Calling on Webelos Scouts that did not join a troop

[gwd-scouter]

Just recently got a mailing from our Council. Addressed to Scoutmasters, it contained a list of all the Webelos Scouts in our District that completed the fifth grade but did not join a Boy Scout Troop. We, the Scoutmasters, are encouraged to call these families and invite the boys to join our Troop. This, the letter explains, is in an effort to boost our crossover numbers.

 

I like the idea, but am not sure about making a bunch of cold calls to people, especially if those same families may receive phone calls from many Scoutmasters.

 

I am thinking of first sending them a letter, introducing myself and our Troop and including a calendar of our activities and contact information. Then mentioning that I would call on them in a week or so.

 

Any advice?

 

 

[Lisabob]

Boy I'm really interested to hear what people think about this. I'm on our district membership committee and we've been talking about just this topic recently.

 

For me, no way would I do cold calls to a youth. Too much potential for it to come across as creepy, in their parents' eyes. Plus I don't know that it would be effective for a child to receive a call from some adult they've never met, asking them to join their troop.

 

We've talked too about turning over a list to the SMs. This brings up the question of releasing info (name, grade, address, phone #, school, birthdate) about boys who are no longer scouts, to a bunch of adults whom they do not know. While WE know (I hope) that all of our SMs are trustworthy types, the parents might be unhappy about this. I think I would be - not knowing who, how many, or what type of people now knew all of this info about my child.

 

What we've settled on, from the district level, is that we will send out a letter to the youth and a letter to the parent, inviting them to rejoin and to visit local troops. We'll include contact info for those troops. We'll tell the SMs that we're doing this (expect inquiries from potential new scouts) and we'll provide a list of names - but at this stage, not contact info - to the SMs so they know who we've sent the letters to in their area. The jury is still out on providing our SMs with more info than that and asking them to do what gwd is describing.

 

gwd, since you DO have the info - one thought we've also tossed around is having the SPL (or another scout) write a letter to the youth, and have the SM write a letter to the parent. They could be mailed together to save postage, but the SPL might speak more to the youth's perspective and interests. Especially if you live in a small town and other boys might know the SPL from school, sports, etc..

 

Please keep us posted here! I'm really curious to hear how things go.

 

 

[OldGreyEagle]

What if the SPL called the boy, or another member of the Troop that knows the boy?

[local1400]

Lisa, how can you be so right so early on a Sunday morn? I think the council should send a letter to the boys with info on Troops in their immediate area. While that may take some effort, it could save time because some folks don't know where they live. But I don't necessarily think a call to a former Webelos ( or former 2C Scout either) from the SPL or a PL is a bad idea. Find a Scout in your unit who is really comfortable with making the pitch. GWD, this could really boost your units numbers and help it survive!

[John-in-KC]

I have to agree. Sticking the SM with a cold call on a boy has potential of image of non-youth-protection.

 

Has anyone thought about dividing the list by SCHOOLS??, then sending out the list to units based on where they catch youth? David, the Star Scout, just might be willing to invite Jack, the "dropped out of Webelos."

 

When we do internet recharter, there's a portion of the report which lists the dropped youth. Maybe, just maybe, we ought to have units ask "Why is Billy dropping" as part of the recharter process.

 

Thoughts?

[Lisabob]

We've talked about dividing our lists by school. For the cub packs this works reasonably well, as most of our packs draw from a specific school most of the time. This does not work well in a couple of areas though. For the town where the elem. schools are set up so one building houses all of the K-1, another building houses all of the 2-3, and another houses all of the 4-5 for the whole district, or (at troop/crew level) where the town only has one middle or high school, division by school isn't useful. Probably the latter is more of a problem in small town and rural America than in suburban and urban areas.

 

I like the idea of the boys being involved where possible in recruiting their friends - if you can convince the scouts to do so.

[John-in-KC]

Recruiter strip/patch is one bauble...

 

Many Councils have special things for kids who recruit other kids...

 

There's always option of special "recruiters only" activity.

