Recruiting up or down this year ?

[King Ding Dong]

We had our School Night to Join Scouting last night. It was a week latter than the other schools in the district due to a scheduling conflict. Last year we had 17 Tigers, this year 4 and 1 new Bear show up. The membership fee was certainly not a factor because increase was not well known. We sent two sets of flyers home, had yard signs and the DE did a lunch time rally same as last year. I have heard membership is down in my district but up in an adjoining one. How has everyone else faired ?

[TonyH]

Here, our Schools and Packs kind of overlap with one another, so most packs recruit from multiple schools, and most schools send boys to various packs.

 

Last year, the schools took out the ability for the DE to do boy talks to the classes during the day, and it dropped recruiting a lot. At least 50%, and in some schools up to 90% lower.

 

This year, some of the schools have allowed us to do boy talks again, but not all. We had really low numbers for the first school we went to for roundups... But It's a small, low income school that traditionally has had really low participation in scouting anyway.

 

6 more schools to go for us - probably another 18 in the district overall to go.

[blw2]

up maybe 60% for my pack

[Pack18Alex]

We're doing great so far... Recruiting up 200% from last year, doubling pack size, another recruiting event coming up. So far mostly via word of mouth and social media. We actually flubbed our normal recruiting channels and had a very uncooperative Jewish calendar. Membership changes may have helped... We're finding groups like the JCC and Conservative synagogues receptive to us for a change. Around the district, no clue, ill know more at October round table. I'm counting the people showing up... Need to get paperwork squared away with everyone.

[jc2008]

We are up from last year, but last year was down from previous year.

 

It seems to all work out though. We were down last year in Tigers and this year we got an entire new den of Wolves (ie the Tigers who I guess didn't show up last year).

 

If you are low this year in Tigers and you dont attempt a "second chance join night" to fix that, I would expect a higher than average turnout of new wolves next year.

[mashmaster]

down, 50% this year

[Brewmeister]

Our pack was up, more than double from last year, and the best year ever in its history, despite declining school enrollment.

[5yearscouter]

lowest recruitment in 8 years

[Bookemdano]

Last year we had 4 Tigers sign up, this year 8. We lost a Wolf and 2 Bears that we had last year. My overall numbers are down because I'm really low on Webelos this year since we had boys bridge over.

[kari_cardi]

My recruitment is up, it's been going up since last fall.

[dedkad]

Last year we had over 10 Tigers at our recruitment meeting and a den leader already lined up. This year only 2 Tigers showed up and no leader so far, so we are having the 2 Tiger parents reaching out to their sons' friends to try to build a Tiger den. Oddly, with very little recruitment in the upper grades, we ended up with 7 new Bears, so we are adding a new Bear den. Overall, though, we are probably going to just break even with our numbers because we had a den implode and are losing a bunch of boys.

[TonyH]

Second school roundup night for us so far.

 

6 packs showed up - 5 new families showed up.

 

In previous years, this school got 50+ Boys... and we were down to 5.

 

1-2 more years of this, and we will be shutting down many of the packs in the area.

[Tampa Turtle]

Up as well as the two neighboring Troops. 5-10%. One of those Troops got kicked out of their CO over the policy change and really didn't lose anyone.

[Basementdweller]

Our pack was up, more than double from last year, and the best year ever in its history, despite declining school enrollment.

Envious......Wish our numbers looked like that.

[Brewmeister]

Our pack was up, more than double from last year, and the best year ever in its history, despite declining school enrollment.

We picked up 7 more by word of mouth since the roundup. So, we're triple the size we were when my son was a tiger way back when, again despite a decline in school enrollment.

 

It comes back to putting the right people in the role, which requires having the right people in the first place. That takes a bit of luck but a unit does tend to attract like-minded people over time. I've stayed involved in the pack long after my son was gone because I like the leadership.

 

Boys and families are attracted to the program, but the program relies on people. Any unit, including ours, is always on the razor's edge of folding, no matter how long it has been around or how good the program is. All it would take is for those people to leave.