Horrible recruiting numbers

[DYB-Mike]

Gee, Rythos, 60 cubs Im jealous! Right now our Pack is hovering at about 37. We have three other competing packs in town.

 

Our District is pushing Roundups. We participated in a District-sponsored Roundup last spring with pretty good results. I got a den of 9 Tigers out of it, as well as 3 boys for other ranks. We had displays of patches, belt loops (shiny things), and the always popular Pinewood cars. We had a slide show on a laptop and an artificial camp fire (nice one lights, fan, and silk flames). Two other packs were present also but Im happy to say we did the best for recruitment.

 

Our first Pack Meeting is coming up this Friday and we have an Open House scheduled for the hour before. We sent flyers to the schools and ran an ad in the local newspaper. For the Pack Meeting, in addition to presentation of awards earned over the summer (we have an active summertime program) and songs, we lined up a local police officer and his dog from the canine unit to put on a demonstration. We hope this will be a good hook to those potential cubs and parents who opt to stay.

 

I try to keep our Pack in the public eye year-round by submitting to our local paper photos with commentary about our latest events. I used the materials provided by the District to make business card sized invitations that my son distributed to his class at school. If you are running a good program then the boys themselves will be the best salesmen for your pack.

 

While getting new cubs is important Id be more concerned with retention. You can bring in vast quantities of new cubs but if they arent sticking with your pack then you have a bigger problem than attracting recruits.

 

Our biggest problem is not so much recruiting cubs but rather recruiting adult leaders. Again, you can get vast quantities of cubs to sign on but if you cant provide the leadership then whats the point?

 

YIS

Mike

 

 

[Crew21_Adv]

Rythos,

 

Greetings!

 

I have found, read, discussed, and experienced, that during recruiting events and throughout Scouting, Boys come for one reason, parents come for another reason.

 

Shortridge (and a few other posters) have a good statement.

 

Boys come to Scouting because it is fun. That is were there friends are playing the Scouting game at. Sometimes there best friends. (Game with a purpose)

 

Adults come to Scouting because of the educational experiences (the school of the outdoors) for their son.

 

The National BSA research and marketing offices have found that more Scouts are recruited, if they are invited by a friend their age.

 

I certainly know, that very, very few boys (or Venturer) comes to Scouts because I have personally invited them. They come because of their friends and the fun.

 

So while Rythos and the fellow leaders of the pack may have done everything correctly. Possibly they may attempt a more robust recruiting campaign with the current Cub Scouts themselves. Taking the printable business cards "My Best Friend is a Cub Scout" with meeting information to school.

 

Some parents may not even be considering Scouts, until their 7 y/o come home absolutely begging to go to a Pack meeting. After their child has requested enough times to join his friends, possibly the parents' interest may be peaked enough to look into this thing they call Scouting.

 

Some Scouts will do anything for a patch or a Recruiter patch. Some may need just a little more incentive. Maybe a Pack level recruiting incentive to the Cubs with the most friends coming to Scouts. Highest recruiter is given the newest Disney movie DVD or E-rated video game. Or tickets passes to the local amusement park. Or movie tickets and 10 dollars to the video arcade.

 

I would wager that Cubs would be dragging their best friends to Den meetings and Pack meetings to win those incentives.

 

 

Hopefully, some of these ideas may increase your unit recruiting numbers.

 

Good Luck!

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

[NeilLup]

" Last spring, we went to a boy scout recruitment night with our Webelos. The boys were totally 'wowed' by the 2 troops that had flashy power point presentations, and completely ignored the closer, friendlier troops with people we know in them."

 

At the risk of posting this in about every other post that I make:

 

"If a fisherman bait his hook with the kind of food that he likes, he will not catch many, certainly not the shy, game kind of fish. He therefore baits his hook with the kind of food that the fish like."

BP

 

gcan, you made an extremely important discovery.

 

These Cub Scouts and Scouts of ours have grown up and are comfortable with XBOX, Wii, Disney, the NBA, MTV, etc. That's the competition, the expectation and their comfort zone. We don't need to go completely over to that dark side and once we get them into the woods, things may be different. But meantime, we have to get them in the first place and that means communicating in terms that interest them and make them comfortable.

[fleetfootedfox]

Since our pack is at the school where my boys attend, when I was Cubmaster I got out the "buzz book" from the previous year and called the parents of the boys who were in kindergarten the previous year to personally invite them all of them to our School Night to Join Scouting. I introduced myself as the Cubmaster and parent of one of the new tigers coming into the pack. We had a great turn-out and several of my son's friends joined. This is, of course, in addition to the fliers that were sent home with all the boys (thanks to efforts of our district).

 

The new CM made phone calls again this year. Our SNJS is tomorrow night, so we will see how it goes.

[hot_foot_eagle]

We had an OK reruiting year after a fantastic year last year. What surprised me the most was the number of new Wolf scouts we've gained. The common thread I hear from those parents is "His friend so-and-so is in scouts and had a great time and that's all we heard about." Lesson learned: a good program and enthusiastic boys are your best marketing tools.

