Recruiting in the Public Schools

[Kudu]

I gave my recruiting presentation again this Monday.

 

We are allowed to meet with all of the sixth grade boys at our local school during school hours. We lost that privilege for a number of years when a new principal took over. We never pushed the issue with her and last year one of our Scouts (who spent more than his share of hours in the Vice Principal''s office and detention), discovered that the Vice Principal (in charge of discipline) is a strong supporter of Scouting. Our bad boy Scout (on his own initiative) then single-handedly reestablished our Troop''s former recruiting privileges through this Vice Principal.

 

Six grade boys will always try to hoot you off the stage but you can silence them with the Promise of Scouting.

 

I do it this way:

 

I set up my tent next to an artificial campfire. The auditorium lights are dimmed very low. A boom box plays forest sounds.

 

I speak a couple of feet from the first row. If necessary I stop to absolutely silence any and all whispering.

 

My pitch goes like this:

 

1) Scouting was invented a hundred years ago this summer. B-P invented Scouting to teach Citizenship. Citizenship is working together in a community. The community in Scouting is called a "Patrol." A Patrol is made up of you and seven of your friends under the leadership of an older boy called a "Patrol Leader." You will shop for food and cook together, pitch your tents together, hike together, and plan your adventures together; all in a program led by these Patrol Leaders standing next to me.

 

2) For Scouts to run our program, we must have MANY STRICT RULES! (Holding up Scout Handbook):

 

a) The first rule is that you must learn how to deal with bears (I tell some bear stories while holding Scout Handbook over my head).

 

b) The second rule is that you must learn how to deal with rattlesnakes (some rattlesnake stories).

 

c) The third rule is that you must carry a knife (you must prove to one of the Patrol Leaders standing next to me that you are qualified to carry a Totin'' Chip Card).

 

d) The fourth rule is that you must carry matches or other fire-starters, and cook a meal over a fire you start (I strike my Spark Tool as I explain the Firem''N Chit Card).

 

e) The fifth rule is that you must carry a first aid kit while hiking (I hold up a first aid kit and tell the story of our Scout who saved his dad''s life with the CPR skills he learned in Scouting).

 

3) Those are some of the rules that YOU ALL must follow. But we also offer other things that you don''t have to do (Rifle, Shotgun, Archery, Canoe).

 

Contrary to Wood Badge Logic, boys DO still have a deep longing for outdoor adventure, and it is exactly the same longing that their great-grandfathers felt.

 

Unfortunately, their parents are a very different story :-(

 

The preliminary statistics are as follows:

 

Total boys attending presentation: 56 +/-

Total boys not already in Scouts who want to join our Troop (sign up sheet): 36

Total parents who said "Yes": 12

Total parents who said "Maybe": 7

Total parents who said "No": 0

Total parents who hid behind voice mail: 14

Total wrong phone numbers impossible to figure out: 3

 

Total boys who actually made it to the first meeting: 6 (plus one older brother).

 

I tried some new things this year, but the old version of my sixth-grade recruiting presentation (including some notes on peer pressure) can be found at The Inquiry Net:

 

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

 

Yours in Traditional Scouting,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

 

[Ohio_Scouter]

Kudu,

 

Great recruiting speech. How do I sign up?

 

You may want to consider adding white-water rafting, kayaking, knife and tomahawk throwing, mountain climbing, rappelling into a 200 foot underground cave, etc., that is, if indeed your Scouts do these activities. Oh, at Philmont we now have to learn how to deal with mountain lions, too.

[Trevorum]

Terrific spiel! You clearly remember what it is like to be an 11 year old boy! Love the "strict rules" bit! It''s the sedition that makes it especially great. And congratulations to your scout "mole" in the VP''s office. He''s a heads-up fellow.(This message has been edited by Trevorum)

[BrentAllen]

I guess I''m going to have to turn in my WB beads since I totally missed the lessons where WB logic was taught as Kudu describes. Otherwise, good speech.

 

Have you seen the National High Adventure Promotion video? It features information on Northern Tier, OKPIK, Sea Base and Philmont. I''ve heard it is very good, and could be an excellent recruiting visual aid. I''m not sure how long it is, or how easy it would be to skip around in it. It is available from Northern Tier. $10 includes shipping

http://www.ntier.org/Adobe%20Documents/VIDEO%20ORDER%20FORM.pdf

[Trevorum]

By the way, if you''ve read the thread this far and haven''t yet linked to Ricks recruiting page, do it now. It really is full of great ideas.

