Another thing to keep in mind is that the state tournament relies VERY heavily on James Madison University students and professors.  It is very difficult to get as many volunteers as we need for the tournament as it is. If the tournament were moved to January of February, you run the risk of the students not being in session or the fact that it is very hard to organize them that quickly at the start of the semester.  Trust me, I know this from experience.  When the tournament was in Blacksburg (we always held it at the start of December there as well) I was the volunteer coordinator for three years and one year we had to move the event to January/February because of weather.  I had to almost completely start over at the start of the semester because of this and had less than 1 month to put everything together.  The volunteer coordinating is normally done by an undergraduate student who also has classes, homework, projects, hopefully some little bit of a life, etc. to contend with, so to move it later becomes extra stressful!
 
On that note, just as Barry sent out yesterday, if anyone is interested in volunteering, please contact Nick Swayne ([log in to unmask]).
 
Additionally, we have to go with the schedule that works well for the university.  We generally need to work around major events on campus and in the area to ensure that there will be the resources on campus and the hotel space off campus when we need it.  This also limits the options for weekends that we can use.  The weekend before exams on campus (the week it is scheduled for) is generally the only one that is otherwise free to events (this was true at Virginia Tech as well).
 
Karen
 
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [VADCFLL-L] One reason we should not have tournaments
later
From: "Kaperick, Joe" Kaperick@AFTONCHEMICAL.COM>
Date: Fri, November 21, 2008 2:28 pm
To: [log in to unmask]

I would also imagine that you don’t want to strain the resources that are heavily involved in running many of these tournaments – that being the high school robotics teams.  Their season starts in the first week of January and goes heavy until March.  It appears to me that at least the Maggie Walker tournament would have been almost impossible without their participation which would be difficult to get in the spring.
                Joe Kaperick
                St. Edward-Epiphany School
                Richmond, VA
 
From: First Lego League Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rusty West
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 2:16 PM
To:[log in to unmask]
Subject: [VADCFLL-L] One reason we should not have tournaments later

 

 
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

 

 

 

 

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