What is the first two things new parents ask scouters?

[Scoutfish 16]

In my experience, the first 2 things new parents ask are:

 

1) How long have you been in scouting?

 

and

 

2) Do I have to stay here with him?

[Basementdweller 608]

so how much does it cost??

 

Do I gotta stay?

[howarthe 42]

In my limited experience, the first two things were:

(1) How much does it cost?

(2) What sort of time commitment are we looking at?

 

But they very soon got around to

 

Do I have to stay? I have a tiger group, so the answer was yes.

[momof2cubs 10]

How much does it cost and do can I drop off.

 

The money doesn't faze a lot of them because we explain all they get out of it. But when it comes to realizing that BSA does not, in fact, stand for Baby Sitters of America, it's a whole different ball game.

[beardad 12]

We nipped everybody's #2 in the bud head on. Our pack requires EVERY parent to stay. we make it very clearly known that we are a "no drop off pack"

 

This is one of the things that drew me to this pack after our old when folded. works well. we still have parents that don't really want to get involved, but if you hand them a task, they will do it.

[AKdenldr 33]

1.) how often do you meet, when and where

2.) what do you do (really, they already know the answer to this.)

3.) what are my responsibilities? (asked in different ways.)

 

around 4th is "how do you handle God?". In our recruitment group, inclusiveness and home approach to this is the answer that the parents are listening for.

 

-- AK

[kudzu 10]

Like most everyone else, up high is "How much does it cost?" but we also get "Where do you meet?" which, it turns out, is mostly a variation on "How much time does this take?" Now, sometimes that's because they don't want to drive across town (we're sadly one of just three non-LDS packs in town, and we draw a lot of kids from the other side of town from where we meet because there's not a pack over there), but it's often also because they have other kids who are involved in all sorts of activities, too, and they have to shuttle numerous kids around at different times every evening.

[Jeffrey H 25]

1) How much does it cost?

2) Where do you meet and how often?

3) What things do you do besides have den meetings? (my favorite question)

 

Tiger parents must stay but beyond Tiger we do not require parents to stay as long as we have good coverage. Generally, most parents will hang around, help out, and be there to keep with up announcements.

 

Quite honestly, some parents need to leave for the meeting hour. Things go much better and everyone is happier. I don't want to lose a Scout over a parent that can't hang around when the program does not require them to be there.

[Scoutfish 16]

Beyond Tigers, we also do not require parents to stay, but I told parents that you must be there the first and last 5 minutes of the meeting time.

 

I did this because some parents would pull up in the parking lot, let the kids out and leave. This would cause a den to sometimes not be able to take advantage of a special event that just came up, or sometimes, our DL's couldn't let parents know about last minute or unexpected changes due to extenuating circumstances.

 

Sometimes a scout forgets to tell mom and dad they are doing a presentation or needs to bring a few dollars for X activity.

 

 

It also stopped alot of the "Nobody told me" problems too.