New Officer Challenges

[Scouterabouter]

Hello! Our crew lost most of our members and most importantly, our key officers to graduation last year. Fortunately, we completed a successful membership drive for the new school year and we have a lot of enthusiasm. We had officer elections where the expectations and duties were clearly laid out to the entire crew. While I return one officer in a new position, I realize after our first short meeting with the new officers, that we are young, inexperienced and the president uses "me" instead of "we" - both in tone & word...

 

As a 9 year advisor, I have helped our officer corp come around before, but this one looks to be not just a challenge, but possibly a problem. I need really some encouragement here :-)

 

We have a combined officers seminar/ briefing before our next full crew meeting soon. Suggestions? Ideas as I prepare for it?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

May I ask what methods did you use in your recruiting effort?

[Scouterabouter]

$60 of facebook ads, set up table at school registration (we were given a poor table location), letter to parents of church youth and mailed a invite to youth, and word of mouth.

[BadenP]

Scouter

 

As an advisor for nine years none of this should be new to you. How large was your crew that you "lost ALL of them to graduation", something doesn't seem right especially since venturing goes to age 21?

 

Look the first step is to get your officers trained and familiar with what their duties are going to be. VLSC can be done within your own crew and helps them understand successful leadership styles and organization. Since they are new they need time to develop. What about your Associate Advisors they should be there to help in this process as well? I hear you say that "I have done this before" and "as I prepare for", being an Advisor for a successful crew is NOT a one man show. If you do not have a solid group of adult support behind you, some active associate advisors and a good crew committee than you will not succeed.

 

I was a crew advisor for ten years, now I am the crews CC/COR, my crew went from 10 to over 65 members. The current advisors are some of the early crew youth officers who love Venturing and working with teens. The crew traditions and reputation for a fun and challenging program continues to attract new members by word of mouth and the public seeing the service projects the crew does for the community.

$60 in Facebook ads, you gotta be kidding.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hmmm. Never heard of using Facebook for Scout recruiting before. Can you describe what you did in more detail?

[qwazse]

I agree with BP. Adults will make a difference, so lean on your committee members. You may have to do that resource survey all over again.

 

I personally am having a rough time with my new crew officers (elected 7 months ago). They're good kids, but haven't gotten their heads around the fact that they need training and help. Above all, they need to make each other a priority.

 

If I were to do things differently this year, I would have called each of the officer's parents and let them know how grateful I am that their son/daughter stepped forward, and they should be proud that their child has the potential to impact a lot of other youth.

 

What I did do ...

 

Visit your VOA, your pres/and vp admin should come with you. If they aren't available, get a delegate or two from your crew to go. If you don't have a VOA, hunt down your nearest neighboring crews and organize a joint activity.

 

Schedule ILSC (used to be VLSC) retreat weekend as soon as possible. Have your returning officer conduct it with a co-leader of her choosing. Do something fun once the course is completed.

 

Has it worked? Too early to tell. My officers at least know other crew officers when they see them. Two of them taught an ILSC for the VOA, but only members from outside our council attended!

 

So for our new officers, they are stuck learning by the school of hard knocks.

I'd say I still have an uphill climb.

 

So, readers, if you have anything to add. It won't just help Scouterabouter.

 

P.S. S.abouter -- another thread about your recruiting strategy, please? I want to know what worked and how much time each took to implement.

[Scouterabouter]

Thanks for comments... I am blessed to have a great adult committee to work with... the "I" was specific to my duties as advisor, but it is correct to always share the load and to involve others.

 

Our VOA is not active presently, as Venturing is not a high priority in our council.

 

As for the recruiting, here's a recap.... our Cub scout pack had a outdoor laser tag event...the crew members suggested it also as a Open house activity. We posted the event on fb along with an ad for membership in our crew... very well attended. fb ad was very simple to create and hit a target audience. It complemented the traditional means of getting the word out... We have an active fb page which our crew uses -btw.... We went from 4 to 18 members.

[SeattlePioneer]

Looking over Google references to laser tag.... the equipment seems expensive.

 

What was your source of gear?

[Scouterabouter]

Go Go Laser Tag ran the event & provided all eqipment - we set up the course ...over 2 hours for $200... multiple games with up to 20 participants at a time...kids had a blast (adults too)

[Scouterabouter]

Officer planning session went better than I thought would...we are off to a good start...thanks to all for the great ideas and comments.... business meeting this week with seperate parents meeting too...