Need ideas for School Open House

[sctmom]

School Open House/Registration will be here in a few weeks. I want to have a display to recruit Cubs. Need some ideas. Prefer to NOT be outside because of the heat. I will have one lunchroom table, maybe two, inside the cafeteria along with other displays.

 

I have a display board with some pictures on it. Will have a flyer with short description about Cubs, info about August pack meeting and when is sign up.

 

What else?

 

Display a uniform?

Books?

PWD car?

 

[Sdriddle]

One table at the open house with various items made by scouts, pictures taken at cool events, etc should be good enough. In my experience, the people that show up are usually already committed to joining and don't spend a lot of time at the display table. Being a rather small town, we try to encourage the current pack members to attend school night as well to receive their year pins. This way the prospective members get to see who is in their den (everyone knows somebody here!) and if the parents of the whole den are there, they can decide on leadership and meeting times that night instead of it taking a month to get organized. We try to have some parents in charge of games and/or other activity (our cafeteria has a divider, but you could use the gym or the playground) during the second half of the meeting so the leaders can speak to the new parents without the kids being such a distraction. Hope this helps, just remember, cub scouts at its best is organized chaos. The kids have a great time and the parents see how much noise 30 boys can really make!

 

Sheila

[sctmom]

This is the school's open house, not sign up night for scouts. It's the day everyone shows up to find out who there teacher is and get the list of supplies. There are about 600 kids at the school, K-5th grade. I want to get families invited to the first pack meeting that is before Scout Night.

 

 

We will have Scout Night later.

 

[Sdriddle]

Sorry, we did that last year too during open house. We didn't have much of a display table, just the cubmaster and cc in uniform and a smile. I think they had some handouts and maybe some pictures. They answered peoples questions and let them know about school night coming up. They kept track of what den the kids would be in so we could be prepared for school night. Sure took a load off to know that we would have a tiger den! We will probably do it again this year. We had a lot of success with pitching a tent on the playground during recess and talking to the kids about camping, and placing arm bands on them with a reminder the day before school night for scouting.

 

Sheila

[Twocubdad]

To paraphrase the President, "I have one word for you: Pinewood Derby."

 

I ran a table at our open house last year and carted a ton of junk. All the boys were interested in were the cars. Take a new kit to show them what thay start with, then show them some of the finished cars.

 

The one other thing I found helpful was a full set of handbooks so that depending on age, I could show the boys some of the other things they would be doing.

[dsteele]

In addition to the pictures -- which work really well, especially if the students see pictures of their friends doing fun stuff. I also highly recommend a uniform and Pinewood Derby car, etc.

 

Now, if your pack has some extra money . . . the BSA has a great CD designed to be given away at things like open house. The boys play some Cub games and at the end can print out a certificate of completion to bring to the school night. There is also information for parents and a council locator. I'd love to give them away in droves to the packs, but they cost about 55 cents each and that adds up quickly for councils.

 

Your pack may be able to order some, however. Try to go through your district executive. I don't think the Scout Shop will know about them.

 

Good luck. Congrats on getting an early start.

 

DS

[Twocubdad]

DS, do you have a product number for that?

[scoutmom]

I agree with Twocubdad. Set up that Pinewood Derby track and bring some cars for them to race. See if you can get last year's winner to come, bring his car and trophy. Have a couple of boys there in uniform. Or if you can swing it, try the Raingutter Regatta - that's really our boys favorite. Good Luck.

[sctmom]

Dsteele, no one in our district had ever heard of that CD until I mentioned it a few months ago. They had NO idea.

 

No room for a pinewood derby track, we are talking over 400 families in the cafeteria in a 2 hour period -- along with school supplies, PTA, etc.

 

I have done this in the past and took a PWD car. I took mine because it was too nerve-racking for my son to have everyone handling his. I'll ask a few parents if we can use their cars to display.

 

I do have a toolbox from last year's Bear den. Might be able to get a bird feeder from last year's Wolf den. Have my son's brag vest that is full from 5 years of Cub Scouts. Also his blue uniform shirt and belt full of belt loops.

 

Trying to get all the current Cubs to wear their uniforms to Open House and help with the table. Need to ask the parents to wear the pack t-shirts (bright yellow).

 

[Eagledad]

Hi sctmom

 

This is the best place to recruit cubs. I was brought in a few years ago to train our packs the importance of recuiting at open house. You are getting the ideas to attract the scout which brings the parents. That's when you grab them and ask if they are part of the Cub Scout experience. Tell them the virtues of the program and get their information. I teach the leaders to have a information sheet ready to fill out. You want to get every family's address, cub age, phone number and one little box for you to check if the adults could be leaders. You need to ask the question if they want to help, but ignore their answer and instead read their mind. If you think they might be good to help lead your pack, check the box and right a note to refer to later. I recuited a Webelos leader this way who turned out to be a SM a year later. He was shy and never voluntiered for anything, but when asked, he jumped.

 

Then go home and start building your dens. I know it's early and before Cub Night, but I usually had 90% of my pack built and ready to go before Cub Night. I just added the few scouts left from Cub Night into the already made dens.

 

This sounds like a lot of work, but most leaders called me back and told me that it took a lot less time calling the list made at open house then begging at Cub Night. And it was a lot easier to find the adult leaders. Most packs increased their numbers 20% when they created their list at open house and started building their pack.

 

Good luck and I hope you get a hundred boys because from your post here, you're one in a million. They deserve you. I love this scouting stuff.

 

Barry

[OneHour]

sctmom, for our display, we had a poster displaying pictures of all the fun activities that we went to during the past year (put together by the boys). I also had pwd car with one original kit. It's great to see their faces react after I told them that they will be able to carve this block of wood into this car! I had Tiger and Cub uniforms hung on the back. I had bird houses and other crafts there as well. For looks, I had Boy's Life and Scouter Magazine fanned out on another table with old Handbooks from Tiger, Wolf, Bear, and Webelos (put the sign that says ... DO NOT REMOVE ... DISPLAY ONLY!) and a final kicker is that I had our pictures of past Pack activities and put them in a powerpoint presentation running on my laptop with a pair of multimedia speaker proudly sounding a complilation of God Bless America, Oh Beautiful, and God Bless the USA as background music.

 

Of course, all this time I had two of my Webelos in full uniform, standing at the front door handing out FAQ about Cub Scouting, our Pack, and our Rally Night to every parent who walks in with a boy! I would stand there and field questions from prospective scout and parents. Good luck.

 

1Hour(This message has been edited by OneHour)

[CubsRgr8]

According to my friendly scout shop manager, the CD item number is 32424 and is sold in bulk packs of 100 to Councils/Districts. We gave away about a dozen at our spring rally to any 1-3 grade boy who filled out a coupon. It's definitely not for 4-5 grade boys, as it features the Tiger, Wolf & Bear mascots. I plan on having them available again at the school picnic, which is three weeks before the School Night session. The laptop slide-show sounds very cool and I know just who to ask.

[dsteele]

Thanks, CubsRgr8 for the backup on the cd and the number. I wrote about it on the fly on my way out of the office to our Boy Scout camp 250 miles north of the office. Was out for a couple of days and just got back this evening.

 

I'm off again on vacation starting Friday evening and will be back in the office on the 20th. I hope everyone stays calm (referring to another thread) until I get back. I'll probably post early sometime next week, but I'm not sure when.

 

The CD's are cool.

 

DS