Hi Everyone,
So you should have gotten the test email I sent earlier; we've got a new script that emails everyone on our roster for the given year AND archives each email to a blog linked from our website (look for the 'email archive' link). Anyway, here are a few things you need to know about this week:
PRACTICE SUNDAY 4/26
Be sure to see our website for information about today's practice, and remember if you took ARML local yesterday with A-Star or anyone else you don't need to (and should not) come to practice today.
FLIGHTS
We are starting to coordinate transportation for ARML this year, and I'm ready to open up the first three flight options. Here they are:
SAN FRANCISCO
Southwest 2881, May 29
SFO-LAS, 5:45-7:15am
Southwest 1013, May 30
LAS-SFO, 6:30-8:00pm
OAKLAND
Southwest 1214, May 29
OAK-LAS, 5:50-7:20am
Southwest 4745, May 30
LAS-OAK, 7:05-8:40pm
SACRAMENTO
Southwest 437, May 29
SMF-LAS, 5:40-7:00am
Southwest 2801, May 30
LAS-SMF, 8:10-9:35pm
For any student who purchases one of these EXACT round trips and sends us confirmation at arml@mathleague.org by midnight on April 30, we will refund $100 of your ARML fee because we will likely be able to sell your seat on the bus to someone else. Right now the first round trip is $199, the second is $171, and the third is $237, but I certainly expect the fares to go up as people start buying tickets. Please note that this $100 refund will not necessarily apply to other flights we open up or to purchases made after April 30; if we approve new flights or extend the deadline for claiming refunds I will post details, but DO NOT ask about other flights for now. Remember, NO student goes to ARML unless it is on the bus or one of the flights we approve, as we need adult supervision at all times on the trip.
For parents interested in going to Las Vegas, you may feel free to book any flight you choose and to make your own arrangements for accommodations in Las Vegas. If you are traveling independently to Las Vegas, we'd still like to know your transportation details so we can coordinate various aspects of the trip with you (for instance, we may be able to assist you with ground transportation, or we may ask you to volunteer to chaperone one of the flights if you are taking one of the approved flights). Any parents interested in riding the bus or staying in the dorms on campus should contact us for more details regarding cost and availability.
T-SHIRTS
We need a team t-shirt for ARML -- and you have a chance to design it! Any student who wishes to submit a design is very welcome to do so; we will vote on the designs in in mid-May.
The deadline for submissions is Monday, May 4th. Voting will begin on Tuesday May 5th and run for one week. Once the voting begins, we will not be able to add late submissions.
Here are the ground rules -- please read them carefully, even the ones at the end!
Include the words "SFBA" or "San Francisco Bay Area" or both
Include the words "NorCal" or "Northern California" or both
Include the words "ARML" or "American Regions Mathematics League" or both
Include at least the year (2015). You *could* also include the specific days (May 29 - 30), and/or "UNLV" or "Las Vegas, Nevada" or "University of Nevada, Las Vegas" or some variant of this.
Do NOT include anything that might be considered offensive to other students, parents, teachers, or, well, anyone. This has never been a problem in the past, but we do explicitly reserve the right to censor submissions that fail to meet this criterion.
Do NOT use copyrighted material, unless you own the copyright!
Also, please be realistic about what your design will look like on a t-shirt
Use a maximum of 4 colors (and different shades count as different colors! This will be silk-screened, so subtle blending and mixing of these 4 colors is out; On the other hand, half-tones are ok.) Front and back count separately -- that is, you could have 2 colors on each side, or 3 on one side and 1 on the other, or simply have JUST front artwork with 4 colors. You don't need to count the background color of the shirt
It would be helpful if you can produce your design in a high-resolution version (preferably TIFF, PSD, or EPS formats, the sort of thing you can do with Photoshop, GIMP, or Paint.NET, etc.) for the printers. Low-resolution designs do NOT look good on t-shirts! If you don't have the tools to do this, our t-shirt printing company will have their art staff redo your design in a higher-resolution format if you can't, but there's no guarantee it will be exactly the same.
Email us (arml@mathleague.org) your files, the names of those who worked on the design, and a name for the design for the voting.
ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS
I will not be at practice again until after we need to have all payments and permission slips in, so if you have not yet paid for ARML, you need to pay online or mail a check to the address on our website. If you still need to turn in one or both permission slips, you will need to mail it/them to Florida as well. Please note that UNLV requires a separate permission slip this year, but it does not have to be notarized. It's best to fill out both permission slips and mail them at the same time anyway though. Also, please note that for some of you who signed up for ARML before we updated the website for this year, you may not have seen the latest policies that apply to ARML this year. All of you should make sure to read or re-read the policies this week so you are aware of the rules we have in place for the trip this year.
That's all for now everyone. See you in May!
-Tim
