Recruitment

[Helper]

We are starting to focus on recruitment. We are an average size pack, but would like to get more boys. I was wondering how you recruit new members. How do you attract Tigers in the Spring?

[Lenae]

My son is a Tiger right now, and we received a flyer from his elementary school for spring recruitment. I will say, we'd been planning on putting my son in scouts from his birth, haha, so we didn't really need to be recruited. However, of the boys that currently make up our den of 9, 5 of them were first introduced to the idea of Cub Scouts that spring. Our pack sent out flyers inviting the boys to join in at a fun night/graduation party pack meeting. They had a scavenger hunt, couple of fun games, not too much adult talk before the kids were released to play, and cake. :-D The boys loved the cake.

[scoutergipper]

I've spent the last couple of years on my District's Recruitment and Retention Committee. Spring recruitment is tough, tough, tough there's just not enough of the year left.

 

If you're going to focus on next year's Tigers, I would suggest an effort to introduce Kindergartners (assuming your school has them) to Cub Scouting. At a minimum, I would have some kind of display table/game at any School event where such things are allowed year round. I think a special event or two at the School or a local Park where you could set up a tent and a campfire might be effective.

 

How visible is the Pack at the School? Due to the inevitable attrition, Packs should be recruiting year-round in one way or another.

[horanmm]

For recuiting tigers for next year: Spring recruiting was a big help. The current kindergartners can become Tigers on June 1st. We would have an event at the school in May, and then invite them to the pack picnic in June. Many would join in June, but some would wait until the end of the summer.

 

This works best if you can have enough summer events for the Tigers. Yes they can do day camp, but many don't unless they have an older brother going to day camp. We did the June picnic, plus a baseball game, 4th of July parade, and a pool party. Plus a tigers only field trip to a museum.

 

To recruit scouts who can join now, the best way is to have the current cubs invite their friends to an event. Have them wear their uniform to school, and talk to their friends. Sometimes we have gotten cubs that were inactive because their original pack had problems. Seeing kids in the school in uniform helped them get restarted.

 

Also reachout to girl scout leaders. The have families who are active in girl scouts and have no idea how to contact a pack or troop.

[Helper]

Thanks! Please keep the ideas coming. We do have the boys wear their uniforms on pack meeting days. This has gotten a few new members. We are trying to up our visibility on campus. What types of Tiger only recruitment activities do you do? We used to do marble madness, but that seems a little worn out.

[horanmm]

To recruit Tigers we sent up a tent/campsite; we bring some pinewood derby cars; we have a slide show of events on the laptops which include pictures from the derby, regatta, pool party, pack meetings. And we have info for the parents, and we collect contact info from the parents.

[mashmaster]

We have had good success in the Spring. This is what we do.

 

Put flyers in the take home school folders

Get the flyer into the school online newsletter

Stand in the car pick up lines the day of the recruitment for the K and 1st, tell them about it

Our district has a bounce house, so we borrow that for the Saturday and hold a carnival at school with popcorn and kickball.

 

typically we get a full den, we talk to the parents while the kids are bouncing and get them signed up.

[SeattlePioneer]

What we do for spring recruiting:

 

 

1. Plan a terrifically fun activity to attract the interest of boys and parents. The PWD would be an example --- stomp bottle rockets or a simplified Raingutter Regatta would be others.

 

2. The key for us is to visit schools during lunch or when we can get into classrooms and invite boys to come to our recruiting event.

 

I do this the day before of the day of the event. The Council provides stickers that boys can put on their shirts which contains the recruiting night information.

 

3. The recruiting night activity should entice parents into working with their boys to complete building their derby car, rocket, boat and such.

 

You don't need to spend a lot of time TALKING about Scouting if boys and parents have just EXPERIENCED a quality Scouting activity.

 

4. Have an organized program to welcome new families into Scouting and get the Bobcat award completed. People learn about Scouting by DOING Scouting by and large.

 

To this end, the week after our recruiting event, we have a quality den meeting and organize a Bobcat Den for NEW boys and their parents. Among other activities, boys make a hot dog roasting stick,

 

The following weekend, we have a quality hike which concludes with a hot dog roast at which boys get to use the hot dog roasting stick they made.

 

By that time, boys and parents have EXPERIENCED three quality Cub Scout activities.

 

5. The Bobcat Den program then aims to prepare boys and parents for our June overnight Pack Campout. At the Campout boys may have earned their Bobcat Badge and are sorted into their new Dens for the next year.

 

6. We participate in a town 4th of July Parade, the July Cub Scout Day Camp and a fishing outing in August. So there is a continuing Cub Scout program to keep the interest of new and existing boys and families.

