Below is an email I got today from our School Admin. We use the commons area for lunch on kickoff day, but otherwise not a big deal to lose that space. The last question gave me a good laugh though. Names of people redacted.
"Hi FIRST team
We have one smallish issue with the Jan 6th date. That weekend the Auditorium and the Commons is rented our for a very large dance competition (both Saturday and Sunday). I can have you keep your scheduled kickoff date – but you will not have access to the Commons. Can you do your kick-off event in the classroom? Or do you want to look at the next weekend to host the Kick-Off meeting?
Thanks
Admin"
Does your admin understand that kickoff actually is a live global event or even FIRST competition season and how the schedule works? We’ve been doing it the same way for 10+ years I’ve been involved, the first Saturday of every year.
We have one smallish issue with moving the event by a weekend. This is an event scheduled by an outside party, and we have no influence on the date. We are fine hosting in the classroom.
To ensure proper planning, how far in advance are we allowed to reserve rooms? We would like to go ahead and reserve [rooms] for Kickoff for the next 5 years if that is possible; we will follow up with dates as soon as we check the outside party’s calendar.
Thanks,
FRC team"
Hey, it’s worth a shot, right? Make dance competition move.
Combine the events. Whoever can dance the Robot while completing whatever the task for Crescendo is the best wins the medal. Bonus points for representing Coopertition and Gracious Professionalism through interpretive dance.
I like this and I think if we were paying for the space rather than asking to use space for free we might send exactly that. However, the Dance Competition is run by outside vendors who pay a fee for each room needed. So unless we pony up matching $ we will be overriden by any paying program. We don’t pay for any room usage currently for any meetings.
Like the thought definitely! Beggars can’t be choosers though.
We actually had the exact same thing happen to us this year. There is a basketball tournament at the school we are traditionally at for kickoff and they asked if there was another weekend that would work for us. Our schools do a great job supporting us but not everyone fully understands how FRC works.
It is somewhat still up in the air at the moment. Our team pulls from two schools and unfortunately the other school is hosting a Science Olympiad tournament which uses most of the space in the school. We have 60+ students on our team so finding space for the full roster plus mentors can be challenging. We are working out using a different space at our usual school and may just have to structure our kickoff plans a little differently depending on what sort of space we end up with.
We pull from 4 (2 in district, 2 out of district) so I get that headache. We meet at a 5th building that is the CTE center by day and Performing Arts Auditorium.
That’s just terrible luck, but a fantastic opportunity for outreach if you can somehow be at the science Olympiad building. Seems like a great merging of similar people.