 

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

 

 

 

[insanescouter]

Wow, that seems like a radical way to wrangle them in, I am sending your thoughts on to our Scoutmaster ...

 

Scott Robertson

http://insanescouter.org

Helping leaders one resource at a time

[ozemu]

Good job Kudu.

 

Does it work with small schools. Lots of our schools number 100 or so and therefore only about 20 in the right age bracket. They know each other really well - which could go both ways.

[ozemu]

Good job Kudu.

 

Does it work with small schools. Lots of our schools number 100 or so and therefore only about 20 in the right age bracket. They know each other really well - which could go both ways.

[evmori]

Great job! Kudos to Kudu~

[Kudu]

(This message has been edited by Kudu)

[Kudu]

Thanks to everyone for their positive feedback!

 

Ohio_Scouter writes:

 

"You may want to consider adding white-water rafting, kayaking, knife and tomahawk throwing, mountain climbing, rappelling into a 200 foot underground cave, etc., that is, if indeed your Scouts do these activities. Oh, at Philmont we now have to learn how to deal with mountain lions, too."

 

Yes, those are all in the spirit of the presentation. We did tie our October 5th mountain climbing trip "You can see into Canada, Vermont, and on a clear day the White Mountains of New Hampshire" into both the cooking and the bears themes. Can''t say that I have ever rappelled into a 200 foot underground cave, but the more stuff that your Troop does (even if only at summer camp) the more likely you will strike a cord with a sixth-grader who has been dreaming of doing such a thing.

 

Here is some information on Axe Throwing:

 

http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/skills/axe/axe_throwing.htm

 

BrentAllen writes:

 

"Have you seen the National High Adventure Promotion video?"

 

The spoken word works better for me if I have a captive audience and the ability to dim the lights and show off camping toys as I talk. I will look into the video for back at the Scout room, especially for the parent''s presentation. I''m thinking of getting the Scouts up to Scout "rank" at the first campout and bringin the parents in for a Court of Honor and Parent''''s orientation.

 

ozemu writes:

 

"Does it work with small schools. Lots of our schools number 100 or so and therefore only about 20 in the right age bracket. They know each other really well - which could go both ways."

 

I have had great success with audiences of around 25, but in larger schools. Yes, it can work both ways, but if you capture the imagination of the alpha-males in a small group you can bring a high percentage in. Discipline can be a problem, but we had one very popular boy bring in an additional six boys himself so to earn a Patrol Leader badge.

 

Surprisingly, the only small group that this presentation does not work well with for me is Cub Scouts who are ready to "cross over" into Boy Scouts. It seems to scare them away. On the other hand, it does work very well with the sixth-grade boys who dropped out of Cub Scouts along the way because they hated the whole indoor scissors and paste thing. Many parents express shock at their rough and tumble boy wanting "anything to do with Scouts again" :-)

 

Here is a second week update of my Recruiting in the Public Schools statistics for this year:

 

Total boys attending presentation: 56 +/-

Total boys not already in Scouts who want to join our Troop (sign up sheet): 36

 

Second Round of Phone Calls

 

Total parents who said "Call back after religion classes / football season": 3

Total parents who said "No": 4 ("Mondays are Busy," "No Time," "Ice Hockey," "Tae Kwon Do on Mondays")

Total parents converted from hiding behind voice mail: 8 ("You do not have to go camping with your son")

Total parents still hiding behind voice mail: 6

Total wrong phone numbers impossible to figure out: 2 (One called me as a result of flyer)

 

Second Meeting

 

Total boys who actually made it to the second meeting: 14 (13 plus a 13yo older brother).

 

Total paid registrations so far: 9 (plus 2 more promised)

 

Changes to Presentation

 

There is nothing in the world of Scouting more satisfying than to face 55 mocking sixth graders who want to "hoot you off the stage" and in 40 minutes through the spoken word convince 36 of them to sign up in front of their peers to be a Boy Scout.

