01/05/2020
From Coach Carla (Vice-President):
As we finish out the 2019 season, it's time for reflections and improvements to Kalamazoo Robotics. This season has been nothing short of pure chaos. As some of you know at the start of this season, my family and I were relocated to Washington for a couple years for work. My ever optimistic self thought it would be no problem continuing to run the teams remotely. I will confess now I was horribly under prepared for what a cross country move with a toddler would take out of us. Being in a new city without family here as made things difficult. Three months after the move, we are only now starting to get into a routine and get settled.
While our teams competed and were outstanding as always (thanks 100% to our amazing coaches and volunteers), I would say from an organization perspective the 2019 season was a failure. Failure is never a bad thing as long as you learn and grow from it. That is what I am hoping to do with the 2020 season. In order to help support the teams locally in Kalamazoo until I am able to return, we are going to be implementing a new organization structure.
Our first change will be to have local support for all of our coaches and teams. With that in mind we will be implementing three new volunteer positions who will help support the three levels of teams. They will not be responsible for coaching but will instead serve as hands on support for technical issues, new coach training and organization of the teams. There will be one Leader/Organizer for each level of teams we coach; Jr FLL, VEX IQ and VEX Robotics.
Our second change will be to create a boosters club to help us raise the funds we need for the 2020 season. We have a guiding principle that no student will be left out due to cost so we never charge to join a team but it cost close to $10,000 per year to fund registration fees, equipment costs and tournament fees. Since I am no longer local to network, I will need to have the support of our parents and volunteers to keep our teams funded. This is where our new boosters club will come into play. Our boosters club will be lead by a single person and then parents who want to help may volunteer. They will work with local companies and to hold fund raisers to help us fund the 2020 season.
I am so very thankful for our coaches this year that have helped to keep the season running even when pure chaos ensued. You are a credit to Kalamazoo Robotics and we are so lucky to have you. I owe each of you so much for this season. Thank you from the bottom of my exhausted heart. 🥰
As always we are a open organization so if you have questions, comments or concerns we would love to hear them. The community is what has enabled us to run these last 15 years and will be what keeps us running for 15 more. Have a wonderful start to 2020 everyone!
