wisdom. You are a big big reason Mission Mayhem has established itself as an awesome off-season in the beautiful state of Florida, come rain or shine.

[Pjohn1959]

I would like to first thank all of those that have responded to me by pm or this thread for their interest. As far as I can tell from right now, it is a go for next year. It will definitely be during the end of June or July. I don’t want to compete with IRI or the school year.

I would also like to thank Chris Fultz for his invaluable white paper on how to put on an off-season event.

Here’s where we stand now: I have pretty much secured a venue for next year’s competition, easy to get to, easy load in, plenty of parking, and playing field is right next to pit area. It’s here in Houston, at our school’s new Ag facility.

My next step is to form a committee of dedicated members to make sure that happens. Jane you are already volunteered (the army way). We will talk about all the steps that need to be taken to make sure this is successful. We can talk about rotating the venues each year also. I think variety can be a reason for success. Please send me pm if you are so interested. We can exchange contact numbers.

I would like to start meeting next week, but am unsure on how to arrange a conference call for out of city members. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Pjohn1959

...
I would like to start meeting next week, but am unsure on how to arrange a conference call for out of city members. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

Paul and all...

I've had good experience with Budget Conferencing. For a reference, I had a 4 person call 2 weeks ago, for 30 minutes. This cost $12.39. It is a very easy service to use.

Good luck with planning this event.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

[Coach Norm]

Team 2468 in Austin would like to help if we can.

Originally Posted by Pjohn1959

I would like to start meeting next week, but am unsure on how to arrange a conference call for out of city members. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

In terms of the conference call, we use Skype at school for conference calls with guest speakers. It is free for a computer to computer conference. Each person needs a skype account though. It is a free service and free download at http://www.skype.com/

You can have 24 people on the call at a time. You would need the skype contact information for each person you would want on the call. You start the conference call and invite others to the call.

An explanation of the conference call is listed at here.

Hope that helps.

Norman