troop recruiting

[Lisabob]

Sorry to start on a down note, but I''ve spent the last several weeks organizing and publicizing a community open house for all of the troops in my town. We (district membership) secured a site and got buy-in from 4 troops to participate. The troops put together displays, had activities planned, and took time away from their regular meetings to participate. We had it at a well-known and centrally located venue. We advertised through all of the local middle schools, through cub packs (esp. webelos DLs), through newspaper and radio spots, through flyers and roundtables, everything we could think of.

 

The event went off tonight. The troops showed up and did their part, for which I''m thankful. We had exactly one community member - and an adult, at that - visit us. No non-scout boys, no families, no cub leaders, no webelos dens. I''m really bummed out.

 

What did I over-look? What else can we do (could we have done?) to get the broader community to take notice of the Troops in our town? As a little background, we''re the fastest growing town in the fastest growing county in our state. There are 4 troops and 9 packs in town but combined the troops serve under 10% of eligible youth and two of the 4 troops are large enough that they''re not that interested in recruiting many more new scouts. (A third troop is an LDS troop and not actively seeking non-church members.) There''s talk of starting up a 5th troop in the next 3-4 years. The numbers are there. Where were all the people tonight?

 

 

[John-in-KC]

Lisa,

 

To me, the best recruiters are the boys themselves. Their willingness to wear a Class B t-shirt to school, to brag about the canoe trip last summer, to share the tale of getting that weight from the bottom of the pool for Lifesaving MB... that's where you will get the boys.

 

I would add: Scout Sunday at area churches seems to be a pretty good time for recruitment as well. The young men use their Class As instead of their regular church clothes, and they get to talk about it with some of the grown-ups of the parish. Some of the other boys (and girls, after all, Scout Sunday is for both Boys and Guides) start wondering why the grown-ups think the young man is so cool.

 

Other cool things that attract boys: Is there a rappel tower anywhere nearby? Jack seeing Billy on full belay, hands off the rope, trusting his belay partner... that can be cool.

 

What about a town pancake feed, where all 4 troops go together. Let the Scoutmasters and such be the SERVERS and BUSBOYS. Let the young men themselves have a "show-off" kitchen and be seen flipping the cakes and broiling the bacon!

 

Frankly, get the 4 SPLs and their ASPLs together. If there are any JASMs or Eagles, grab them too. Ask for how they'd go after the challenge. I'll bet they have better ideas than I do!

 

Does all that make sense?(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[John-in-KC]

Two true stories:

 

EagleSon is a HS senior now. Recently, a beloved Scouter in our Council, passed from this life. EagleSon, using Facebook, organized a tribute from the youth to this Scouter: On the day of his funeral, all the Tribesmen of Mic-o-Say (our internal honor society) at his (and several other area HSs) high school publicly wore their claw necklaces to class in memory of Fast Squirrel.

 

Last year, when EagleSon had his ECOH, he was part of a group of six. We had prepared a press release for the major city paper and the ''burb weeklies. EagleSon was taking web authoring that semester. He showed the photo and press release to his teacher, it ended up on the parents home page! Of the six, 2 were in the band and three were on the varsity football squad.

 

As long as we don''t make them wear their Class A uniform to school, they can and will be proud of what they do in Scouting!(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[gwd-scouter]

LisaBob. We had a similar experience a couple of years ago. One of our Eagle Scouts made a video describing his experience in Scouting. The video was terrific with his voice in the background as pictures of campouts, white water, Philmont, etc. moved across the screen. This was presented at both services of our mega-church chartered organization on Sunday, with invitation to come to our troop open house the next Monday. Only one boy and his parents showed up. I heard similar stories from other Troops in our District. Cub recruiting continues to go well, but Boy Scout recruiting is seeing less and less sign ups each year. Heck, we are even having more trouble getting our Webelos to crossover to Scout Troops each year.

 

It sounds like your district did a wonderful job in promoting your open house. Can''t think of a thing you could have done differently to make it successful. I will agree that our Scouts asking friends to join is the best way to get new Scouts, but even that isn''t providing us with a windfall of Scouts.

 

I am beginning to think that it''s not simply that Scouts is uncool and therefore boys don''t want to join, but the parents are stretched too far already taking their kids to multiple extracurricular activities and just don''t want to add one more thing to the list. This, of course, is merely a personal observation.

