Recruiting and Goals

We are in the midst of our recruiting drive for Fall 2008. As I have been sidelined in one of my recruiting schools, I had to make a presence at a pre-rally night event or "Meet the Teacher" night. My objective at this event was to soothe my parents who have kids attending the school. My DE ninja'd the school from my recruiting plan for this fall. For those not familar with the term Ninja'd, in many online games it refers to someone swiping reward, loot, booty, etc. from the deesrving player while they are distracted.

Either my DE pulled the wool over my eyes on this or he had the wool pulled over his eyes. The DE says that the unit he ninja'd my school for has 6 scouts. The unit leader at the event said 21 to one person and 17 around me. I am not, at this point, assigning any blame to anyone.

Being the A-1 high speed, low drag, goal oriented scout leader that I am, I took our council /districts offer for School Night for Scouting training. It would appear that the things I heard in the training they did not or they did not attend the training I did. One of the top things they said was get people to sign in. If they stop and talk, they'll sign in. If they sign in you can follow-up and see if they joined or if they did not, and why. The Council even provides 2 copy carbonless forms for this. It sounds simple, right. I guess not. My top recruiter/leader provided the other unit these forms and they did not use them. I was like, why? Why bother showing up? Why bother trying to help? Why? Why? Why?

Rather than rant, Here is how I feel you should set up recruiting at events not specfically setup as recruiting events. I like this method as it is not a high pressure tactic, people come and get information, you allow them to sign up if they want to, otherwise they can leave. This gives you the chance to set a good and lasting impression.

1. Ask for a great location where people can see you. Either at the entry door, or at an area where everyone must walk past you at least once.
2. Setup your area in a fashion that works. If you have a table next to the wall use the science project display boards. Take any thing that a boy would think was bling like and or fun. For cubs this means, Derby cars, Regatta boats, Space derby rockets, have the pack buy a cub scout belt and every belt loop just for the recruiting display. Remember if they can touch it they will want it. If the see it they will remember it. if you tell them about it, you have lost them. Take you pack flag, If you are a new pack make ribbons to hang from it. Above all remember this is the only first impression you can make.
3. Hand out as much information as you can to the kids and parents, if you don't normally make a Pack newsletter, make one for this. you can use the Cub Scout Pack templates off the national council site. http://scouting.org/cubscouts/resources/newslettertemplate.aspx This should include everything you can think of for the next 90 days in your upcoming activities section. If scouts are busy, they are tired. If scouts are tired, they had fun.
4. Record the name of the boy and parent, their phone number and / or email address. Even if they are not old enough or too old to participate. If they are too young, tell them about all the great things they will get to do when they join in the spring. Summer camps, pool parties, baseball games, anything you do each summer. If they are older than your program send them information on units they can participate in and send their information to your district so they can have the right units contact them.
5. Follow-up! The best person from your unit to contact them is their den leader. Make sure you communicate the next few meetings with them. This is somewhat presumptuous, but it will work. The best way to tell or sell someone about scouting is to show them scouting.

We all setup Centennial Unit goals for recruiting. The council will measure it for you at the end of the year, But it is up to you to track and keep progress on your goal. Only you can measure the steps of a boy asking about cub scouts and becoming a cub scout.

There are things I missed or skipped here, but this should get you through a school fair or meet the teacher night. I hope to blog some more about recruiting at the Scout Night.