[ASM915]

gwd,

18 months back, one day while at Council, our former DE haded me such a list, of District Webelos that apparently had not joined Troops. The District covers the whole western side of our county.

 

What I did was go though the list looking for addresses that fell within a geographic area around the town that our Troop meets in. Every listing that had the two phone number exchanges that was fell within our village and township, along with any listings within a 5 mile radius were put on my list.

 

The Troop then set a day for an Open House. Troop introductory letters were sent out to the boys inviting them and their parents to come to the event. The Thursday before the Open House, a few leaders made calls to the parents asking if they had received the invitation, and inviting them again to come. If the parent felt distance was a factor, other Troops that might be closer were promoted instead.

 

One word of advice, the Council's list is not always up to date. Three of the boys had joined Troops, and the parents found it interesting that their sons hadn't shown up on Council recharter lists.

 

Good luck,

Eric

[Eagledad]

This was one of my jobs back when I was both a SM and the District membership Chair. There are a couple things that should be mentioned. At least in our area, 90% of those Webelos who didn't crossover didn't have a good Cub experience while they were Webelos. My research and observations found that most of these scouts didn't have a good adult leader. There are a host of reasons, but it all comes to the same conclusion, it wasn't fun, so why move on?

 

It has got to appear FUN first if you are to bring them for a look-see. I'm not one to plan an activity specifically for recruiting because I think a Troop meeting should be good enough to do that for you. But this is one area I think a fun recruiting activity works well. I like the idea of an open house. Find a local area to set up a campsite and plan fun activities for these scouts. Make sure the scouts run the activities so the Webelos see what they didn't see in their Webelos Den, youth leadership. The activities should be cool stuff that involves outdoor gear like canoes, backpacks, rappelling, and even a climbing wall if possible. The activities should be physical and should not involve crafts. Likely they have been crafted to death in they previous boring Webelos den. Free food like hot dogs, hamburgers and cobbler always attract folks as well. Our troop once did a hot rod night by the guys working on their Auto-mechanics MB.

 

Our District tried a Troop night where all the Troops provided an activity and displays of their troop. It worked pretty well for those webelos dens that showed up, but I always felt the lazy dens who who needed it the most missed out.

 

You can make this as easy or as complicated as you want, but it needs to appeal to pre-teens.

 

Done right and you might get a half dozen new scouts, but my experience is you will only get 10 to 20 percent of the scout scouts on the list.

 

As for who to call. I agree about getting you local area, but we did have scouts in our troop from as far as 10 miles away when they saw our program. I know that doesn't help much there.

 

I hope this triggered some ideas.

 

Barry

[Gonzo1]

I think the letter is a good idea, but it should be personal, not a council generated form letter sent with bulk rate postage.

 

A real signature, hand addressed and a real stamp shows there was some effort put into it.

 

GWD, you could split up thie list, some for yu, a few for the CC, some for SPL, etc.

 

[Scouting Mom]

gwd, I think your letter followed by a call is a good idea.

 

A bulk mailing from the council is a bad idea because if their reasons for not joining were because they didn't like their Webelos experience or they visited one troop and didn't like it, a letter from the council will be ignored.

 

The Webelos from our pack this past year almost didn't crossover. The DL was a last minute substitution when the old DL stepped down and he wasn't real gung-ho. He just muddled through because someone had to. The troop that we traditionally crossover to is struggling and made a poor impression on the boys and their parents during their visit with them. It never occurred to most of the boys that there was another option.

 

The CC is a big-time supporter of scouts and strongly encouraged the boys to visit another troop, if they didn't like the first one. He told them several times how much different Boy Scouts was from Cubs. A week before our B&G, when we traditionally do crossover, when we had OA dancers scheduled months in advance to perform a crossover ceremony, when the agreed upon term of the temporary W2 DL would expire, we didn't know if there were any boys crossing over. In that week, the boys went to visit the other troop and everyone of them crossed over. I understand from the parents who are still around with younger boys that the boys are happy with the troop they choose.

 

It was a near thing because they didn't know they had a choice. I imagine many boys still don't know they have choices. If you write a letter outlining their choices, I imagine many of them will be happy to check it out.