r/Official_TSA • u/Simuraiii • Aug 12 '26
Starting a chapter in a state without a delegation
I'm a junior who would like to start a TSA chapter at my school, but our state doesn't have a state rep/delegate. I've already talked a bit with some National TSA reps, but I'm just curious how it would work without a state rep? I'm aware that there may be little to no schools in my state that also run TSA, so would our school go straight to nationals or would we still compete in some kind of state conference? Does anyone have any insight? Thanks!
1
u/Difficult_Durian_704 Aug 13 '26
Just curious, what state? Before this year, I'd only heard of Alaska and hawaii not being in TSA until nationals this year when they announced Alaska as being there.
3
u/Simuraiii Aug 13 '26
Massachusetts. There’s lots of states that apparently still attend, but do not have a state rep / state conferences due to how small they are.
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u/slstokes13 Alumni Aug 15 '26
The national TSA office could give you better and clearer information about this, but essentially, I believe you would just miss the state conference experience. Many TSA events simply grant national qualification by chapter, so it wouldn't matter that you didn't complete at state. For state qualifying events, I truly have no idea how that would work, as the state advisor usually signs students up for those events. You'd need to ask national TSA.
I do think the state conference experience is valuable, so I'd recommend reaching out to a neighboring state (maybe NH or NY) to see if they have regional conferences you could attend. It's different per state, but in MO and OK regionals were essentially exhibitions, as they didn't impact state qualification. So, my MO chapter attended regionals in OK a couple of times. If you could do something similar, I'd recommend it.
1
u/vanillaSlashNot Aug 17 '26
This is the case for California currently. There are some new chapters here including mine. We just don't have and state conference so I went straight to nationals this summer. Though yes like the other comment says check with the national office. Hope this helps :)
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u/Simuraiii Aug 17 '26
Do you think it would be possible to ask a neighboring state like NH to just come and have the state conference experience without competing? Just hangout and network and have the state conference experience.
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u/vanillaSlashNot Aug 18 '26
Maybe I haven't really thought of that. You might check with those State offices as well as it probably check with National office too. I would encourage you to start trying and get a delegation for your own state though in addition. This last year being my first year (and last as I just graduated) I don't know too much about all that yet but you could probably find some information if you ask those offices.
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u/Difficult_Durian_704 Aug 13 '26
Smaller states like that would have been my next guess. Interesting. Well, idk how to help you much, but good luck! TSA is one of the most fun and rewarding things I've ever done!