Managing the Chairman's Award Submission Project

[JuliaGreen]

Hi all,

We are thinking about how we can work with our students to develop the Chairman's Award submission. We have many new members this year and want to involve as many students as possible. Our experienced students are comfortable with the content of the Chairman's award and we want to help them get very good at how to manage the CA submission.

Do you use a project outline?
Do you use a timeline of some type?
What has worked best for you and your team when developing the submission?

Please share how your team helps the students manage the CA submission so they work together and distribute the work.

Thanks!

Julia

[rifkinni]

Our team has a non-tech division, which we divide into several sub-divisions. We have a media team that primarily focuses on the video submission, as well as on our scrapbook. We have a team that writes the Chairman's essay and executive summary, and another team that focuses on organizing our outreach efforts. If you are looking to create more jobs, you could also consider a team specifically trained to communicate with either with FIRST judges or with sponsors or community members.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Julia,
The Chairman's Award is given for the whole team's involvement. All activities that the team engages in need to include as many members as possible. As to the submission, ask for volunteers to handle small parts of the process. Point at people that haven't performed any function, often they just need to be asked. When you have begun the process of actual submission presentation, have your submission team present at a weekly team meeting to get them prepared to stand in front of a group. Then ask for questions from the team so that the presenters get familiar with answering. Often the questions will make you think about modifying the presentation. Your team has a long and rich history, the award is recognizing all that you have done thus fa, not just this past year. I really feel that our best effort came with a two hour discussion of team history on the bus heading to Atlanta. The presenters absorbed so much team history that even they were amazed at all that had been accomplished.