Steering Committee

The Steering Committee is the overall management of the Downingtown Area Robotics Organization. It is made up of the Senior Mentors and Captain(s) of the FRC team. The intent is manage a higher level of leadership and not place all the decisions on the head mentor.

The Steering Committee is a forward-looking group planning for the build season, regional events, off season events, demonstrations, etc. We are the planning team for capital investments for all the teams.

Except for January and February we meet on the last Tuesday of the Month.

How we work

For the monthly meetings we have a standard agenda that we follow. Additional topics are posted on this page along with the minutes of the prior meetings.

During the build season the committee will meet once a week to discuss the management of the team. The intent is that the individual teams (mechanics, drive train, electronics, programming, game play, travel / logistics) will work out their plans. The steering team goal is to make sure that there are no big issues. Most of the members of the steering team are also on a build team.

Since there are a number of high expense items (backup cRio) or large expenses related to regional travel during the build season the hope is the weekly meetings will allow decisions to be made quickly.

Agenda Topics for the meetings

Finance
Robot technical issues
Upcoming dates (six month outlook)
Sponsor information
Mentor information

During the off season the committee will meet once a month to discuss issues. All meetings are open to all team members, mentors and sponsors.

The Steering Committee meets the last Friday of the month at the Downingtown Educational Center. A quorum is 4 mentors and 1 of the two student members.

At the May 29, 2009 meeting, the Committee voted to set the length of the Committee Chairman's and FRC Officers' terms from June 1 to May 31 each year.

Members

Clem McKown (Chairman) - FRC Head Mentor: Julie Bachmann Kulik - FRC Mentor; Faith McKown - FRC Mentor; Julie Christopher - Head Programming Mentor; Gary Deaver - FRC Mentor; Scott Featherman - Senior Mentor & FLL connection; Rita Wall - FIRST; Mike Rizzo - Mentor & Volunteer extraordinaire; Molly Kellom - Co-Captain; DJ - Co-Captain