[OldGreyEagle]

The District I serve has a "Webelos meet the Troops" day each year, of late this has been during the Fall Cub Event, where Troops host stations for Cubs to visit and then the troops show off their skills. The best attended event was back when the "Webelos meet the Troops" occurred during ROundtable Troops set up displays and equipment demonstrations and COuncil (!) sent a post card to every registerd Webelos 1 and 2 inviting them and parents to attend. We had over a hundred. The the invites stopped, the venue changes and recruiting has dropped

[Ohio_Scouter]

Lisa,

 

I have to agree with John-in-KC. It''s well known that if you want young boys to show up somewhere, just exhibit some high-adventure "gear" like backpacking, climbing, caving, canoeing, sailing, mountain man activities (blacksmithing, knives, guns, tomahawks, etc.). Cool-looking cars with the hoods up and the engines exposed works, too!

 

We converted our Scout meeting place into a climbing and rappelling facility with several different climbing walls built by our older scouts and adults. All the Scouts practice climbing up and rappelling down the walls. They practice their cave ascending and descending by walking rope riggings from floor to ceiling. You ought to see how many unsolicited boys show up from the neighborhood and from other troops looking for something exciting to do.

 

We also have photos and mementos of all our high-adventure trips posted all over the walls. They talk about it constantly. I''m convinced the high-adventure angle works best! If you want more specifics, let me know. Better luck next time.

[WDL Mom]

Hi,

 

Our District ran a similar event recently. The DE''s did boy talks at all the area Jr. High Schools. We had 5 troops in attendance. 1 boy showed up. I heard through the grapevine about the event and ended up crashing with my Webelos II''s.... I didn''t know that it was only for Jr. High age kids. Ooops.

 

I am frustrated with a related situation. My den has 13 boys, all of whom have expressed interest in bridging to Boy Scouts. Our Pack feeds traditionally about 3 troops in town.

 

Troop 1 is large - 70+ kids. They probably don''t need to bother recruiting, just rake in the younger siblings.

 

Troop 2 is very small - 10 - 15 kids. We probably scare them to death.

 

Troop 3 is mid sized 25- 35 kids. They are in a leadership transition and it is starting to look ugly...

 

Anyway, I can''t get any of the troops to set up anything for the Webelos to be involved in. The camp outs they have planned are two - three hours away...not practical for a lot of my parents. I have suggested a one night camp out at a local park, a joint swim night at a local pool with no response! I asked if we could visit during their Camporee.... nothing.

 

I have been working on this since early August! WHY is this so blasted difficult?

 

 

[John-in-KC]

WDLMom,

 

Take any or all of these options: The object is to get the Troops off the dime...

 

1) Call your unit Commish, ask him for some assistance and intervention.

 

2) If you don''t have a Commish, call the DE, warn him he may lose boys. That''ll get him in gear, I promise.

 

3) Ask your COR to talk to their CORs. Sometimes a hammer on the head works wonders.

 

It should be easy, Troops should be back-reaching to Packs routinely, and not just expect the boys to show up on bridging night.

[Lisabob]

WDL mom, we had similar problems when "my" guys were webelos - could hardly get any response from local troops and I could NOT understand it. This is part of why I''m involved with district level webelos-scout transition programs now, because it was such a bad experience and this led directly to losing boys from the program.

 

On the other hand - looking at the same situation now, from the perspective of a somewhat more seasoned member of the Troop Committee too, I see that the boy-led aspect of troops tends to mean there''s a fair amount of chaos in many troops at this time of year. They have new SPLs who aren''t very experienced at leading or organizing, and their troop calendars may still be in a state of flux too. THis does add to the difficulty. And then there are issues of whether the adults in charge at the troops give a hoot about recruiting, or are any good at communicating, or know whom to communicate with! Often we get lists of cubmasters from the district (many of which are outdated) but not Webelos DLs, who are the people we actually want to talk to.

 

Take John''s options, for sure. I''m certainly not trying to excuse poor communication or execution on the troops'' parts! But I have found it to be a little more complex an issue than I originally thought.

 

 

[FScouter]

"Where were all the people tonight?"

 

On a Tuesday school night they were all likely at home doing home stuff or watching TV. Perhaps a Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon would have worked better.

