NY Districts - POA

FIRST General Forum
1

Ok, so we have talked about it for years now and stuff needs to happen.

There is a lot that is going to happen and none of it will happen if we continue to only discuss this on Chiefdelphi.

I have talked to many teams from LI, and NYC and have yet to find one person that does not want the district model. Many teams including ours only did 1 regional (The NYC Regional) which was week 2, and now our season is over very early. Despite having the best season our team has ever had it is still saddening to see it go so soon.

There has been many people saying NYC can not do it because of all the low resource teams to which I say that is incorrect. To start the odds of many of these low resource teams making DCMP is pretty low so, they will most likely have 2 local events. These events will probably not be in Manhattan due to the high cost but, Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Staten Island can accommodate all of these inner city events just fine. Even a LI event would not be too hard as long as the venue was close to the LIRR.

The Upstate teams already have to travel as most teams are not very close to the 2 upstate regionals so, I see them having no problem with the model.

First before anything we need to figure out what we want.

There is a couple of options.

  1. My favorite is a centralized NY district with a NY state championships. How cool would that be?

  2. We split NY into 3 put
    NYC + Long Island and a few of the more southern counties (Westchester, Rockland, Orange) in MAR.
    Eastern Upstate everything to the right of Syracuse joins New England
    Western NY (Primarily Rochester, and Buffalo stay with the regional model with FLR, and Pittsburgh supporting them until Western PA, and Ohio go to the district model)

The next many different ideas are basically just modified versions of number 2.

So, after we choose the right path we need to contact everyone and form some sort of committee. I do not think I would be welcome as I am 16 but, I would happily help.

If we are going with the 2nd option which would sadden me a bit. We first need to see whether the Surrounding districts want it. I am going to guess no but, we will have to see.

Lets all start here and contact the RD’s. That is the first step. Someone mentioned Ana Martinez helping to make NY districts by 2019 which is unacceptable. Yes I am aware moving NY to the district model is hard and will take time but, there is no reason it needs to take 3 more years.

Now, who wants to contact the RD’s? Volunteer and do it otherwise it may not happen.

No one wants this change more then the Teams and if we are silent nothing will get done.

2

Keep working at it, but you need to get in contact with the RDs and see what work has already been done and what is in the works already. You’re far from the first person in New York to push for districts, and you don’t want to fracture different groups of people by duplicating work that has already been done, if it has.

Now, who wants to contact the RD’s? Volunteer and do it otherwise it may not happen.

You should do this! Be the change you wish to see, otherwise it may not happen.

3

Chris has it right. Sam, I’m very glad that you’re taking the initiative to get NY into the district model. However, it’s very likely that some of the questions you’ve posed have already been decided by the various directors/committees involved. The only way to know for sure is to email your RD and find out what has already been done/decided, and what the next step is.

4

I emailed Ana and Paul this morning to see what the status of districts are in NY. I will update when I get a response.

5

Alright, I will email Mrs.Winters and Mrs.Daly and will report what they say back here. This is some progress. Although, we will need to get together as a community to make this happen.

Edit -

As of 3/24 I have emailed both my the local RD’s

Mrs.Winter had an automated response come back that she wont be in her office until Next Tuesday which makes sense since she is the Superintendent of a local school district and currently we are on break.

I will post results of these emails as soon as I have them.

6

Thanks and please do! I meant to ask one of them about it when I was up for Tech Valley, but they were busy, I was busy, and it slipped my mind…

7

Depending on the responses we get and what the current status is, it may be valuable to propose a conference call or some town hall meetings this summer so the decision-makers can update the community directly and maybe start some dialogue and receive some feedback.

8

Please keep in mind that what works for you and your team might not be the solution that works for everyone. New York is an incredibly diverse state, both in general and in terms of FRC. Different groups of people may have different goals, or different ways to achieve those goals.

That being said, I’m encouraged by the initiative taken already, and I think Phil’s suggestion of some sort of a more formal forum is a good one.

9

FIRST Mid-Atlantic (MAR) did this while transitioning into districts, and continues to have update meetings at events throughout the year, in addition to their open Board meetings. It’s done wonders for transparency and understanding. 10/10, very helpful. :slight_smile:

10

I heard back from Paul and her are some details of the move to districts-

  • It is going to happen, its a matter of when

  • It is possible NY could be split into 2 districts upstate/ downstate (this is not set in stone or finalized it was just part of our conversation)

  • Before districts happen NY may add 2 more regionals to help build up the capacity of teams/volunteers to pull off districts

  • The hardest part of changing from regionals to districts is that you have to start your own non-profit. With the current setup FIRST supplies the field, AV, schedule down to the minute, truck arrivals/departures, and field rental. With districts we would need someone (God bless them) to organize all of this yearly for 5 districts events. We discussed that it would probably have to be a paid position. So far no one has stepped up to the plate to take this on.

The people who already volunteer to keep FLR and TVR running already feel “stretched” to their limits.

  • What I took from it is that we need someone or a group of people with some experience running a non-profit and doing events to really get this running? If anyone has any suggestions or willing to take this one (It could possibly be a paid position) contact Paul or Ana with your desire to help.
11

The most confusing thing I take from this is why do we need more regionals? TVR and FLR are both already pretty small and we have enough teams to make IMO a perfect sized district. Creating more smaller regionals just sounds like a very expensive district.

12

Finding someone to do run events exclusively as their job is going to be rough. Hiring freelancers to come in for part of the year to organize your events, is something doable. An idea to consider.

13

Well, there are already full time paid employees that work at NYCFirst and SBPLI. So, I would assume they would transition to running district events instead of becoming unemployed.

14

Yes thats a possibility. The thing to keep in mind is that RDs etc. are often hired for their expertise in organizing non-profits, growth, and fundraising. NOT event planning. These are two entirely different sets of skills, both of which are needed though to successfully run a district.

15

One way to help grow your volunteer base is to run offseason events. It also helps to prove to the organizers that there are other groups in the area capable of running an event.

16

Agreed. Currently there is only 1 offseason event throughtout all of NY and LI.

We will be most likely hosting a free week 0 event next year but, we have not spoken about an offseason.

17

The idea here is that more events of any type will create a larger volunteer base, as there are more opportunities to train key volunteers, a better gauge for how many volunteers the state can support, etc. Going from 4 regionals to at least 8 districts requires many, many more volunteers, so adding 2 extra regionals the year before helps ease that transition and create a larger base.

18

This is extremely important. Unfortunately NYC has no offseason events (closest ones are in NJ) that can be used as “training centers” for young volunteers eager to try positions that might otherwise be filled at regionals. There used to be one in 2010 at Francis Lewis High School but I have yet to find out why that was never repeated. It’s a shame but this ongoing discussion makes me very excited for the future of NY Districts.

I would love to help if needed.

19

Well there is one a little closer now.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=146206

20

Looks like we found an offseason to go to! Thank you 5123!