Update  3/2:    We believe we are almost completely confirmed for Del Mar HS for March 18th but it is not 100% as the paperwork is not completely signed off.  We are uncomfortable publishing this until completely confirmed but understand that teams/volunteers/coaches want an update.  We do hope/expect that all will be completely confirmed on Monday 3/5 at the very latest.   Jill  & Mark

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Thanks to the coaches that responded to my direct survey monkey survey over the weekend.    The 3 Sundays -  3/11, 3/18 and 3/25 – were very close with a slight edge for 3/18  – these dates were much much better for teams over the 2 Saturdays: 3/10 and 3/24.

So we will be looking at a school site in this priority:   3/18, 3/25 and then (if required) 3/11.    I  am really saddened that there was not 1 date that all teams could attend.   I am hopeful that teams will be able to accommodate as much as possible.

Will let you know when we know anything on the site front.

We have received multiple emails over the past few days asking about these items.

With regards to rubrics, they will get mailed.  We have avoided handing them out at the end of the tournament day for a couple of reasons – the primary reason is that every rubric sheet must be reviewed for appropriate comments and it would delay the closing ceremony to do this in order to hand them out before teams go home.    But a secondary reason is that coaches and parents reaction makes me want to spare the kids.   When we hand back rubrics on the same day, I have overheard (the vast majority of times, if not every time)  an adult questioning/berating a child about a specific rubric item – I have seen children go from happy/excited to sad/crying over this ; it breaks my heart.       On the jotform it had the line,  “Enter Mailing Address to send Rubrics” and this is where I will mail them.    Most likely after this weekend, we will start to free up and can start getting through each tournament’s paperwork (the rubrics are generally all together with other paperwork that is all thrown together).

With regards to awards and scores, again, these will get posted – on this site.  We want to recognize the award winners and want to include the short commentary that went along with each 1st place team that was said at the closing ceremony.

Finally on the team photos  (and other photos),  this one is just time to upload to flickr.   Again,  will happen and will fit it in over the next few weeks.

When I mentioned at your tournament about needing to engage more volunteers at a physical Playing At Learning location – it was to help with items like these.  Right now, these are difficult to hand off to someone else.  They are not in a form to be  handed off – otherwise it would be done already.

Here is the current status and progress towards getting an updated site and date :

1)  Out of 312 voters in the poll,   48% selected that they were available on Saturday March 10th  including 38  coaches.    The next most available date was Sunday Feb 26th (with 28% ) but there was just no way to make that date happen given that the schools (and districts) were closed for the week.

2)  Unfortunately,  it looks like there is no date that will work for all teams

3)  It has been difficult to separate out individual conflicts versus entire team conflicts and the “scale” of conflict ( a conflict for a few hours versus all day and what percentage of the team does the conflict affect).  We are getting many emails with impassioned pleas on why certain dates just don’t work for them (plus the many comments  added to the earlier post).   We are trying to be as compassionate as possible.

4)  The dates that are NOT being considered are the following:   (as noted earlier)  2/25, 2/26, 3/3, 3/4  PLUS  3/17, and 3/31.   We also will not be considering any date in April.

5)  At this point,  we ARE only considering the following 5 dates:   3/10, 3/11, 3/18 AND we will ADD 3/24 and 3/25.

6)  Shortly,  I will be  emailing each SV coach a direct email (based on their listed jotform email address) asking for them to fill out a surveymonkey form asking about their team’s availability on each of the 5 dates listed above.

7)  Then, on Monday 2/27  morning, we will  pick the date that has the most teams available based on the responses received.

8)  Then, we will work with a couple of school districts to get an acceptable host site – hoping to have  a host site by Tuesday or Wednesday.

We welcome your suggestions and input.

We would like to get your input on a new date for the Silicon Valley FLL Championship.   Our first choice would be Saturday March 10th to get adequate time to recruit new volunteers AND enough time to select, confirm and adapt to a new site.     The only weekend over the next month that we can not have the tournament is the first weekend of March  (3/3 – 3/4)  since that is the NorCal FTC championship tournament.

I have set up a POLL on the right side – please vote only once and based on your “role”  :   Coaches,  Team Parents,  Volunteers and other interested people like visitors.

7:15pm PST 2/23: Due to ski week closures, we have not been able to confirm dates/locations for the SV FLL Championship. We will not be able to get confirmation until Monday at the earliest and likely not until Tuesday.

8:45pm PST 2/21:  Not sure why but the poll was closed.  The closed date was set to  2/22 but looks like it  ended today.  odd.  Have just added one more day.

1:50pm PST 2/21:  I am receiving emails that suggest that every date has at least one team that just can’t make the date.  Also,  looks like I am not able to look at the Coach-only poll as meaning anything since there are more votes than competing teams – so at this point i can only look at aggregate numbers.     At this point, we need to look at “scale” of the conflict.   We will need to figure this out – so please be specific.  How many team members of the team and how long in the day is your team’s conflict.     Generally Saturdays seems to have the most conflict based on emails sent to me.  What about Sundays –  what about 3/11 or 3/18 –  what are the conflicts on those dates?

7:05pm PST  2/20:     March 10th is still the leading date  but since there is at least 1 team that can not attend….  What about the 2nd highest ranked date of 3/17 or the third rank date of 2/26?     Are there teams that CAN NOT attend either of those dates?   Again,  please add a comment below with which date(s) won’t work and please include your team number.

2:50pm PST  2/20:     March 10th is current the leading date.   If your team CAN NOT attend March 10th at all, please add a comment to this post – please include your team number.

Thanks,  Jill

There will NOT be a tournament on Saturday the 18th of February!

We are very disappointed to inform the teams scheduled to attend the Silicon Valley Championship on Saturday February 18th, 2012 that as of 6:30PM on Friday the Tournament scheduled for Del Mar High School has been cancelled for the day.

The Campbell High School District have withdrawn the final approvals for the tournament this afternoon, after working very hard to adjust schedules and change locations on Thursday.

We are extraordinarily disappointed in this turn of events (we actually had to meet delivery vehicles at the venue in order to cancel them — it was that late of notice).

We are working to get this event re-scheduled, but won’t have additional information until later this weekend at earliest (likely not until the beginning of the week.)

Stay tuned

Mark, Jill, Heidi, and Tiffany