Did you know that Playing At Learning receives NONE of the team registration fees that teams pay to FIRST.
In addition, we use the tournament fees to directly support the tournaments themselves – the money pays for items such as facility costs (rent, custodians), awards, volunteer food, printing, etc
We need your HELP directly to better handle the tournament infrastructure and team growth and help with better support/recruit volunteers!
Be An Advocate for NorCal FTC and STEM!
Are you willing to ask your employer/company (or others)
here is a sample letter to get you started!
Playing At Learning has been incredibly frugal (full financials) – we are 100% volunteers – but is reaching a tipping point where they need to grow infrastructure and provide better teacher/coach/mentor/team support.
Playing At Learning now has The Play Space – a cool, “makerspace” type of facility for the entire FIRST community to use throughout Northern California! But rent is expensive – we need to find willing sponsors and programs that will generate money. [As an example, Kickoff day cost more than $500 – team voluntary donations only covered $135]
We need to have a plan B on using the space as our plan A is not working out. If you have ideas or even just energy/creativity, please attend a brainstorming meeting at The Play Space in San Jose on Sunday 10/13 at 6pm to talk overall Playing At Learning strategy, options for funding and ways to leverage the unique building /space (The Play Space) that we have. Please RSVP by sending me an email to let me know that you are coming.
We have done a lot with only volunteers but we can not handle the team growth and the resulting number of tournaments and tournament volunteers!
Right now, all of FTC is operationally managed by one part-time volunteer (aka Mark with almost zero time from Jill) and it is too much. We are not managing the program as well as it can be and there are many more things that we could/should do for you and overall for the program: coach support, volunteer recruitment and support, trainings, scrimmage coordination and mentor help.
To even maintain “status quo”, we have to add staff and keep a location (The Play Space) for the staff people to work and a place to store tournament equipment.
Have ideas on ways to help – let us know!
Email ftc at playingatlearning dot org