OK, here are my ideas from the past weekend. Unfortunately due to the low number of people attending Riverrage and the high number of robot repairs, etc., I didn’t try to talk to anyone about this. So here are my ideas, translated out of my notebook where I scribbled them.
Ideas 9/12/04
Mission Statement
[ul]
[li]Location: just New England? (CT, RI, MA, NH, ME, VT, possibly NY?)[/li][li]What do we do: help teams[/li][list]
[li]Pre/Post Season[/li][li]Fund-raising[/li][li]Off-season Competitions[/li][li]Organization/Execution[/li][/ul]
[li]Else: Find sponsors[/li][li]Else: Contact other similar organizations in/out side of New England.[/li][/list]Mission Statement Thought:
To help FRC teams in New England with the full running of their team. In addition , we will be on the constant lookout for sponsorship and communicate with other organizations that would have an interest in furthering out goals.
Goals/Objectives
[ul]
[li]To start 20 new team within 5 years.[/li][li]To raise $10,000 for team use for next season.[/li][li]To setup an effective computer network amount FIRST teams.[/li][li]Host conferences/workshops for new/existing teams.[/li][/ul]Departments
[ul]
[li]Management - helps organize and run the teams. Management advice comes from this group.[/li][li]Web - web design aide to teams and also responsible for running the Inspiration Foundation Inc. website and other similar websites the company might be using. This might turn into the most creative group as I think most of us are just going to say ‘this website needs this, this, and this’ and providing it’s done and works, we probably will care less about the method that is used.[/li][li]Fund-raising - responsible for helping teams raise cash and to teach them about fund-raising methods. Also responsible for helping the Inspiration Foundation Inc. raise cash for grants and it’s own use.[/li][li]Publicity - responsible for helping teams publicize themselves and also for publicizing the Inspiration Foundation Inc. [/li][li]Executive - responsible for the general running of the Inspiration Foundation Inc. [/li][li]Build - helps teams in developing and building their robot. This could quite possibly be an all year group that’s totally devoted if the group chooses, between teaching, advising, assisting in development and build, and probably a couple of other things that could be put in here.[/li][/ul]
Misc.
We need to develop a brief company description for a business plan. This would require input and might be delayed due to we’re not quite ready to write the business plan.
We need to develop a marketing plan for a business plan and also to get our name out there… This would require input and might be delayed slightly until we get ourselves together more.
Considering a totally virtual Board of Directors. This is my thought so that we can get a great numerous amounts of input from all corners of New England (or further if we decide to go that far). Other considerations for this need to be who is allowed or should be on the Board of Directors. Also would we care to attempt to make a Board of Advisor’s and/or Trustees
We should spin off the FIRST-a-holics Anonymous onto it own organization. We would need someone to take the reins of this project if that was to happen. It doesn’t need to make money and I don’t see why the Inspiration Foundation Inc. couldn’t continue sponsoring it, but I do believe it is a burden to be considered with the company at this stage in the game.
Consideration of any on-line meetings that we have to make them open to not only all FIRSTers, but also to the world in general. We should have someone keep minutes for the meeting as well and be able to post meeting minutes to chiefdelphi.com and possible our own web-page. This is too allow other teams and organizations to see what we’re doing and join us if it help them.
OK everyone, I think that’s about it for now. Can’t wait to hear from everyone. TTYL.
~Leon