[John-in-KC]

Lisa,

 

Good thought and feedback. That said, part of leadership development for the PLC should be "It''s time to plan for Webelos transitioning and bridging up to us? How do we recruit, how do we make them welcome?"

 

Problem is, I suspect WDLMom''s area troops are almost beyond that point now...

 

BTW, how is the "not a den chief den chief" doing? Your son is exactly the right sales tool to bring Scouting along... reaching back. That''s where we get most of the kids. I''d love to see some study-level data on capture of new kids into Scouting at the 6, 7, and 8 grade levels...

[WDL Mom]

LisaBob,

 

I can see myself as a Webelos Transition person for a troop once son bridges as well. I also plan on continuing as the Pack Trainer for our Pack, so I should have connections going both directions.

 

I had a thought. If the boys won''t/can''t come to your event, what about going to theirs?

 

For example, our Council has a huge Cub Scout Halloween camp out at our local camp. Go camping with your Pack and 900 of your closest friends! Carnival games, BB''s, archery, haunted house, hay rack rides and the whole bit. Thing is, by 5th grade the Webelos have been there a couple of times, and it is a little old hat to them.

 

Would there be any merit in setting up a Webelos Only area, that highlights Boy Scouting, with some cool activities for the Webelos?

Troops could relay information to parents and potential recruits...

 

It is always on the Council calendar, so everyone would know when and where....

 

What do you think?

[acco40]

Our district held a "Meet the troops Night" first at roundtable and then many years later at a centralized meeting place. The idea was for adults leaders to meet adult leaders (not for Webelos Scouts to meet Boy Scouts). Attendance steadily dropped.

 

This year, we held our third Webelos Transition Day on a Saturday morning (approx. 8:30 AM - 1:00 PM). A few volunteer troops teach a few skills (Totin'' Chip, Firem''n Chit, fire lays, etc.) and lunch is served. Parents, Webelos Scouts, Boy Scouts, WDL, SMs, etc. all get to meet. There is even a charge to attend ($10 per Webelos) but that actually helps increase attendance (I paid for it, I may as well attend).

 

Many forget, to the boys in a troop, having Webelos join is not usually a big priority. In fact, we''ve grown the past few years, sporadically, and when we get more than a full patrol of Webelos Scouts crossing over their is some resentment from some of the boys. This goes away soon after the boys get to know one another.

 

Unfortunately, I think Scouting in general is diminishing primarily because the adults don''t spend enough time delivering a quality program - both at the Cub and Boy Scout levels. The "I''m busy" excuse is used way to often. We are all busy. We just need to prioritize what we want to spend our time doing. For many, Scouts is way down on the list.

[awesome1_in_cc]

LisaBob,

 

Maybe it is just me but I really fell that any Troops best recruiting chance will come from the Webelos Level. Yes, some Scouts will recruit their friends but if a Troop depends on that method they are in trouble.

 

IMHO, most Troops need to do a better job of interacting with their local packs and providing joint activities for the two groups.

 

I really hate that you worked so hard and did not get the response you had hoped for.

 

On the other end of the spectrum our Troop held it''s first session of a program we call "Scouts teaching Scouts" last night and had close to 40 Webelos in attendance.

 

The readers digest version of the program is that Scouts from our Troop actually teach the Webelos their Activity pin requirements which gives the WDL a night off so to speak. Last night was the Readyman activity pin and the WDL and all the Scouts seemed to have great experience.

 

Keep your head up and keep at it as I''m sure you will find something that will grab their attention!!

[Gunny2862]

As a new Scoutmaster of a medium to small Troop, Recruiting is ALSO on my radar screen.

We are going to the Council held, advertised and run YEA, Webelos Woods program at our local Council Scout Reservation we are Sponsoring at least one Pack with Tentage, Breakfast, and possibly Dinner and Scout helpers to take the Webelos through the Councils program which we are also providing a skill set area for. We are reaching out to a second Pack also.

 

We have had Scouts ask about Den Chiefing as a POR and are developing a plan to reach out to several Packs as we have been burned in the past by sending out Den Chiefs to only one or two Packs only to be spurned when it came to transition time even though those troops that got the new Scouts took no interest in them as Webelos.

 

I realize that every ones time has demands but have you reached out to a nearby Troop about establishing a relationship? You would find us an enthusiastic contact.