Poaching or legal?

[OzzyMan92]

Ok so a team from another school has been working with us for some time without a sponsor.The agreement was to merge teams together, while maintaining the original identity. Most recently they were able to get a person to sponsor them from their school. Now I heard that it isn't allowed to take other members from other schools if they have a sponsor even with a agreement.
Note: We made the agreement to merge before we got a sponsor.

So in this case, is it legal at all and because that we agreed prior to their sponsorship, there is the exception?

What do you guys think?

[Chris is me]

There's absolutely no rules governing the exchange of team members of any sort with any other team at all. You're free to do whatever you wish.

[EricH]

I've NEVER heard that having members from schools with a different team than your own is illegal. 330 had a member from one of 294's schools for a couple of years a while back.

Now, if that's a team rule, that's something that you need to work out with whichever team has the rule.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by OzzyMan92

Now I heard that it isn't allowed

Not to belabor the point, but where did you hear that?

[JaneYoung]

Uzair,
Your lead mentor should be talking directly to someone at FIRST regarding these types of questions.

If you would like to send me a private message, I can provide some contact information for you.

Jane

[Cuog]

This sounds more like a school district rule to me. I can see them trying to keep students from skewing numbers and making it harder on the school districts budgets.

As far as FIRST is concerned, I can't find a single rule on who is allowed on a team, I think it would be legal to be a member of every team if they'd have you.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by OzzyMan92

Ok so a team from another school has been working with us for some time without a sponsor.The agreement was to merge teams together, while maintaining the original identity. Most recently they were able to get a person to sponsor them from their school. Now I heard that it isn't allowed to take other members from other schools if they have a sponsor even with a agreement.
Note: We made the agreement to merge before we got a sponsor.

So in this case, is it legal at all and because that we agreed prior to their sponsorship, there is the exception?

What do you guys think?

Just so I have this straight: last season, the students from the other team were officially working as members of your team (because the other team had no sponsor and could not register). You agreed to merge the two teams after last season. But they now have a sponsor through their school, and you're concerned that teams could be prohibited from merging if both teams have separate sponsors. Is that an accurate summary?

In terms of the FIRST rules, as stated above, there are no rules for this situation (though FIRST does have some policies relating to other aspects of team mergers). In terms of the law, I don't know if the agreement you have rises to the level of a contract that has to be honoured. (Was that the kind of legality you were worried about?) Otherwise, I'm also inclined to think that this is either a school district policy, or a recommendation from your regional director. Or maybe you're mistaken, and there's no such policy, and you're free to merge—that's entirely plausible as well.

And any post that opens with the words "Ok so" is automatically mentally rendered in the voice of the narrator from the "End of the World" Flash video. Just so you know.