I can offer a little history on this. Previously the tournaments were held in Blacksburg. Because of weather we had to move the state tournament to January. That made it more difficult because you have teams from all over Virginia going up into the mountains during the unpredictable winter months. It was scary being responsible for cars of students when the roads were still icy. James Madison is a little bit of a better location as it is not in as high an elevation as Blacksburg, but the teams from the east must still cross Afton Mountain, in the winter, to get there. The other thing is many of us have other activities that we do with students that start up in January ( TSA, OM, and in tidewater we have Great Computer Challenge ). Rusty West Page Middle School Gloucester, VA Pre-engineering Project Lead The Way / Gateway To Technology FIRST Lego League FIRST Tech Challenge http://gets.gc.k12.va.us/schools/page/ ______________________________________________________________ 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".