How do you recruit for an LDS pack with tiny area

[christineka]

Since the whole joining up with another pack didn't pan out, we were advised (by a higher up lds cub scout person) to recruit boys to ours. We currently have almost 2 wolves (1 boy joins in a couple weeks), 2 bears, and 5 webelos, except one hasn't been to a meeting since May. We have always had non LDS boys in our pack and they aren't scared off by prayers. They've even offered to say prayers. LDS units are divided up by geographical region. Ours consists of 3 streets, 3 blocks. We know of one boy in our area, who is cub age, but the family has made it very clear that they are not interested. So, what do we do now to recruit? Should we make flyers and pass them out at every home that we don't already know has no cub scout aged kid? Is there any way to recruit?

[Pack18Alex]

Flyer every home? Speak with whoever carves up the regions that you need more space? That seems ridiculously small. Do you have LDS Roundtables? Clearly, you need to speak to leaders in your area how to get yourself a viable size? 4 Cubs and 5 Webelos is simply not a viable program. You can't DO anything. You can have some den meetings and do projects (with the extra challenge of the LDS program, but Wolf/Bear achievements aren't hard to do twice/year.

 

That said, you need to raise the viability of the program so people WANT to be in it. More Pack Activities, in public, with uniforms on, and less time doing crafts in your Den.

 

Can someone join that doesn't live in your geographic area? What if they're not LDS, can they join then? Get flyers made, ask each boy to invite 5 friends from school. Recruit CONSTANTLY, you run each level program twice/year anyway, so you should do round up programs throughout the year. Recruit in September, December with a Winter Break Cub "camp" where you meet daily and do the Rank Advancement in two weeks.

 

I mean, here is something of a draw, you do Trails during Winter Break, Spring Break, and Summer Break. The rest of the time, you do fun activities?

 

I'm not sure, you need a hook to get people that aren't in your geographic area to want to join, since you lack boys to recruit from in yours.

[Hueymungus]

Packs of any CO can be of any size. Yes, your starting small. Great. It's for the Youth, so go!

 

As to recruiting...Ask each Scout to name 7 friends from Church that they would like to have them join the Pack with them. Ask them who they think for Bears & Wolves would be interested in joining. Then, pick up the phone and dial the parents. Invite them to a Pack Outing that is filled with fun and games. You can get some of the 11 year old Scouts since they are still in the Primary and maybe even some older boys...Eagles to help play games and teach them things.

 

While that is happening, get the parents together and talk to them about Cubscouts and how it relates to their Church. You could get an Elder or the Young Men's President to help deliver the message. https://www.lds.org/callings/primary/leader-resources/scouting-in-primary?lang=eng

 

Main thing is your going to get people who are in your Ward. If multiple Wards are in the church you go to, then you could combine to make one Pack.

[christineka]

Packs of any CO can be of any size. Yes, your starting small. Great. It's for the Youth, so go!

 

As to recruiting...Ask each Scout to name 7 friends from Church that they would like to have them join the Pack with them. Ask them who they think for Bears & Wolves would be interested in joining. Then, pick up the phone and dial the parents. Invite them to a Pack Outing that is filled with fun and games. You can get some of the 11 year old Scouts since they are still in the Primary and maybe even some older boys...Eagles to help play games and teach them things.

 

While that is happening, get the parents together and talk to them about Cubscouts and how it relates to their Church. You could get an Elder or the Young Men's President to help deliver the message. https://www.lds.org/callings/primary/leader-resources/scouting-in-primary?lang=eng

 

Main thing is your going to get people who are in your Ward. If multiple Wards are in the church you go to, then you could combine to make one Pack.

All the 8-10 year olds at church are already in cub scouts and active. The one that is not active at church is in our pack, but hasn't been active in scouting since May. We have no 11 year old scouts. (Actually, there are two 11 year old boys, but they are not interested in scouts at all. They are too busy with sports- and sports is most important to their families.) We were given the okay from the stake to combine our pack with another ward, but they don't want us. Someone has been assigned to study out another pack that we might join with, but it sounds extremely unlikely to happen.

 

The only boys we have left to recruit are not LDS and we only know of 3 of them. One is a cub scout in our pack, one boy used to come, but doesn't want to anymore (his brother earned arrow of light, then quit), and a third, whose family is not interested.

[Nike]

I still don't understand why your group can't be combined with a larger pack drawing from the same neighborhood.

[christineka]

I still don't understand why your group can't be combined with a larger pack drawing from the same neighborhood.

Because the other leaders didn't want us. I'm not the one making the decision. I have no say over it-, though if I had a say I'd combine anyway. There are three wards that meet at our meetinghouse. We got the approval to join with one and they were very unhappy with the idea. While I was on vacation, the leaders of the two packs had a meeting. I hear it didn't go well. The new plan now is for a specific person (not me) to research other packs to see if there is another small one that wants to join with us and is also not a burden to send our boys to. That doesn't fit with the other ward that meets in our building and the parents would be upset if they have to send their boy any further. (Our stake boundaries are long.) We were told by the bishop that the combining of packs is not happening and we should just go on. The stake people told us to recruit.