 

This feeling that "all is right with the world" turned to bitter sorrow and self-doubt for me last year when only six of them showed up at the meeting. What had I done wrong? So this year I decided to make some changes:

 

1) Greater Sense of Urgency

 

a) The previous year I scheduled the presentation on a Friday to give the parents a three day notice of the Monday weekly Scout meeting. Looking at the success rate, I decided that this gave the boys too much time to change their minds. This year I scheduled the presentation on a Monday morning and called the parents after 3 PM, only four hours before the meeting. The number of boys who showed up to the first meeting this year was exactly the same as last year (6) but this increased to 14 on the second week.

 

b) I added a new hard-sell element to the presentation: "If you want to go camping with us, you MUST tell your parents that THIS is what you want to do. If you don''''t they will think that I am just a salesman and they will never return my call. If you don''''t tell them you want to join Boy Scouts how will they know that you really, really want to go camping with us?" "If you signed your name then raise your hand and take one of these information sheets. Make sure you give it to your parents as SOON as you get home." "Write very clearly, especially your phone number. If we can''''t figure out your phone number we will lose you!" This made a big difference. I believe all of the 36 parents were expecting my call.

 

2) Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

 

a) I shamelessly centered on the dangers of the wilderness and the importance of the Patrol Leaders'' rules regarding bears, rattlesnakes, knives, fire, cooking on a fire you make, first aid you need to save the life of someone you know, guns, shotguns, arrows.

 

b) I played "bad Jack Bauer" to my SPL''s "good cop."

 

c) Oh, and did I mention knives, fire, guns, & arrows?

 

3) Phone Calls to Parents

 

a) This year I teamed up with a friend, our former District Commissioner. He owns a medical supply company and is not only great at sales but also at selling the Scouting program to adults. We split up the phone list. He has the gift of gab and spent about three times longer with each parent than I did. Looking at the rate of boys who showed up to a meeting, it appears that a detailed discussion with the parents does not make any difference. The bottom line is that most parents say "yes" to Scouting not because of the importance they place on Citizenship, Character, & Fitness, or Eagle on a resume, but because their son is desperately clamoring to join.

 

b) During the presentation this year I placed more stress on the importance of the boys listing in the left column of the sign-up sheet the one activity that they want their Patrol to do first after joining. This gives me a topic to talk to their parents about: a conversation starter.

 

c) The biggest roadblock to recruiting is voicemail. Unlike ten years ago, almost half of the parents of the boys who want to join Scouting hide behind voicemail, no matter how many times I call. I made a breakthrough this year: A number of parents who did show up said that their son "had been in Scouts before," or that they couldn''''t believe that their son "wanted to be in Scouts again," or that they really were not looking forward to accompanying their sons on camping trips every month "but he seems really excited about Scouts again." So in the second round of phone calls I added the following message to all of the voice mail: "If this is a factor, Boy Scouts is different from Cub Scouts. At 11 years old, Boy Scouts are more independent and so parents are not required to accompany them to weekly meetings or monthly campouts." This appears to have made a big difference: eight of the people who hid behind voicemail called me back right away, with 4 of them converting to paid registrations the next day.

 

4) What I Will Do Differently Next Year

 

a) After the presentation a few boys came up to ask if they could play with the spark tools because they were not going to join. When I asked why, most of them were already Scouts but a couple of them had only assumed that their single mom would not let them join because she worked at night. I took their numbers and in both cases the mother arranged for transportation so that her son could join. So next year I may end earlier so that I can talk to more of them individually as they examine all of the Scouting toys on display.

 

b) I usually let my Scouts do the question and answer period but their answers tend to be too long. At least 15 arms are always straining with important questions at any given time, sometimes about stuff that we hadn''t answered in the presentation. The answers need to be shorter and to continue the sense of urgency that the presentation is designed to create.

 

The old version of my sixth-grade recruiting presentation can be found at The Inquiry Net:

 

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

 

Yours in Traditional Scouting,

 

Rick Seymour

http://inquiry.net/

 

[Ohio_Scouter]

Congratulations, Kudu. You''re obviously having too much fun! Now, if we can just find a way to help LisaBob with her recruiting.

[BrentAllen]

Kudu,

I ordered the High Adventure DVD - it is ok, but not exceptional. After viewing it, I don''t think it is exciting enough or put together in such a way to help much with the type of recruiting you discussed.

 

I''m still glad I ordered it, and I will get plenty of use out of it explaining to the boys what to expect at the different HA camps. It will be a good tool for talking with existing Scouts, but not ideal for new recruiting.