Ideas for recruitment for Boy Scout Troops

[bt01]

It may be July but does any one have ideas for recruitment(membership) for Venture Crews or Boy Scout Troops??? In August, I am going to help with the roundtable and the theme is Membership.

I have spoken with some from council and there idea of recrtitment is the troops get new members from the Cub Scout Pack.

 

I am a Boy Scout Roundtable Commissioner and I thank you for your help.

[MaScout]

Our PLC regularly schedules several activities every year that are "invite a friend" activities (read "recruitment activities"). We make sure these are representative of our regular activities, which are of course exciting and fun. Our council insurance covers them if this is being used as a recruitment tool.

 

Some activities we have included: College football game, canoeing (make sure they pass the BSA swimmer's test!), night at the movies, rock climbing, fishing, and more. Really, we set our calendar, then the boys determine which activities they want to use for recruitment...

 

Also, at our January CoH, we have a slide show highlighting the activities from the previous year. We like to invite extra people to watch this. It is a GREAT recruitment tool! We are a small troop (average membership of 10) and we have picked up several new Scouts from this venue.

[AvidSM]

I find that peer-to-peer recruitment works best for a troop. MaScout's "invite a friend" activity is a good idea. I also like to give out prizes to scouts who bring in a friend to a troop meeting or who have a friend join scouting. We have a "recruitment drive" in the fall which lasts until early December.

 

Recruitment seems to be getting more attention these days since they added the requirment to first class.

[rat1571]

i must agree that scout recruitment is the best way to go. there is a patch called the recruter patch that the boys like to recieve.

[acco40]

Change/add to the 1st Class requirements. :-)

[VinceC]

 

The best idea I've seen by a local troop was using the cub pack. I'm the CM of a pack that is not affiliated with any one troop. We feed 3 troops. For many years most of the webelo 2 boys went to troop "1". Not for any particular reason, just that's where others in the pack had gone in the past and they just followed. However the troop didn't do a very good job of retaining all these boys, and unfortunately they left scouting. Two years ago troop "2" started having a Webelos Night. It was held on the first troop meeting night of the month, every month, and the troop used the Cub Scout Program Helps as a guide for the evening's activites to help with the Webelos advancement. Many of our Webelo 1 and 2 boys attended these meetings every month with their parents, as well as a few other activities sponsored by the troop. For the past two years troop "2" has had every member of my pack cross over to their troop, and kept them. By the time the crossing over takes place, these boys already feel as though they belong to the troop, and there is a comfort level already established with the parents.

I also find this program to be a bonus to my pack. As the boys get older, it can be harder to retain them in the pack with so many outside activites. Sometimes the Webelos feel they are too young for some of the cub scout activites. By being permitted to go to a boy scout meeting every month gives them a chance to take part in some "real" scout stuff. And it keeps them in the pack.

So I guess what I'm saying is don't just rule out the cubs for reruitment. There needs to be work done at that level as well. Not all the boys always want to cross over, but this troop found a way to make it happen.

 

[scoutldr]

I was browsing on the national site and noticed that there is an "award" patch for scouters who host a unit open house.

 

http://www.scouting.org/nav/enter.jsp?s=ba

 

There's also a survey where you can provide input for the next edition of the BS Handbook. (what should be added/deleted, etc)

[Kudu]

The following "School Presentation for Recruiting Sixth-Graders" works well if you can get acces to a local private or public school, or other group of sixth-grade boys:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm

 

Kudu

 

[sweetspiritpamh]

I like the flyer that promotes getting to the troops web site where a potential recuits can really see in the privacy of their own home if its a group they might be interested in. Then when they truly see the fun they want to join.Then get them in to meet the guys and have a really FUN exciting 1st camp of the new school year. I may be bias but i believe that www.troop68.org has done a great job in this area.

[Lisabob]

I'm curious, does anybody regularly contact boys who dropped out of cub scouts after 3rd grade or who earned their AoL as cubs but never joined a troop? This is something that gets regular lip service but for a variety of reasons it doesn't seem to happen, at least that I'm aware of. I'm thinking that some boys who got "bored" with cubs might find boy scouts more up to their speed (assuming a good troop program of course), and that some who just got lost in the transition from cubs might rejoin if they were approached. But whether it actually happens? Dunno - I've seen no systematic evidence, or even very many anecdotes, in either direction.

