DonorsChoose funding, how to find or be a mentor, Townhall recording, and more

[NorCal FLL Challenge Staff]

Hi all,

Just a couple of updates

1. Through the generous support from 3M, FIRST related DonorsChoose project funding is now available to any US-based full-time educators and school district employees who work directly with students at least 75% of the time from Public Schools, Public Charter School and similar. FIRST educators will create a project on DonorsChoose and once the project is live, they MUST complete this googledoc form to be considered for this selective funding opportunity. Projects will be reviewed to ensure they meet donor intent and partial funding will be allocated accordingly. More information

2. Mentoring:  If your team is interested in being a mentor (and/or finding a mentor) to FLL Challenge, FLL Explore, FTC and/or FRC teams, we would strongly encourage you to add a "TEAM CONTACT" email so that other teams can find you and contact you. The TEAM CONTACT field is optional and part of the FIRST team dashboard -> Team Profile section. I would encourage you to use a team-generic, non-personal email address (such as fllcte...@gmail.com) as this email will be published on the public-facing firstinspires.org site.  We encourage FLL teams that contact us about finding a mentor to use the FIRST Team & Event Search page to find FRC and FTC teams near them and use this team contact email to reach out.  For those that didn't see the FIRST Mentor Network update from FIRST in July - here is the latest information  (tl;dr - it was shut down).

3. For those that missed last night's Coach Season Townhall - the slides and recording are posted on the Team Resources page on our local norcalfllc.org site.  

4. We have started to post the confirmed Qualifiers in mylumi - one big empty space is the East Bay!  So if you are located in the East Bay and are interested in having a "local" event,  please review the Summary guide on what it takes to organize a qualifier and let us know if you have a site and/or can help organize a tournament.  [Note that registration open/close date/time have not been announced yet but I had to enter info in mylumi in order to enter the events, so if you see a date in mylumi for registration it is a best guess - watch this googlegroup for updated information]

5. ALL teams looking to register for a tournament must have a 100% complete electronic team roster - no paper forms allowed this year per FIRST  (there are only a couple of extreme exceptions which we could work with your team for Spring League reg if needed)! Now available - Express Enrollment in the lead Coach's FIRST Dashboard. To get started, a lead Coach with completed FIRST Youth Protection Screening can generate web links or QR codes in the Dashboard to share with parents/guardians.  Learn more

Cheers, Jill

fll-ch...@playingatlearning.org