If anyone wants to recruit new coaches--NOW is the time. Invite them to go to the VADC FLL Championships in Harrisonburg on Sunday, Dec 7. Invite them to go to the FTC Tournament in Charlottesville on Saturday, Dec 6. Suggest they start reading the FLL website now and lend them your coach's manual to read. And invite them to the FRC Tournament in Richmond, the first weekend in March. Also, invite them to attend the World's in Atlanta in mid-April where they can see FLL, FTC and FRC. We met the greatest little FLL Team from China--their pit was across the aisle from the Virginia team and that's how we got introduced. If anyone goes to Atlanta--try to get there for the Opening Ceremony and stay for the Closing Ceremony. The speakers are fantastic and the crowd is amazing! Just be sure that wherever they go, they talk to the kids on the teams. Their enthusiasm is contagious. This way, potential new coaches can see all aspects of FIRST and the importance of FLL in the overall scheme of development for these kids. Then they'll be excited (although maybe still intimidated) about coaching a team. Experienced coaches and former coaches are great resources and can help several local teams at one time. We gave our county teachers and interested parents an introduction to FLL last spring in May and from that, we had at least five new teams that competed and several new teams that didn't compete this year. We also have kept a team going with a new coach, we had one school restart two teams and we have several people come to the Tournament to evaluate if they could start teams for next year. We still only have one area FTC team but we are hoping that our other high schools pick that up as well. Don't wait. Start now! There are great opportunities out there to help potential new coaches understand what FIRST has to offer. Just my 2 cents worth, Ginny Echelberger in Charlottesville/Albemarle ______________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS, please visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-l.html and select "Join or leave the list". If you want to join the VADCFLL-ADMIN-L mailing list - to which FLL administrative announcements will be distributed - visit https://listserv.jmu.edu/archives/vadcfll-admin-l.html and select "Join or leave the list".