**FIRST EMAIL**/Senior Mentor Teleconference 9/22 - Choosing a Competition

FIRST General Forum
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Greetings Teams:

FRC Team Mentors mark your Calendars! The FIRST Senior Mentors are pleased to announce they will be hosting the second in a series of important teleconference calls for FRC Team Mentors this coming Tuesday, September 22, at 7 pm EST.

FRC Mentor Orientation 102, Choosing a Competition, provides useful guidelines and tips and suggestions for successful planning and travel.

All team mentors are welcome. The call in number is (ask team leaders for this info.)

We will have 150 lines available, so lines are on a “first come, first served” basis. The call will also be recorded and available for replay.

FIRST Senior Mentor FRC New Mentor Training Call.

Call Topic
FRC Mentor Orientation 102, Choosing a Competition

Hosted By
FIRST Senior Mentors Kathie Kentfield, CT. and Senior Volunteer Jenny Beatty

When
Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 7pm EST – 8pm EST

How:
(ask team leaders for this info.)

Areas of Content:
Tips and Suggestions for Successful Planning and Travel
Now that you have a team established, where can you compete?
Deciding where to go
Who Decides - Options
Where and When to Register
Additional Resources

Go Teams!

2

Greetings Teams:

FRC Team Mentors, due to unavoidable circumstances delaying the release of the 2010 FRC Event Schedule, the second in the series of FRC Mentor Orientation call, Choosing a Competition, hosted by the FIRST Senior Mentors has been re-scheduled to Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 7pm EST.

FRC Mentor Orientation, 102, Choosing a Competition provides useful guidelines and tips and suggestions for successful planning and travel.

All team mentors are welcome. The call in number is *[FONT=Verdana][size=2](ask team leaders for this info.)[/size]
*[/FONT]

We will have 150 lines available, so lines are on a “first come, first served” basis. The call will also be recorded and available for replay.

FIRST Senior Mentor FRC New Mentor Training Call

Call Topic
FRC Mentor Orientation 102, Choosing a Competition

Hosted By
FIRST Senior Mentor Kathie Kentfield, CT. - Senior Volunteer Jenny Beatty, MD and FIRST FRC Deputy Director, Frank Merrick

When
Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 7pm EST – 8pm EST

How:
*[FONT=Verdana][size=2](ask team leaders for this info.)[/size]
*[/FONT]

Areas of Content:
Tips and Suggestions for Successful Planning and Travel
Now that you have a team established, where can you compete?
Deciding where to go
Who Decides - Options
Where and When to Register
Additional Resources

Go Teams!

3

What do they mean “due to unavoidable circumstances delaying the release of the 2010 FRC Event Schedule” ?

Since I have been back to school, FIRST has had the release of the regional dates listed as October 1. Have we see the regional schedule earlier in the year.

Please fill in the blanks.

4

In past years, the dates were released in advance of registration - last year it seemed I had about 1 - 2 weeks to discuss it with our team about where we wanted to compete.

5

Last year, even though not all the Regional dates were confirmed, FIRST announced preliminary dates by September 19. The information wasn’t complete until the 25th or so.

I expect we’ll see the official dates within the next week :).

6

OK, Got it.
I now remember a lag time of at least a week between Regional date release and the day to start signing up.

7

Actually, I won’t be on this call due to a previous commitment (and I wish they would drop that “Senior Volunteer” title. Just “Volunteer” works…)
It is great that Frank Merrick will be able to join the call for the official answers to the questions that are bound to arise, and Kathie will have an outline with links and resources and all-around good advice. Onwards!

8

Be careful, they could accidentally drop the word “Volunteer” instead…

9

Bill’s blog announced that the list of competitions will be posted by noon EST tomorrow, 9/24.
I will also have FIRST post the outline for our call prior to the call on 9/30.

10

The outline for tonight’s call on Choosing Your Competition is posted on the FIRST website at: http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/FRC_Mentor_Orientation_102.pdf

11

Do you plan to discuss “Bagging” vs. “Shipping” as part of the Shipping Concerns in your agenda?

For rookies attending a “bag it” Regional or District event it’ll be cause for panic and confusion if they don’t know the special steps required.

12

Frank Merrick, FRC Deputy Director, will be on the beginning of the call to talk about some of the changes this season.

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