[Daped01]

I've spent the last couple of years on my District's Recruitment and Retention Committee. Spring recruitment is tough, tough, tough there's just not enough of the year left.

.

 

Do you not run a year round program? In my unit summer does not mean slowing down, summer means outdoor fun. The type of fun that keeps the spring kindergarten recruits around. We were able to recruit 11 kindergartners at spring recruitment (1/3 of the available boys in our kindergarten class....pretty good IMO) compared to 5 scouts in the fall recruitment event.

[Stosh]

I often thought it quite counter-productive to recruit heavily in the spring of the year only to do nothing for the summer months. Here one has all these new boys all fired up to join a program that doesn't do anything for the first 3 months. Scouting in general has the image of a great outdoor program and these youngsters see nothing but summer vacation and goofing off ahead and Scouting doesn't really exist for all practical purposes.

 

These are the kids on the verge of getting heavily connected to electronics and here we can be taking these boys out for a brown-bag day hike in the woods at no big hassle by the adults.

 

Fishing? Sure, why not drown a worm or two while sitting on the bank talking about all the good things Scouting does.

 

Go to the park and play a game of something, have a picnic. Get to know your boys.

 

Recruiting is more than just getting them through the door, it means keeping them. Signing them up and then having them wait for 4 months to get going is a disservice to the boys who's attention span is from today to tomorrow at best.

 

I ran a weekly, year around program for my cubs and eventually they all Eagled.- 100%

 

It's time to give them the program they paid for. They paid and registered for 12 months, lets give the customer what they paid for.

 

Stosh

[Sidney Porter]

 

Do you not run a year round program? In my unit summer does not mean slowing down, summer means outdoor fun. The type of fun that keeps the spring kindergarten recruits around. We were able to recruit 11 kindergartners at spring recruitment (1/3 of the available boys in our kindergarten class....pretty good IMO) compared to 5 scouts in the fall recruitment event.

 

We have resident camp, summer camp and a monthly pack activity. But we do not have weekly den meetings and monthly pack meetings during the summer.

 

I think the problem with fall recruitment is a lot of units have it too late. We seem to be dependant on recruiting at schools, these usually get delayed until the 2nd or 3rd week. At that point the kids have already committed to other activities.

 

[SeattlePioneer]

At our Tiger Cub Den meeting two weeks ago, we made stilts from 2x2 stock four feet long with a piece of 2x4 nailed on. The boys decorated their stilts, practiced walking on them and took them home when done.

 

That would probably make a good recruiting night activity to draw boys and families in.

 

Last night we made simple catapults from paint stirring sticks and pieces of 1/2 plastic pipe boys cut using a pipe cutter. Then we spent time shooting miniature marshmallows, with boys getting stickers to put on their catapults when they won a contest.

 

That would make a fun recruiting night activity as well.

[Daped01]

 

We have resident camp, summer camp and a monthly pack activity. But we do not have weekly den meetings and monthly pack meetings during the summer.

 

I think the problem with fall recruitment is a lot of units have it too late. We seem to be dependant on recruiting at schools, these usually get delayed until the 2nd or 3rd week. At that point the kids have already committed to other activities.

 

I bet if you re-evaluated your summer events/activities, you would be surprised at your spring recruitment success. Maybe not, but it works for us!

[blw2]

.... We are an average size pack' date=' but would like to get more boys.....[/quote']

 

I know this is a relatively old post, but just catchin up with it....

How big is an "Average" pack?

 

Not trying to be silly, it's a real question that I have struggled with....

 

Anyway, I will say this to add to the thread.

My pack has traditionally stopped all activity in the summer. It was said when i started getting involved that people like to take a break and are burned out by spring.

I have always liked the idea of doing something in the summer, but perhaps not a full program. I think the full program would work well if you have a good core of active parents.... but that's not our pack any more.

And without that, I'm not about to attempt spring recruiting.....

 

​And another thought.... I have heard it argued that 1st grade is too early to start a boy anyway. I am on the fence but I do see merit in this idea because they repeat the same stuff each year and it's getting old by WEBELOS year..... parents start to get burned out with scouting, etc...

 

so with that in mind I personally think spring recruitment should be targeted to older boys that you have missed in previous efforts (Wolf, Bear, and WEBELOS boys), and focus on Tigers in the fall...

[Sidney Porter]

 

I know this is a relatively old post, but just catchin up with it....

How big is an "Average" pack?

 

Not trying to be silly, it's a real question that I have struggled with....

 

When I hear average size I think 30-50. I think BSA recommends 6-10 in a den.