Recruiting

New Member Coordinator Info-2019/20

Stronger Families through Scouting

Recruiting Ideas -- To Help Your Unit Attract New Youth and Leaders. Every Unit Wants More Youth and Leaders ... so, here's some Recruiting Tools to welcome kids and family in your community. You can apply these with the Pack Leader's Guide to Recruiting attached below. And on the left Menu, see the pages on Creating a Calendar of Fun Activities, Recruiting Leaders (Turning Parents into Leaders), Flyers and Media, School and Community Presence, Sign Up Events, and Troop Recruiting ... this page is the Recruiting Overview.
The Key Idea: successful unit recruiting needs a Unit Activities Plan. Which Pack sounds more fun?
"Welcome to our Pack, we'll have a meeting to talk about what we might do!"
or
"Welcome to our Pack, look at our calendar of fun activities! Join Us!"
Right: activities are more fun than Meetings. Getting fun activity ideas into your Program Planning is what makes Units successful and attractive.

If you can't tell families what you plan to do, why would they join you?
So, Recruiting Job One is plan a calendar of fun activities
- ... even if you don't know exactly who will lead them yet ...
  - If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
... to help you, here is a set of activity ideas for your Scouts for every month of the year so you can have fun like this.

If you do activities families like to do, they will join you, and that is what recruiting is all about. And if it's fun for kids, fun for families, and safe ... it's Cub Scouting! The big Pack Sign Up Night at School as scheduled by the District Professionals is certainly "one" tool to recruit new members, but not the only tool. Use all your tools!

If You Build it, They Will Come:
If You Build It (a calendar of fun activities), They (Scouts and families) Will Come.
Then Let People Know your Plan, using both Flyers and Social Media (there are many ways to broadcast).

To help you do this, build a "New Member Coordinator" team.

New in 2018, the BSA is promoting the idea of getting a team of parents to be New Member Coordinators, acting as a "peer to peer" welcome of families into your unit.
These volunteers don't need to know everything about Scouting and do all that unit leaders do, they just need to know their unit and be welcoming (friendly, courteous, kind, etc.).
- They can take on many parts of these recruiting steps.
The idea (and the training modules through my.scouting.org) is excellent in "sharing the load" of new member recruiting, communicating and welcoming, but keep this in mind about the official resources:
- they assume that your Pack has a fully developed calendar and a fully recruited and engaged and trained team of leaders sufficient for your Pack ...
- so ... modify their advice that new families don't need to step up as leaders, because ... in most packs, new families do need to step up ... if there are no leaders, there is no program.
- That's why we put so much emphasis on building the infrastructure of your pack by recruiting leaders.

And Recruit Families, not just Kids! Cub Scouting is a family program, so the goal is NOT to sign up new youth. The goal is to sign up new families!

The Cub Scout program is a family program -- every parent helps.
That shouldn't be a "turn off" for parents and guardians -- the Scouting program is designed to make stronger connections between kids and adults, which will make parenting easier!
Without parental involvement -- adult leaders -- there can't be a Scouting program.

If your Pack has only a few active engaged leaders, recruit carefully: either be sure you're lining up more active, engaged leaders, or only bring on numbers of youth your current leaders can handle. As you get the attention of current and prospective families with your calendar of activities, turn parents into helpers, and helpers into leaders.
Recruiting Needs to be Much More than School Sign Up Nights and Buzz Ups. Successful and Sustainable Recruiting is a Process ... the Pack Leader's Guide to Recruiting describes these six steps:

Make a Calendar of Fun Activities that families like
Let People Know -- Promote Your Fun Events! Let Families and Organizations Know your Pack Fun Event Plan -- Families join Packs that do things ... Kids join Units that Go Places and Do Things ... let them know what you're doing ... there are many ways.
Recruit More Leaders and Helpers - one by one, find folks who can help your unit out (do this throughout your recruiting process)
School and Community Presence -- show your School and Community the Fun of Cub Scouting, and you'll get more School and Community support.
Once you've laid that foundation, have Sign Up Events: School Sign Up Night, sure, and Fun Events Too!
More Fun Events. Keep expanding and extending your Calendar of Fun Events … that’s what makes families join and stay!

All of these steps help your success at Sign Up Nights at Schools -- see Our Ideas here about Signup Nights and Signup Events.
There are More Recruiting Resources from the http://scoutingwire.org Marketing and Membership hub for more ideas. And know this:

no recruiting method works every time for everyone, but ...
every recruiting method works some of the time for someone.

Membership Committee Ideas. Some ideas about Membership Committee support roles are found at our page called District Help Wanted (Ways to Help Multiple Units). There are many ways for people to help. Some involve getting in front of kids or parents, others involve no public speaking, some can be done at night or on weekends, and many of the roles have connections with other Unit Support roles of a District, like Public Relations, Unit Service, Activities, Training and more.

AttachmentSize:
Pack_Leaders_Guide_to_Cub_Scout_Family_Recruiting.doc103 KB
1 Unit_Recruiting_Training_Roundtable_Powerpoint.pptx6.63 MB
Recruiting Resources Request Form.DOCX13.1 KB
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Every unit wants more youth and leaders so, here's some recruiting tools you can use to generate interest among kids, parents, neighbors and folks affiliated with your chartered organization and community.