Akecheta

Congrats and great looking booth!

Seattle Our promotion was through our PTO, the local daily and weekly newspapers, the chamber of commerce and a local community website with an calendar of events posting. The school will not allow us to distribute flyers so we had to use the PTO email list. We did drop off flyers though with local after school daycares. We set up at a park and partnered with the Police and Fire Departments who set up displays as well. We had planned to set up near the soccer and baseball fields and try to attract players on their way to or back from their games. We had some of our scouts their in all three uniforms to show that they can be in sports and scouts. Both sports were rained out though because of conditions the night before limiting our exposure. The boys worked with mom and dad on building and decorating their rockets and we had four launchers for their use. Our launchers have a union on them so that the launcher can be pointed in multiple directions besides straight up. This way the launcher can be right next to the table enabling a leader to run the launcher and engage with all of the kids and parents. We set up a target out in the field and encourage the boys to try and land their rocket in the target area. With the union on the launcher lad and dad will often launch the rocket multiple times with dad trying to adjust the angle in order to land in the target area. If they landed in the target area we gave them a small trinket (small promo carabiner). The competition against themselves kept some kids there all morning. This event also allowed us to have a brief discussion with parents on the Scouts STEM initiative which was a hit with the "UBER" parents.

oops Looks like I had the same thoughts as Seattle and posted at the same time. We actually "borrowed" this idea from Seattle and it worked great for us and I have to give him the props for our Spring recruiting. It worked so well that the DE is coercing me to set up a Tiger Blitz next Spring with additional packs in the area hoping to get similar results.

Have a great booth inside with all of the information listed above and don't forget to have a handout of planned events throughout the summer. An added bonus would be if you have a listing of planned activities for the next school year as well. At the same booth you can also have the boys put together Stomp Rockets at the table and then go outside to launch them. Have some scouts and a leader or two outside to assist and answer questions. Parents will open up more and ask questions if they see their son interacting and having fun. The advantage you will have is being the first thing that families see when they arrive, and the boys will be excited to seek out your booth. We just did our Spring recruitment of Tigers and had twenty-one join on a cold, rainy morning this month with only 30 boys showing up. The other nine were noncommittal but but remain on our calling list for this Fall and an opportunity for our new Tigers to earn their "Recruiting" Badge.

blw2 There a lot of good suggestions posted here. I would start to prepare for next year and determine the requirements for Wolf. Put together some ideas based on the feedback you have received already. I would attend the committee meeting when the Pack's calendar is put together and then sit down with the Den Leader over a cup of coffee and collectively put together your calendar for the den. By doing this you can help to ensure that there are activities that will meet the requirements. Once you complete a requirement during the den meeting make sure to hand out the instant recognition beads to those scouts participating. It will also enable you to follow up with individual parents to see if their son made up the activity if they missed the den meeting in which you can hand out those beads once completed. Sending out the Trax spreadsheet once in a while also helps and will be important especially for tracking the electives. Good Luck Akecheta

Sailor First of all good luck with your space derby and I hope you have better luck than we did. I have two suggestions for you, hopefully you are soaking your rubber bands in glycerin or dish soap ahead of time. This will make the bands more elastic and help prevent breakage. We gathered up all the rubber band ahead of time and soaked them for the pack so that everyone had the same advantage and we could keep the race going rather than worrying about breakage. The other resource I will suggest is to look in Derby Talk the link is here http://www.derbytalk.com/viewforum.php?f=17&sid=278ac4c4948e1a4c2a5f6b4061c694f4. They have 45 topics on Space Derby with a good search generator that can help provide you with a recommendation.

Ann Try Mountain Dreams Trading Post(link below). We had a similar situation where the scout did not earn the AOL but we wanted to recognize him. We mounted his "Career" arrow on a slap of wood which we got at Micheal's Craft Store and got a brass plate with his dates as a Cub Scout. We put a picture hanger clip on the back and in twenty minutes we had a completed project. It cost us about $25 for everything. The scout and his family was very appreciative and surprised. We are a new pack so all of the Web Is were asking if they would get the same thing next year. It definitely created some excitement. http://stores.ebay.com/Mountain-Dreams-Trading-Post?_trksid=p4340.l2563

Ask the scouts what they want to do. For our Pack Meetings and Activities we try and keep it fresh. We always have the standard B&G and PWD but anything goes for the rest of the year. We rotate in plenty of camping, cabin camping in the Winter, and activities with the county conservation board. We have gone to the zoo, the science museum, baseball and football games. We have teamed up with a local bike shop and club and put on a bike rodeo for our CO which is a school PTO. We have gotten local speakers from the Red Cross to talk about Emerency Prepardness, School of the Deaf to talk about disability awareness and a local outdoor store to talk about purchasing the right camping equipment. We have also done indoor rock climbing, roller skating and next year we are going to the Sky Zone which is a trampoline center. We also will rotate in every year a Raingutter Regatta, Space Derby or a Rocket Blast. Keep it fresh, keep it interesting, take advantage of local resources in your area.

With Spring recruiting coming up we produce an event calendar in March which will have all of our planned events for the next year. This allows potential scouts and their parents to see that we are an active pack. In May we will hammer out the specifics on our events with dates, activity coordinators, leadership inventory and most important the budget. With a budget put together it enables us to determine our dues schedule as well as our goal for popcorn.