Do Troops Recruit?

[Eamonn]

Not sure if the Troops in our district are the norm. or not?

While the packs are very active in recruiting new members and the Crews seem to be working at it, the Troops and the adults seem happy to sit back and wait for a fresh bunch of Lads to cross over from the Pack.

I have to admit that the packs get a lot more support from both the council and the district. We spend a lot of money recruiting membership for the packs. While we don't spend hardly anything on Boy Scout recruiting.

Is this true in your district?

What if anything could the council and district do better to support the troops in your district to do a better job of recruiting?

Eamonn

[Shell in WA- USA]

In our district, the BS Troop doesn't get alot of recruiting "support" from district as far as scheduling days at schools, etc like the packs. MAybe they should, I would say that's what a Scout show should be about.

 

However, what we do get is a list of Webelos that didn't cross over or that dropped the cub program within a year or so. Each troop is given a list and the troop will contact those boys and parents to see if we can draw them back. Our troop usually gets about 3 or 4 boys from that list.

 

Then as a troop to recruit, what we do is have a "open" meeting night where we invite webelos (1st and 2nd) to it. Like Game Night, special presentations, Catapult building, etc. OR we'll have a special outing with the younger ones in mind. Current patrols will "adapt" the younger scouts into their fold for the weekend.

 

Works for us. We brought in 18 new scouts this year, 3 have never been a scout before.

[SR540Beaver]

Depends on what you call recruiting. Some troops sit back and wait for cubs to come to them. Some troops actively court packs to build a bond with them and hope to get new scouts thru that effort.

 

I don't know of too many troops that will actively go out and try to bring in scout age boys. They typically draw from cubs. I've visited with people at Roundtable and we've been discussing the possibility of going along with a pack when they do a school night recruiting at the beginning of the year. Our thinking is that we can hit the 6th graders and 5th graders who have been held back a year while the cubs hit the 1st thru 5th graders. We would set up right next to each other and show them the progression from cubs to scouts. I've also toyed with the idea of suggesting a periodic troop lock-in aside from the monthly camp-out. While it was still light out, you could do some knots, lashings and pioneering type stuff. When it gets dark, you could move inside for food, fun, videos, games, etc. The price of admission for the members of the troop is to bring a friend who is not in scouting. I think the general rule of thumb is that you can't attract older boys into the troop and instead focus on just recruiting cubs at crossover. I think a little creative recruiting can make all the difference. If you provide something fun to get them there, you've won half the battle in recruiting. Truth is, if you set up a booth at the jr high or high school, many boys will walk a mile around you. Find another way to attract them.

[Fat Old Guy]

My district puts most of its effort into recruiting Cub Scouts. Althought this year there is an "adventure day" that is designed to encourage current Scouts to bring friends to try Scouting for a day. We'll see how that works.

 

 

 

 

[NeilLup]

Hello Eamonn,

 

I believe there is great concern at the national level that:

 

1) Troops don't recruit

2) The very large fraction of new Boy Scouts have Cub Scouting background. The numbers I have seen suggest something like 90% have been Cub Scouts and about 75% or so have the Arrow of Light.

3) There is no good reason that Troops should not recruit. This is particularly true because one main reason that boys say they are dropping out of Cub Scouting is that they don't get camping. Which they would get in Boy Scouting.

 

National has tried a number of techniques to encourage and motivate Troops to recruit. They will continue this. I have found that a good recruiting night with fun activities can get new boys. But it has to be really exciting and often, the new boys come one at a time.

 

Group recruiting seems to work for Cub Scouting and the parents decide what the boy will do. In Boy Scouting, the boy decides and the recruiting is one to one.

[Bob58]

Our district Exec hits every class from 1 to 8 if the principal will let him into the bldg. (That is our problem getting into the schools -- he makes appts & still has to carry a copy of the Superintendents "letter of introduction". I guess I buy the, "but if we let one in we'll have to let them all in" line. ) We haven't seen great results yet, but he's planning on it again next Fall.

 

I like the idea of special events that take Scouting to the kid community. But so far my pastor won't our troop build a monkey bridge across the fountain in front of church. (We offered to set it up during the parish festival, charge to cross & donate proceeds to the parish but still, "No go!")

I'm tempted to suggest they consider asking about the school's field day, but the liability could be a big issue.

 

Council used to host "Extreme Scouting" with the espoused purpose of recruiting new boys. We actually wound up w/ leaders trying to plan crossovers for Webolos 2's & AoL since they "had to be in camp anyway." One troop had a bunch of very unhappy new Scout Parents that year.

Perhaps we should... sing!

 

 

[Eamonn]

As a Council we were "Pushing" the Build A Troop Program where the Scoutmaster made an appointment went into the schools did a boy talk and invited the boys to attend a open house and hopefully signed up a bunch /group of new Scouts. Every year we had a sign up sheet at the Round Table. We got a lot of troops signing up and very few if any Scouts.

This year we asked what went wrong and the Scoutmasters informed me that they were only signing up to keep me and the DE happy!! They said that the Build A Troop, didn't work as there were too many steps and the big problem was that they worked during the day, so they wouldn't be able to get into the schools to do the boy talks.

