A Letter of Appreciation

VEX Robotics Competition Discussion VRC
1

I would like to thank all of the people who work to make VRC tournaments run smoothly and know what they are doing. My team usually only competes locally and almost always have the same staff and referees running the events. This year we went to two events out of our region. One was a signature event, and the other an invitational.

I don’t want to just complain about people and refs as I know they are doing their best, but there were multiple times at these events where calls were very bad and blatantly obvious. The judges also would not discuss or listen to what the kids were saying. There were a couple report of refs just not knowing the rules, but insisting they were right.

I never realized how much I take for granite tournament with good referees and volunteers that care. I also what to thank event partners that work and plan to make events run the way they should. The invitational tournament that we went to was very poorly run. At the beginning of the day, they didn’t have any referees at the field and they would just score the match after the timer ran out, The fields were built wrong, the event was way understaffed and skills was ran by younger siblings of the teams competing because there wasn’t anyone to run it.

I really appreciate and want to thank the volunteers who care, the refs who know the rules and listen to the kids, the EPs who work to make events run smoothly, and judges who aren’t biased.

@holbrook

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2

I honestly find it hard to tell if this is genuine, due to the fact that half of the post discusses the shortcomings of the competition in question. This is simply interpreted (by me at least) as more of a woeful narrative than a thank you note. For instance,

(Emphasis mine)

Great! Just make sure that as you do so, try not to get carried away describing any people who might not (which is implied by this sentence).

I certainly don’t intend to question your character, but I do question the motives or purpose behind this post, since if you had not experienced the event you described, this thread might not exist. Especially considering it was made public on the forum and pinged holbrook as well. Is this really meant to be just a kind thank you?
If not, then I understand your frustration with such an event, but this response is a somewhat rude way to bring it to attention.

Who knows, I could be wrong, but we don’t really need to be told about the competition if it raises no concerns you wish to be fixed (if so, you may want to title this as such).

I simply wish to alert you to my general reaction to this post and possibly of others.

If you meant to thank the organizers and volunteers for their efforts, I urge you to frame it more politely perhaps, agree entirely, and wish you a great season. :grinning:
Edit: fixed some spacing.

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