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JSN results
John and Bernadette Curry (bernadettejohn@SPRYNET.COM)
Mon, 28 Sep 1998 23:47:03 -0400
We've been having a great recruiting effort this year. But not with a formal
Join Scouting Night.
We are a second-year pack chartered to the Knights of Columbus and draw most
of our youth and leaders from the parish. There is also a new Venturing
(Post? Crew?) chartered to the Knights and an established Troop chartered to
the church.
We start in August with a sign-up table after every mass (service) with
displays, den flags, pack flag etc. leaders in uniform and loads of youth in
uniform to snag the boys exiting the church. Parents help out by answering
the basic questions (parents seem less intimidating than uniformed leaders
to the new folks). We got great response - mostly Tiger- & troop-age youth
this year although last year we had a spread from Tigers to Senior Webelos.
We follow-up with all the families by phone inviting them to an orientation
meeting and question and answer session (the traditional JSN presentation -
well almost). We always mail out the current pack newsletter to the
prospects. I consider it great that I only got 2 back for bad addresses.
At JSN we do break outs and try to get the dens organized and leaders
signed-up ASAP - this year we only had a Tiger Jam - the rest were passed
onto the Troop and Venturing leaders. The transfers, most from military and
job related moves, fit into existing dens (lucky us). Those den leaders
contacted the families and have integrated them into their dens already.
Many have 5 or more den meetings and a pack meeting under their belts now.
The response to the August effort was 16 youth - 6 more than we graduated,
but not nearly enough to make up for Tiger attrition (a long sad story not
for this posting).
In September two leaders in uniform make presentations in the classrooms
(1 - 5). This year they carried the equipment for a multi media presentation
of the Jr. Webelos at Resident Camp (Goshen) and got 60 boys interested in
Scouting. We are now in the process of contacting the families and have
about a 20% response (so far) that they will be at the next Pack meeting. We
will have break-outs again to organize dens and (hopefully) sign-up leaders.
We're planning on a combined 4th 5th grade den of new to Scouting boys. The
5th grade transfers will go into an existing den.
I always pray that we get enough leaders to be able to give Scouting to all
the interested boys.
We get flyers to all the CCD (Sunday School) boys (grades 1 - 5) just before
the October pack meeting. This is where the response is poorest - these kids
have already (hopefully) been hit by their neighborhood public schools. Next
year we will consider obtaining permission to approach these boys in the
classrooms as well.
The pack also received permission for all the youth to wear their uniforms
to the parish school once a month - we consider that a subtle recruiting
tool that wasn't available to us last year.
Last year we went from 16 to 48 youth. Unfortunately we lost one boy (3rd
grade) for lack of leadership. He has stayed in Scouting (thanks be...) but
not with us. This year I anticipate that we will climb to about 60+ boys in
8 - 11 dens - 2 Tiger, 3-4 Wolf (1 new), 1-2 Bear (1 new), 1 JR/SR Webelos
(new), 1 Jr. Webelos (full), 1 Sr. Webelos (full).
Heaven help me, that's only one hour a week right?
YIS
BMC
Committee Chair
Acting Tiger Coach
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