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FLL Coach of the Year 2009

To guide a FLL team during the tournament is no easy thing to do. Sensitivity, foresight, patience and educational know-how are needed. Moreover, there are many things to arrange – the trip to the tournament location must be planned, the expenses for the teams must be covered and agreements with parents must be made. Many coaches accomplish this with flying colours, often simultaneously to their everyday life and tasks.
We would like to honour this involvement and offer the prize "FLL Coach of the Year".
"FLL Coach of the Year 2009" is Andrea Glänzer, teacher at Erwin-Strittmatter-Gymnasium Spremberg/brandenburg (D). She has been coaching 2 teams for FLL Lausitz-Spreewald for the third season now - ESG-Legoprofis (1057) and Legomasters (1058). 
Her suggestion is explained by Silke Silke Köhler who is the organiser of the FLL Regional Tournament Lausitz-Spreewald:
"From the beginning (since 2007) she has been coaching two very young teams, what means guarding two swars of bees in one time. The kids are very tough and often move up to an execellent placement traced back to a good team leading. Furthermore Mrs. Glänzer is maintaining good relations to the economy and the team´s sponsors (e.g. excursions to sponsoring company, emails with photos and some word of thanks, invitations to team meetings and the tournament day)."


See all suggestions for FLL Coach of the Year 2009 listed below:
Fritz Bauspieß, coaches a girl team from Walldorf (D) "SAPpalottas" 
The girls from team SAPpalottas would like to give big thanks for all the great experiences gained during the last two FLL seasons to their coach.
He was a faithful companion through all of them who gave support whenever needed. This is why they think he is "the best coach of the universe by far" and nominate him for FLL Coach of the Year 2009.
Ulrich Berk, is coach of FLL Champion Central Europe 2009 - team Mov(i)e Stars from Hopsten (D) 
Team Mov(i)e Stars would like to send out their thank yous to their coach by this nomination. For several years he has been coaching different teams of the robotics workshop at Ketteler Realschule Hopsten (D). With a lot of dedication he gave the team the opportunity to practice and experimentate in the workshop rooms of the school. Even during the holodays he was available  in the "robot cellar" and accompanied the developements of the robot "Molli" with great pleasure. Without his patience, motivation, the support of his wife and his huge involvement we wouldn´t have reached all our goals.
Gunter Zagatta, is coaching team Pelestorms from Paderborn (D) 

Team Pelestorms would like to say thank you to it´s coach for his support over the years: "Gunther Zagatta is the one who made us work with LEGO Mindstorms robots and he equipped us with basic knowledge in the technical and scientific subjects.

He has been visiting an exhibition on the subject of robotics in Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Paderborn in 2005. That was the point where he initiated a robotics workshop in our school. He managed to purchase robots for the school and learned himself how to work with them to equip us with the right knowledge as a mentor. With great commitment he has been working with us for three years now and supported us nearly every day. He introduced us slowly to working with robots and helped us a lot with FIRST LEGO League. Our coach researched into the problem as he made us understand the problem so that we were able to find a soultion on our own.

Beat Michel, is coaching FLL Teams in Switzerland for six years now with international success 
By working together with the counselling center for informatics at schools from Aargau Kanton and develeoping school projects, courses and workshops as well as a robotics project for the educational fair "Worlddidac 2000" Beat Michel found his way to FLL. The tournament has been taking place in Switzerland since 2004 and offered a optimal stage for his robotics project to research on an authenical level, to create specificly and to adapt various competences. As an FLL Coach he wants the young people not only to experiment but to develop specific strategies, documentate success and failures and to refelct them in the team. Different FLL Awards at swiss tournaments and taking part in FLL World Festival twice in 2005 and 2007 are the the highlights on this learning way so far.

Frank Engeln, Teacher, operator of german speaking Mindstorms forum and Coach of several  FLL Teams in Salzbergen (D). 
The robotics team of Haupt- and Realschule Salzbergen sees in Frank Engeln the Coach of the Year: "Since 2005 he has been organising an FIRST LEGO League Regional Tournament. He is organising the whole competition and raising money for the tournament on his own. He is head of the robotics workshop with several teams, that do not only prepare for FLL but for other scientific and robotics competitions. Besides the workshop he is collecting all necessary information and materials. He is always approachable online even at the weekend and he supports teams not only during the workshop time but as well answers questions and gives support online. In his spare time he is dealing with LEGO Mindstorms a lot. He has written books to the topic to share his experiences from the workshops, tournaments and his lessons with others. Additionaly he is the operator of the biggest german speaking forum for LEGO Mindstorms. This are the reasons why we would like to say thank you for his extraordinary support and suggest him for Coach of the Year."

Manfred Dienst, Coach of the privat team dieNXTdesigner (1082) from Aachen (D) and besides that working as a mechanical engineer. 
His team is sure that he is the best FLL Coach 2009 and brings the following reasons for his suggestion: "We are a private team, which means our coach is working with us in his spare time and during the holidays. We meet each other at his and hios wifes home where a cake is always prepared for us. We only meet at the weekends and after his work. He is not a teacher but works as a mechanical engineer in a private company. He is bringing us all together from different directions and is our chauffeur - one of our team members is coming from the Netherlands.
With a lot of patience he is calming us down. We are 8 children that know each other for years and some of us do not live in the same area - but Manfred Dienst keeps us together. He has even rescheduled an business trip to China so that we might take part in the Regional Tournament in Aachen on Nov 15th. We could find many more reasons... He has to be awarded the Coach of the Year!"

Hannes Dorfer, Art and handicrafts teacher at school "BRG Schloss Traunsee" in Austria is coaching the team "Traunsee Skywalkers" (1221). 
Was suggested as "Coach of the Year 2009" by his team "Traunsee Skywalkers" because... "We are taking part in FLL together with our coach for two years now and he never left us in the lurch. He always found time for us and we are always looking forward to Tuesday, when our team meeting takes place and our coach does find the time to work with us despite he already passed 6 hours of lessons before and he is still cheerful and kind. We would like to say thank you to our really cool coach Hannes Dorfer for a real good time. We agree that our coach should be awarded "Coach of the Year"."

Denise Pallerberg teaches computer sciences at Wittekind Gymnasium in Lübbecke (D) and coaches an FLL Team: "THE GREAT DIDGIES" (1172, FLL Paderborn).
Her team says about her: "Us, THE GREAT DIGIDIES (Wittekind Gymnasium, Lübbecke) would like to suggest our coach Mrs. Pallerberg as FLL Coach of the Year 2009 because... She always supported us and she bolstered us up, she organised everything (meetings, sponsors, Lego, work area...), she always had time for us even after school or in the breaks, she was the first one that ever told us about the challenge and believed in us and... because she is a terrific coach!"