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How Can Team Families Help?

1. Understand the rules of INTERFERENCE.

DI Challenges are all about allowing kids to create on their own, without help from adults or non-team members. Failure is a learning opportunity.

 

2. Stay in contact.

Communication is key. If you’re sick, have a conflict, or struggling on the team, please talk with the Team Manager.

 

3. Honor your Team Manager’s time.

The Team Manager is not a babysitter. Please honor their time by dropping off and picking up your team member at the arranged time. If something comes up, let the Team Manager know as quickly as possible.

 

4. Host the team at your house.

DI teams need a space to have their team meetings, and work on their solution. Consider hosting the team at your house.

 

5. Provide snacks.

Between idea generation and building a solution, kids often get hungry at team meetings. Provide them with healthy snacks or purchase them for the Team Manager to share during team meetings.

 

6. Share your skills!

Learning new skills is a big part of the DI process and can help teams in solving a Challenge. From acting to engineering to learning how to use a power drill, family members are encouraged to share their skills and talents with their team. You can also help coordinate field trips, shopping trips, or skills workshops.

 

7. Become a tournament Appraiser or other volunteer.

DI is a volunteer-run organization. Without our amazing volunteers, we wouldn’t be able to host tournaments. Giving back for one day helps!

 

8. Help out as a co-Team Manager.

Becoming a co-Team Manager is one of the biggest gifts you can give. Having more than one Team Manager allows managers to split up the work and helps to alleviate some of the pressure. For example, one of you can oversee the Team Challenge while the other oversees the Instant Challenge.

Areas Where Family Members Can Be Especially Helpful!

DI teams go through a LOT of Instant Challenge materials during a season. Team Managers LOVE gifts of things like these:  paper clips, rubber bands, straws (paper or plastic but not bendy straws), paper, mailing labels, pencils, string, index cards, sticky notes, large washers, pipe cleaners, markers, balloons, paper plates, clothes pins, ping pong balls, golf balls, envelopes, aluminum foil, craft sticks, twist ties, rulers, and scissors. Make your Team Manager happy by donating a bag of “stuff” to the team!

If you have a particular skill set that would useful to team members, consider sharing your expertise with the team. Things like sewing, welding, comic strip creation, painting, etc. are great workshop ideas.  HOWEVER, no one outside of team members (including family members) can give any ideas to a team about “when or where” to use a particular skill as part of their solution. That’s called interference.