 

The wards were split and boundaries drawn during a housing boom. Our ward was created with the expectation that all the land slated for houses was going to actually have houses. One fourth of our ward is a field. 70% of the LDS people within our boundaries are not active members. (Only one of those families has an 8-10 year old boy.)

[Pack18Alex]

I still don't understand why your group can't be combined with a larger pack drawing from the same neighborhood.

Option 1, quasi-merger. What about contacting a nearby Pack (the Cubmaster) about your shutting down the Pack, transferring your Two Wolves and Two Bears to their existing Dens, and you remaining as Webelos leader for just your Webelos Den, with no involvement in Pack leadership. You don't even have to be on their roster if they'd prefer. You'll meet with your Webelos Den as now, focus on them achieving Arrow of Light and Crossing over, and attending monthly Pack Meetings. You can dual register the boys in the new Pack, leaving your existing Pack's charter in place to not upset the church, keep the Charter and Tenure in place, and there is no cost to register with the second Pack. You can meet with them as Dens in Pack-X, they can attend Pack meetings in Pack-Y. The only person that needs to sign off on the boys joining Pack-Y is the Cubmaster. You need the CC/COR for you to dual register, but you could just wear your Pack-X uniform to Pack Y meetings and be a visitor, or wear civilian attire and just come as a parent.

 

Option 2, stop recruiting. You have 4 Cubs, 5 Webelos. Meet Cub Den one week, Webelos the other week, complete their Trails/Rank/AOL, focus on crossing over the Webelos. Have a Pack Meeting whenever a boy earns a Rank Badge. Focus on getting your Webelos out of there, and the Cubs having fun. It seems like the Pack is dead, you're limited to too small a geographic area that doesn't have the housing that was expected.

 

Turn in your paperwork, keep it alive, and focus on the boys.

 

There is clearly an Adult Problem here, I think recruiting won't solve the problem, you have a leadership problem, an institutional problem, and a lack of interest problem. You can beat your head against the wall, or you can do cool stuff with your boys and move them to a Troop ASAP.

[christineka]

I still don't understand why your group can't be combined with a larger pack drawing from the same neighborhood.

I'm, honestly fine with the number of boys we have, though it would open up some more possibilities with more boys. (Play games that involve more kids.) My problems are pretty much leadership problems. I have a hard time dealing with some of the leaders. I just thought we should do as our stake people tell us to do- and that was to recruit. Perhaps they just have no clue about the lack of cub aged boys in this tiny area.

[Eagle92]

Hate to say it, but in my neck of the woods, LDS units do not recruit as their youth are automatically signed up to the unit.

[christineka]

Hate to say it, but in my neck of the woods, LDS units do not recruit as their youth are automatically signed up to the unit.

As are ours. They want us to recruit boys, who are not LDS. (We have had non-lds boys in our pack for years.)

[King Ding Dong]

Hate to say it, but in my neck of the woods, LDS units do not recruit as their youth are automatically signed up to the unit.

I am good friends with an LDS family and my boys have even attended LDS functions such as a church Christmas party with them. They had fun. However the whole age based yo-yo, in and out of dens with your friends, cub program is not what many non LDS parents want for their sons. Do your elementary schools operate the same way ?

 

Your superiors should be doing the recruiting for you if they think it is such a good idea to get non LDS families into your pack.

 

In the end PackAlex has the best suggestion. Do your best and focus on your boys.

[howarthe]

I'm a Latter-day Saint, but I volunteer with the school pack because I don't like the limited program I have experienced in other LDS packs. I am also the district membership chair. We have 12 LDS packs in our district and 11 non-LDS packs. None of the LDS packs are doing any recruiting and only half of the non-LDS packs are doing any recruiting. I'm going a little crazy. I want to help SO much, but they won't even answer my email, and there is so much to do that I can't help people who won't even talk to me, so if one of my LDS Scout leaders said that she was interested in recruiting, I would be all over helping her.

 

This is what we are doing in our district

#1: give the school secretary a flyer for every boy in school inviting parents to a registration event. Sometimes schools won't pass out flyers. Sometimes other packs get annoyed when you recruit at "their" school. Sometimes you can save a ton on flyers by just printing an invitation in the school newsletter. Do what you can.

#2: be present at the school open house. pass out stickers, answer questions, collect contact information, invite parents to come to your registration night.

#3: be present at the festival. Our community has a festival in September. The Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts have booths. The Cubs don't have their own booth because I don't want to sit there all day, but the Boy Scouts said I could put out my flyers. Other packs in my district are much more excited about festivals, and they organize rope-making activities or a rain gutter regatta.

#4: I put out lawn signs this year.

#5: I did not, but I could have advertised my recruit event at the local grocery store community board. I did get our flyers in at the public library.

#6: put together the recruit event. Some packs are doing very complicated festival-type events with lots of games and activities. I find such settings overwhelming. I have planned 30 minutes of questions and answers before the regular pack meeting begins which will include songs and skits and games.

 

Most important for you and your situation: you ward boundaries do not dictate your pack boundaries. Recruit ANYWHERE you want. But keep talking with the community pack. It's not nice to steal "their" recruits. Invite them to participate in all your recruiting efforts. Let the boys join whichever pack they wish.