 

My second observation from this year is that our "official" roundup is well-publicized, but many parents think that if they missed "the meeting" it's too late to sign up. A follow-up in the paper, etc. would seem to be the solution for that.

 

And then there's the generational differences. Last year we go lots of boys whose parents have older children. This year I saw much younger parents. I'm wondering if these younger parents didn't have the same exposure to scouting in their youth that the older parents did, and aren't as attuned to what we have to offer. I don't have a solution to that problem, and would love to hear some ideas.

[ccjj]

We had our sign up night last night and almost doubled our pack! We signed up 8 new Scouts, 7 who are Tigers! Add that to the 4 new Tigers we signed up in the spring, and we are at a whopping 16 boys! Plus we had a couple of families that took apps home and said they would bring them to the first den meeting next week.

Now, we have 11 Tigers, 2 Wolves, 2 Bears and 1 Webelos. We lost a several boys to a neighborhood disagreement last year and that hurt our bear den seriously.

 

ccjj

[gcan]

an update:

 

The boys were absolutly enthralled by all the cool pictures, my Webelo son told them aaaalllll about each one, and the parents had a chance to really talk to us, see our stuff, and put pen to paper! lol, even some of the dads were commenting on the slides (ie 'look, Bobby, that's a bb gun!', and 'wow, where is that place at?').

 

From one out of the 4 small schools we draw from, we got 7 boys. I sure think we've found our 'bait'!

[AlFansome]

 

What about recruiting right before school lets out in the spring? We do this and it works great.

 

Right before school lets out we invite all the kindergarten boys to an ice cream social where we explain the program, have the Webelos lead some games and activities, and get the parents the info they need regarding the program and our summer activities.

 

For those boys who are interested, we invite them to the May pack meeting, and start collecting applications.

 

Once school is out and they are eligible, the new Tigers all get registered with Council and are then able to take part in summer activities. Having a great summer program is a huge draw to get them hooked.

 

This year we got 18 out of 22 possible 1st graders.

 

 

[gwd-scouter]

We are having a recruiting night for our Troop at one of our town's middle schools. Pitch was made to them during assembly yesterday. In the past, we've had very poor showing for signup night. Last year only one boy showed up. Hoping for more this year. We have prepared our Troop's flyer with contact information, pictures, and the calendar for the upcoming year. Also prepared a slide show of our guys in action over the past year. Sure hope we can get a few guys tonight.

[tdk101]

We are doing a city wide Family Game Night/Open House to recruit boys. All of the packs will be available at the Open House. Each den built a game to be used for the Open House. We will set up the Pinewood Derby Track, bring our Cubmobile, have a slide show of all the stuff we did, snacks, etc. We are really excited about this joint effort.

 

There were 3 packs in our city but one of them is folding and we are getting their boys. We are up to 9 Web 1's from 6 last year and have at least 2 more thinking of coming back to scouts. They stopped after the Tiger year. They see the pictures of all the things that we do and they want to be part of the fun. I am hoping the den doesn't get to big that it should be split into 2.

 

Dave

[Cubmaster C]

In addition to fliers etc. one of our moms (a scrapbooker) created VERY nice handmade invitations presented in envelopes.

Two were given to each Scout to invite buddies to our Round Up. I think this was incredibly successful for a couple of reasons:

1. Potential Scouts were essentially given engraved invitations to join made them (and their parents) feel special

2. These nice invitations didnt get lost in the shuffle like other fliers

3. Since each boy was given only two, they had think long and hard about who might actually join.

Whatever the reason, it worked, well definitely do I again. The only problem is that our Pack has grown from 15 to 50! Well need to make 100 invitations next time.

 

[tdk101]

We had our Family Fun Night/Recruiting Night and it was very successful. We had 23 new kids sign up and more took applications. Our Webelos 1 den was 6 last year and could be at 15 if they all return.

 

We made cool flyers, had yard signs around the city, the kids wore uniforms to school this week depending on what day they were coming to do the talk. At the recruitment night we had our Pinewood Derby track set up and lots of cars to race(huge hit) and then each den had made a game. The Wolves made a dice type game, the Bears made a ball toss where two tennis balls were connected by a string and you toss it to get it on the stick, our Web 1 den made a marble game, and the Web 2 den made a horeshoe type of game with washers and coffee cans. The other pack made 3 minature golf holes and a ring toss.

 

The kids were running around playing and the parents were filling out papers. There were snacks and lots of fun.

 

I am disappointed that we were unable to get the pictures put together for the night because I think that would have added to the experience.

 

I believe we will do something similar in the spring to recruit for Tigers especially. My son will be a Tiger next year and can not wait - he will be the first one signed up!!!! He could earn his Bobcat right now if they would let him. Big brother is an excellent teacher.