We thought that we would send in some of the District Membership Committee to the schools to do the boy talks.

We have a really good relationship with the 3 School Districts in our district. One Superintendent is on the Executive Board and another is on the District Membership Committee. The other is a new guy that I'm meeting for breakfast next week.

The schools all allow us in to do Boy Talks in September when we do the School Scout Sign Up. In fact they let us have the use of the school buildings to do so and they go out of their way to work with us handing out fliers for other recruiting events. When we asked if we could go in and do Boy Scout age boy talks they said that we could do it at the same time as we do the Cub Scout boy talks. Which is better then not being able to do them. However it is a bad time as the boys are busy with Football, Band,and Soccer. Still I don't think that there is a good time, after September we have the holidays and this year that was followed by the snow and ice and just getting around was a real pain. Then in the spring school sports restart.

Last year there was a CD for Tiger Cubs, with interactive games and stuff. I think that I heard that they cost c. Each we had enough for every little fellow going into first grade. There was one for Boy Scouts, we had enough for one per Troop - Even I didn't get a copy!!

I have sent each Troop a Bring A Pal Recruiting Packet. The Scoutmaster hands out a printed sheet to every Scout. There is space for the Scout to fill in the name, address and phone number of six of his Pals. The Scout then tries to recruit the boys on his sheet. For every Scout he recruits his name goes in a drawing to win half the cost of Summer Camp. The more boys he recruits the more times his names go in the drawing. The boys who join have their names go into a separate drawing to win half the cost of Summer camp. The Sheet goes back to the Scoutmaster and he is challenged to phone every boy on the lists.He can also plan a open house or something special.

The cost of Summer Camp is only $160.00 so the members of the District Committee have that covered.

I don't know if this will do any good or not. My hope is that one Scout asking one pal might work and if the Scoutmaster follows up the boy will have been asked twice. Of course a lot will depend on the Scoutmaster.

Eamonn

[ozemu]

I just realised that there are a lot of ideas that I get off this forum and that I lose a few when I dont act immediately. Darn that short term memory ...thing.

 

I have just started a document in which I will cut and paste the ideas I like. Eamonn your recruiting idea is first. Thanks

[NeilLup]

Hello Eamonn,

 

The idea behind the Boy Scout recruiting CD was that the Troop would make copies of the CD for every boy in the Troop. And for you if you wish.

 

Making copies of CDs is an extremely inexpensive process. Often, I find that my local Staples has a deal where you can by 50 blank CDs for $10 and then get a $10 rebate. Most modern computers can easily burn copies of CDs.

 

Would you like a copy of the recruiting CD?

[Eamonn]

Thanks for the offer Neil

I would like to see the CD.

The point I was trying to make was that we seem to go all out for Cub Scouts while not doing the same for Boy Scouts. Many of the Scoutmasters in our district are not good with computers and I doubt if they know how to burn a copy. As a matter of fact none of the computers in the service center have a CD burner.

Eamonn

[NeilLup]

Many of the Scoutmasters in our district are not good with computers and I doubt if they know how to burn a copy. As a matter of fact none of the computers in the service center have a CD burner. >>

 

This objection was raised in my council. I suggested that if the CD were given to essentially any Tenderfoot Scout, he would know how to burn CDs and could do so easily. If the PLC were asked to do it, it would be trivial.

 

Once again, this was a recruiting device designed for boy to boy in the mode of today's boys. It wasn't necessarily designed to give warm fuzzies to today's Scoutmasters.

 

If you want a copy of the CD, please shoot me your address.

 

I would agree that we do more for Cub Scouts now than for Boy Scouts (assuming that Cub Scouts is not one large recruiting activity for Boy Scouts). However, I think and hope that this is being addressed.

[Eamonn]

Neil

I thought I was the only one that used the term warm and fuzzy. - Oh well!!

You and I both know that only having one disk per troop had as much to do with one on one recruiting as me flying to the moon. Knowing the Scoutmasters in our District, the one copy that they did get, got stuck in the Scoutmasters case never to see the light of day again.

While I am not full of doom and gloom, I think that with the decline in the Cub Scout section, the Boy Scouts have no alternative but to do more recruiting. As it is now Boy Scout recruiting is like the Field Of Dreams, we kind of keep telling ourselves that they will come. We need to be warm and fuzzy with our Scoutmasters to get them to recruit, if this means a certain amount of spoon feeding, so be it. Many of these Leaders have never felt the need to recruit.

We are starting to see some of the older Scouts become bored with the Boy Scout program and move into Venture Crews.As yet Webelos Scout growth continues, but the number of Cub Scouts is dropping. Many of the troops in our district are small to start with. If they start losing Lads to Venturing and the number of available Cub Scouts goes down. They are not going to survive.We have to try and change the mindset of our Scoutmasters and get them to be more active in improving the membership of the troops.

I would like us an organization to be as active recruiting Boy Scouts as we in recruiting Cub Scouts.

Eamonn

[Fat Old Guy]

"Many of the Scoutmasters in our district are not good with computers and I doubt if they know how to burn a copy."

 

We of the computerized world often forget that 50% of the country is still computerless.

 

"As a matter of fact none of the computers in the service center have a CD burner."

 

Now that's incredible!