recruitment night's for Boy Scouts

[pack330]

I am the current Membership Chairperson for our area and I am having a hard time getting the Boy Scout Troops in our area to put on a recruitment night. Any ideas for having a successful night? What works for your council or area? HELP?

[Fat Old Guy]

We had the opposite problem. We had a "Recruitment Saturday" and 11 out of 13 troops showed up with a display of some sort. Some had photos, some had video tapes. Some had just a gang of Scouts to talk about the program.

 

Unfortunately, only 10 Cub Scouts showed up. That's from a district with about 20 Packs.

 

 

[Eamonn]

Recruiting Boy Scouts is tough.

Boys of this age have far more say in what activities they want to be involved in and in some cases parents set a limit on how many activities a boy can be involved in.

By far the best way to get new boys to join a troop is peer to peer recruiting. Which in most cases is a result of a healthy program that the Lad who is the Scout wants to share with his pals.

We used to hold a Scout Fair in a local hall. All the troops gave a demonstration of some sort and Lads of Scout age were invited. As Fog has posted the attendance wasn't that great.

We have asked Scoutmasters to go into the 5th and 6th Grades and do a boy talk and then invite the Boys to an open house.

Much as I hate to be pessimistic, I think that at times the goals set for membership chairpersons are a little high. Sure we can do a School Sign up for Cub Scouts and come away with several hundred Cub Scouts. But it this is not the case in Boy Scouts. Most troops will only get two or three Scouts. This lack of numbers leads to the Scout Leadership thinking "Is it worth it?"

Still this is not a good enough reason not to give it a whirl.

Getting the Troops to buy into the idea?

We start by telling the troops that Flyer's and people are going into the Schools at the same time asking if they want to go into the school that feeds their troop.

We ask them for the date of their Open House and make them aware that tapes about high adventure facilities the summer camp promotion video are available. Working with the Commissioner Staff we get them to "Work On" the Troop Leadership and let them know that the Unit Commissioner and some of the "District Types" would really appreciate an invite to the open house. At times we have taken the Scout Exec. with us. All of this is to let everyone know that we are taking this very seriously and we want it to work.

We have also had prizes for the Scouts that bring a pal along with special patches and hats.

If this fails we look to the Membership Chair and pray that they keep having boys!! - Good Luck with the new little one. (I nearly posted little fellow.)

Eamonn

 

[fgoodwin]

Rick Seymour ("kudu" on this Forum) has an excellent webpage which discusses how Troops can recruit at public schools:

 

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

[SeattlePioneer]

Unfortunately, Eamonn accurately describes many of the reasons why recruiting Boy Scouts is difficult.

 

According to our DE, 80% of Boy Scouts come from Cub Scout crossovers. So support your Cub Scout Pack and get to know the Webelos Den Leader. If you don't have a feeder Pack, find one or start one.

 

Peer to peer recruiting is powerful, if you can motivate your Scouts. Devise a program to do that.

 

Beyond that, according to our DE, it requires an AVERAGE of six invitations before a boy will attend a new Troop meeting. So you need to devise a way to follow up repeatedly to convert a name into a new Scout.

 

That means you need to get the name, address and age of boys of Scouting age, and follow up repeatedly. Last year, the best method of getting names turned out to be the carnival held by a local elementary school PTA. I devised and conducted a Stationary Bicycle Race, timing how long it took competetors to cycle 1/2 mile on the odometer. Of course, in order to keep track of winners, I needed to get the name, address, phone number and age of each competetor (gotcha!).

 

I then worked those names over and over, taking little awards for pariticipating to the boys home in person (and in uniform) and returning repeatedly with invitations to Troop meetings and campouts.

 

Even then, it was tough.

 

Last year I did that carnival by myself and got about forty names of boys. That ran me ragged!

 

This year, our troop is (1) camping with the Cub Scout Pack overnight June 4 & 5th and having the Webelos crossovers camp as a new boy patrol as Boy Scouts. (2) Doing the elementary school carnival as a troop activity June 11th.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

[Student]

In our district, one energetic volunteer compiled a list of the troops, their meeting times and locations, number of Scouts, contact information, and any special notes the troop wanted to make known (significant upcoming activities, extent to which Scouts led the troop, etc.). This booklet was then distributed to every pack in the district. This has been a significant resource for the packs, as most of the Webelos leaders and families did not know what opportunities were available. Overall retention levels increased--most troops gained new members that would otherwise have been missed.

Also, after the first edition of the booklet was distributed, troops were more careful to ensure they had complete and compelling listings in the subsequent printing.