Pins! Glorious Pins!
It’s a great DI day in Maryland! In fact, any day that I can spend time with DI pins is a great one. My pin committee and I have worked hard this summer and fall to come up with some great pin designs for this DI season. I don’t want to spill the beans yet, but I can tell you that we have a groovy, yet understated, theme for this year’s pins and shirts. There will be three pins sold at Regional and State Tournaments and a related set produced just for our Globals teams. I wore two sample pins at the Maryland Educators of Gifted Students Conference yesterday and they were a big hit!
Some may ask “What’s the big deal with pins?” Well, let me tell you that pins are so much more than just pins. They serve as mementos of the DI season for team managers, team members and appraisers. In fact, at the tournaments you will see people with hats, vests and aprons laden with DI pins from years past. The pins serve as badges of honor for those of us who have loved DI for many years.
Beyond the sentimental aspect of pins, there is the very real fact that proceeds from the sale of pins and other souvenirs help to support the DI program in Maryland. Registration fees alone do not cover all of the expense of our trainings, tournaments and marketing efforts. We need our participants to linger over the souvenir tables at tournaments and support the program with a purchase or two.
The biggest deal about pins is the Globals component. Every DI affiliate (state or country) produces pins that represent it in some way – culturally, geographically, zoologically, etc. Maryland pins always portray the crab. The kids that go to Global Finals take their own affiliate’s pins to trade with others from around the world. You will see a Maryland team in heavy negotiations with a team from Korea, Guatemala, or Poland, but that conversation will turn to what challenge the teams are solving or when they are due to perform. The teams discover that they have all experienced the same DI experiences, but in different languages and cultures. When the kids return home and survey their vast pin collections, they will cherish the memories of the person with whom they traded for each pin more than the pin itself.
If you want to get a feel for what pins look like and how they are traded at Globals, check out the pin trading video at http://web.idodi.org/index.php/team-support/videos . It features a young man and his teacher from Harford County, Maryland and it truly captures the spirit of pin trading.
I’ll keep you updated on the Maryland pins as they become available and send you little hints now and then. So, for now, peace out. (hint, hint)
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