Recruiting ideas besides school nights

[willingandable]

Does any body have some recruiting suggestions besides the school nights. We already have a school night in August and in April. We get a lot of boys from this, but almost purely Tigers.

I need some ideas on how to find the older cub scouts.

[John-in-KC]

The best recruiters are your own youth. Have a "wear your uniform to school day." Have a special, VERY FUN den meeting at the school!

[Pack212Scouter]

We do a wear your uniform to school day the day of that roundup. We also do a Scout weekend at our COR church where the boys wear their uniforms and hand out information for the second roundup that Monday nightl.

[John-in-KC]

Pack212...

 

I am talking at other times of the year as well!

 

Heck, long long ago...(40+ years), on Den meeting days we routinely wore my "school Cub uniform" to school... blue jeans, scout belt, scout shirt. Mom was Den Mother; she had us save our official Cub pants (we all had them) for Pack meetings and outing trips.

[DanKroh]

This year, our pack tried something new. Our town has a country fair in early September, and we arranged to have a recruiting event in conjunction with it at the firehouse next door to the park where the fair was happening.

 

The event was called an "Egg Drop". Basically, kids package up a raw egg anyway they want to, within certain parameters; nothing in the packaging can be sharp or likely to shatter, and the entire package has to be less than something like 20 inches in circumference at it's widest point.

 

The firefighters took the egg packages up 60 feet on the ladder truck, and dropped them. The packages where then inspected to see if the egg inside was unbroken. If their egg survived the drop, the boy (or girl, we allowed siblings to participate) got a small prize. Everyone participating got an "I Did My Best" ribbon.

 

We opened this event up to any child of cub scouting age in the community, and advertised it in the local paper. We had a fairly good turnout, and probably reached a different group than we would with the traditional school recruiting night.

 

We also set up a small table to one side and sold some popcorn, to boot.

[Ohio_Scouter]

Check out this recruiting advice from Kudu who has had remarkable success recruiting older scouts.

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm

[Kanoa]

I know this thread is from earlier in the month, but I thought that I would post what our pack has started doing. In the fall we set up a table at Back to School Night, but in the spring we started hosting an open house in conjunction with out Pack Olympics. Prior to the event we send letters home to the local elementary school kids, and we also have the local newspaper include it in upcoming events so that we can get homeschoolers and those in private schools who might be interested.

 

-Kanoa

[gcan]

We set up a table at our local 'town fair' day.

We also had a spring roundup at the park next to the baseball fields... on opening day! it worked out wonderfully- several of our kids play ball so were able to talk thier friends into stopping by after thier game. The non- scout families were able to learn about us as well as see that we are flexible enough to allow for the kids' bball games! It did wonders for other boys to see our kids in their baseball uniforms, and then see that they were still cool as cub scouts, too.

[Lisabob]

We're planning to set up a table at the local conservation club at their "family fun day." They have a fishing derby, archery, bb guns, do demos of black powder and other "cool" shooting activities, etc. It is generally well attended by exactly our target audience - elementary school boys and their dads. It also happens to be the location for our district day camp a few weeks later. I'm really hoping it will be a successful recruiting venue.

[SSScout]

>>Pinewood derby set up at: *PTA Back to School picnic

*Public Library *ask District and Council for County Fair set up. They might already have such. Make sure you bring extra cars for visitors to use. Have lots of Cub Scout Propaganda (excuse me.. Literature).

>>Make sure your boys are well uniformed. Yep, Cubs in uniform at School will pick up some interest. *Look for Parades to participate in. Have a banner with name and sponsor, folks walk along and pass out literature to hands along the route. Be ready to answer questions from folks some distance away and refer them to District folks.

>>Posters in the Post Office, local stores, Library, School Lobbies, etc. Your District folks can help you create an eyecatching poster. Our Council prints'em for free.

 

>> MiS KiF YiS

[DenZero]

OK, does anybody have any ideas for when the things listed above have been tried without result?

 

Weve sent out flyers inviting boys to Pinewood Derby and Raingutter Regatta and offering them free car and boat kits; weve sent home flyers and stickers for pack meetings with themes that sounded attractive; we had a booth at the community festival with the PWD track set up; we just did a really fun geocaching outing promoted with flyers and a notice in the neighborhood weekly paper (which we did for most of the other events as well). I have not had any new boys show up to any of these events.

 

The elementary school we try to recruit from has the largest kindergarten and first grade classes they have had in many years, and its frustrating that there doesnt seem to be any interest. I know that word-of-mouth recruiting is the most effective, but Im not very good at it, and dont really have the time to try to track these people down.

 

I will try lobbying the PTA again to try to let us have a booth at the back-to-school barbecue. They turned me down last time I tried, saying they dont want to open it up to outside groups.

 

 

[Lisabob]

DenZero, what you need is an insider - a mom or dad who has a boy in the pack, who is active in the school as an aide or helping with us duty or in the PTO or whatever, who will be willing to go to bat for you. Do you have someone like that in the pack? If so, go talk with them! They probably already have the channels of communication that you do not have.

 

Another option might be more direct contact. A parent of a soon-to-be Tiger in one of our district's packs recently sent a letter to the home of every kindergarten boy in the school, inviting them/their parents to join cub scouts. I'm not exactly sure how he got the listing, but I know for a fact that his letter caught people's attention (in a good way).

 

 

[Karen_216]

I know councils like to recruit in the spring and apparantly there have been some success stories. Our recruiting over the summer and fall seems not to have been successful as the fall. the boys we get in the spring are those we've had in the works or have relatives in the pack and just moved.

There are so many spring events to compete with that recruiting evetns and even our own pack evetns have little or no turn out.

Den Zero- don't give up. In the fall families may have seen your signs and turn out to join. i talk w/ many families who seem surprised when I tell them they can join any time not just the fall (those that are of age).

Keep up appearances at school and local after school programs and day cares. Get the boys to go on the morning announcements in uniform with awards and word will get out.

Many of these "experienced" recruiters have given some good advice and just stick with it. don't be afraid to look out of the box. Keep upi your presence int eh newspaper for events and accomplishments- get a website- that has been our biggest recruiting tool. Just make sure you keep it exciting and current!!

[Scouter&mom]

Our council holds council pinewood derby at local mall. Our council is rural and this is the only large mall in the council, so people from all over come to it. We get to set up in the area where Santa is at Christmas and Easter Bunny is in early spring. Kids know there is something interesting in that area of the mall usually. Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Leaders are encouraged to come in uniform. They are allowed to pass out information to anyone who asks (just can't approach mall customers unasked). We usually get some new kids from that.