DE's and recruiting

[Cubmaster-Fred 10]

How involved do your DE's get as far as recruiting?

 

Our DE contacted the Elementary School here in town and arranged a recruiting night without contacting the Pack or anyone in it. She has sent out 2 flyers and our unit number and contact phone numbers are on neither. By doing this she has caused us to postpone our "Fishing for Cubs" night that we were planning.

 

Fred

[EagleInKY 14]

Your DE should coordinate the scheduling with you. If you are the only pack that recruits from the school, you should have a lot of input into the timing. If there are multiple packs, he'll probably just to the best he can to meet your needs.

 

Our DE's have often "oversold" and I get after them for that. I've heard the "it's only 1 hour a week" and I've heard the "it only costs $6 to try it for the rest of the year". Both, of course, are stretching the truth. We ask our DE to not say ANYTHING about costs or commitments, but let us work that into our presentation.

[Eamonn 61]

How involved do your DE's get as far as recruiting?

Maybe we should change the question!!

How active is the District Membership Committee?

I was very lucky that I had a great DE. The lines of communication were about the best.

District events, including recruiting were planned by the District Membership Committee and discussed at the District Committee meeting.

She understood "The System".

Sad to say her replacement is learning things the hard way!! He is trying very hard to be a one man band and worse he isn't communicating with anyone. Then the poor Lad gets upset when things don't work. I keep telling him that we can't help him if we don't know what he is doing!!

If I were you I would have a word with your COR and ask him to find out what the problem is ? When he attends the next District Committee meeting.

Eamonn.

[cubbingcarol 10]

BTW, the DE that Fred is referring to does not live in our town. This is a big headache, we had planned a fishing derby for the kids while the parents were signing them up, you know, keep the kids active, keep the parents happy. Our District wanted dates of recruitment nights so instead of calling or emailing my husband about our own plans she went ahead and scheduled this on her own. Ack!! Now what do we do? No one could get free tonight from our pack so there will be no local representation there. *pulling my hair out* Do we go ahead and schedule our own recruitment night as we had planned next month? HELP!

 

Carol (wife of CMF)(This message has been edited by cubbingcarol)

[Eamonn 61]

I know in both the Council and District in which I serve we strongly encourage units to go out and recruit, not just at this time of the year but all through the year.

I know if you came to me and said that you wanted to do your own thing, I would do everything that I could to help. I would have the DE copying the flyer's, seeing if the kits were available, raiding every resource that might be in the Service Center.

As District Chairman, I want to see the District make Quality. As little old me I believe that the more youth that join the better our chances are of meeting the vision and mission of the BSA, and the more fun these youth will have.

So I say "Go For It" Invite every kid in the school to join you at the fishing derby!!

Eamonn.

[scoutldr 732]

Could it be that new DE's are being trained "You can't wait for the volunteers to get around to doing things...it needs to be done, and if you want to keep your jobs, you must do it yourself."

 

I see a pattern here.

[Cubmaster Mike 10]

Maybe I've been lucky, but we had a new DE that started a few months after I took over as CM. He's been good to work with and listens and supports our recrtuitment efforts. If I need flyers, I tell him the information I need on it and he gets them printed up for us. We already have the District calendar with recruitment events from now until next June and we work our pack ones around it.

 

No complaints from me!

 

CMM

[Tami the Mom 10]

That doesn't seem like *helping* to me. Our DE is terrific. I have gotten to work with him pretty closely, and I know that his job hinges on building membership. One pack in our district didn't recharter, so now he has to find 35 new scouts to fill their hole. Now if they get a new CM in January, they now look like a new pack, which is good, but it looks like he still has those 35 seats to fill.

 

Still, going behind your back like she did, it sounds like you have an over-zealous DE on your hands. Has anyone called her and asked her not to do that- that you can't have leadership there, and that you already had something on the calendar?

 

I just reread your post- how did she plan for this recruitment night to pan out? If she did not include your pack in planning it, and put no pack number or contact phone numbers on the flyers, who exactly was she planning to have there to recruit new scouts? Was she going to be there by herself? I think the world of our DE, but no way on earth would I want him to do a recruitment night by himself! What can she tell new parents about your pack? Does she know anything about your unit? Pretty foolish move on her part. She's going to end up making herself look ignorant, and your pack look disinterested.

[Cubmaster-Fred 10]

Well I got myself in to the Cub Scouting mood, and gave myself the old its for the boys speech and managed to get to the recruiting that the DE was doing (of course I also brought Carol along). I was indeed 20 minutes late but I got there. As I arrived several parents were in the process of leaving and I invited them back inside. I gave a quick this is what we do speech followed by the I will contact you in the coming days to visit and answer all your questions talk.

 

I am glad I changed my mind because we now have 10 new Cub Scouts (3 Tigers, 2 Wolves, 4 Webelos I and 1 Webelos II). The DE was just collecting money and applications and basically gave them my phone number, that was it. They now have met me and have seen we have a true interest in thier boys.

 

She also informed me that from now on we would be doing our own recruiting. We have been running a proactive recruiting plan all year round and have shown results on a regular basis. I am glad she has decided to help and not run.

 

Fred

 

Eammon: as far as I know we don't have a District Committee. On the District level I think we have a Cub Scout RT commish (me), a Boy Scout RT commish and a DE.

 

And I think we might do the fishing thing anyway!

 

 

[ScoutNut 147]

Go ahead and do your fishing derby too. Who knows, you just might "hook" a few more!

 

[Lynda J 10]

This is the way that many Councils have been doing recruitment for a while. In most cases it does not work. I hate it. Last year the Pack ended up with 3 new boys only one stayed in.

Kids want to see what they will be doing when they join Scouts. They want to see their friends that are in Scouts. They don't want to be talked at by some fuddy duddy adult. They get that from teachers all day.

[jafyfe-bsa 10]

I stand on the middle of the fence with this issue. The only way that my boys joined scouting was through the DE having a meeting at their school. Through that one meeting our pack not only got my wife and I but two others just as dedicated to scouting. The Pack, though feeding from two schools, did nothing to invite the children from one school. The Pack was run by a group of people who were happy having three dens at about 5 boys per den.

 

This year my wife is the Membership Chair and is actively recruiting from the two schools. To have the DE come in now would really not benefit the Pack. However, my wife openly communicates with the DE about our recruitment, has attended all recruitment meeting hosted by the District and DE, and has shown huge efforts in recruiting.