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Recruiting New Teams
If you are interested in recruiting new teams, the ideas and
information presented here may help. (If you have ideas that have
worked for you, please let us know).
First Approach
The first plan of attack has been to contact a school district or
organization to see if they are interested in supporting the activity,
particularly in providing coaches and funding (see “Joining / Forming A
Team” and other items for ideas). If the interest is there and
there is a willingness to provide coaches, it will be a simple matter
to get students to join those teams. A simple flier sent out
through the school or organization, which identifies that FLL is about
robots, LEGO, and fun will attract the students. A more in-depth
section on FLL will get the parents’ support.
Second Approach
If schools or organizations support the activity but are not able to
provide coaches, the task just takes a slightly different direction,
but should still be straightforward. It is particularly valuable
to get the tacit support from the school or organization so you can use
their “mailing system”. In many schools, this is a “send it home
with the kids” system, which eliminates postage and individually
addressed items. The intent is to send home a flier that gets the
parents to attend a meeting.
A pretty flier with LEGO bricks and robots, and “Join a Team” will
attract
the students and slightly more in depth description for the parents
asking them to attend a meeting “so their child can see about joining a
team” should start enough family discussion to get parents to a meeting.
At the meeting you will want to have a robot or two (a table is not
necessary). One of the videos on our web site would be a great
addition if it is easily accomplished. After a description of
what our activity is all about, you explain that for students to be on
a team there needs to be a coach and a sharing of the costs. This
is similar to other activities such as scouting (if no one volunteers
to be a den/troop leader, no scout group) or sports team (if no one
volunteers to be a coach, no baseball). The costs are also in
line with these activities, in the $100 vicinity per child for the
first year (scholarships may be available for those underrepresented in
science and technology and who have a financial need). At this
point, have the parents divide up into groups based on geography (for
meetings with school district wide participation, we had them separate
into schools). They should then see if they can identify coaches
and form teams. We strongly suggest having two coaches, a
technical coach and an administrative coach. It spreads the load,
makes for a better team, and makes it easier to get volunteers (someone
may not feel technical enough to be a technical coach, other technical
types may not want to have to organize the meetings or control the
kids).
Once the teams form they need to register and see that they are on the
e-mail list for Illinois (invited after they register with the national
organization), and they can visit our web site for additional
information (www.insciteillinois.org).
This e-mail list is our sole means of providing teams with the
information they need to participate in our competitions so it is
critically important that you sign up one or more adults for the e-mail
list.
Third Approach
Talking to friends about your experiences in FLL often gets people
interested in having the same great experiences for their
children. It is easy to form a neighborhood team. Simply
identify a coach or two, the students, and sign up with the national
organization at www.register4fll.com.
You will then be invited to sign up for the Illinois FLL email group
which you must do in order to get information about the Illinois
tournaments and procedures that will be used in Illinois. This e-mail
list is our sole means of providing teams with the information they
need to participate in our competitions so it is critically important
that you sign up one or more adults for the e-mail list. You will also
need to
register to register for the Illinois State Tournament Series. This
registration opens in August.
Recruiting Materials:
These documents all require the free Acrobat Reader for
viewing. Click
Here to download.
Additionally, you may find the FLL Resource Center from FIRST helpful
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"FLL Enocourages children to design, construct, and program their own intelligent inventions. This allows them not only to understand technology, but to become masters of it."
-Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen
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