 

Aside from that - I think there's opportunity for recruitment whenever we're out in public and in uniform, but a lot of times we just need to take better advantage of it. Case in point, I went to a local art fair a couple weeks ago where members of a troop were selling bottled water from a stand. They were in uniform and had a sign with their troop #, but that was it. They had no recruiting material, no pictures from recent trips, nothing. Too bad, because I happen to know that this is a very active troop with great leadership and lots of fun programs. They were set up almost directly across from one of the larger outdoor outfitters in the region so there was a steady flow of outdoorsy types walking right past them. With a good display, they might've caught the attention of a few boys (and/or their parents) that day.

 

Lisa'bob

[Eamonn]

Ideas?

I strongly urge you not to try and cover Boy Scouts and Venturers at the same time!!

While there are of course exceptions to every rule, it is un-lightly that a Lad over the age of 13 or 14 is going to want to join a Boy Scout Troop.

Trying to lump Boy Scouts and Venturers together isn't going to work, particularly if you want to recruit female Venturers.

As has been said the most successful recruiting is done by the youth members.

Like a moth to the flame, I have at times gone back and tried all the things that National suggests, which never have worked and never will work.

The school interest survey followed by a letter inviting the youth to join, is a waste of the money spent on postage.

Flyer's don't work. Most never even make it home.

For all the time and effort that goes into staging a worth while open house, the returns are just not worth it.

The units that will attract the most new members are the units that offer the best programs. Not only will they recruit them they will retain them which is far more important.

Not so very long back I was involved in something to do with raising money for the Council. Trying to see if we could raise a little more than 3 million dollars!!

I was really taken back about how little people seemed to know about Scouts, Scouting and what we do. Most people joked about helping little old Ladies across the road!! But very few seemed to know what we really do.

We do OK selling the "Timeless Values" to people who are in Scouting and the odd parent. But most kids don't give a hoot about timeless values.

They want to hear about fun, adventure and challenges. Once they have heard they want to participate!!

Scouting units need to be seen.

We have all heard that we meet in the basement and camp in the woods!! We need to go out and win the support of our local communities.

Start with the CO.

Participate in whatever activities they are doing. Our CO, the Elks has a monthly Blood Drive, the Ship helps out with the clean up. We also send a picture of the Scouts helping with details of the blood drive to our local newspaper, I never ever miss an opportunity to send the local paper pictures of our Sea Scouts in action.

We have a new member information packet which can be e-mailed or handed to each new prospect.

The biggie is getting to meet the new recruits parents at their home as soon as possible. This is the thing that really seals the deal.

The parents get to see who you are and feel more at ease and you get some idea of what the Scouts home life is like.

I would never ever take a young person away without having first met with their parents. Even for an overnight activity close to home.

Special activities do tend to spike the interest of the Scouts that you already have and they in turn are more lightly to invite a pal.

We have a white water rafting trip planned not long after school goes back, the date is by no means an accident!!

School talks are OK.

They work well if they are planned. We have a power point presentation set to music (Come Sail Away - STYX)So far we haven't used it but the Scouts had a great time putting it together.

I do think it's important that we only sell what we can deliver. Talking to a group of 11 year olds about High Adventure is not really fair when they can't participate in it till they are 14.

For Venturing the big untapped market has got to be girls!!

I was really surprised how few girls knew that they could join Sea Scouts and Venturing.

Sadly many of the old time SM's in the District I'm in choke on their Wood Badge beads at the very mention of girls in Scouting!!

Eamonn.

[CubScoutJo]

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sweetspiritpamh writes:

"I like the flyer that promotes getting to the troops web site where a potential recuits can really see in the privacy of their own home if its a group they might be interested in. Then when they truly see the fun they want to join.Then get them in to meet the guys and have a really FUN exciting 1st camp of the new school year. I may be bias but i believe that www.troop68.org has done a great job in this area."

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I agree with you there! Nice job on the website. If there was a troop like yours around here, I'd want my sons to join. Heck, I want to join that troop.

 

An aside: Where did you get the personalized caribiners made up?

 

Jo