Fall Recruiting Plans

[SeattlePioneer 144]

So what kind of plans is your pack making for a fall recruiting effort?

[adreyzin 10]

Our pack is going to Back to School Nights at our local schools. We also planning to get a table at our township day celebration (good opportunity to cell some pop corn too).

[suzisk8 12]

Our DE is going to have us do our own presentation nights. Not on Back to School Night so it is our night to shine. I am planning to have a table set up with projects that the boys have done and a slide show presentation of photos of the Pack as parents and boys make their way inside. We are encouraging boys that go to the school to come on that night so they can sell their fellow students on how fun it is. I will have a parent volunteer with the boys do a craft while I am pitching the parents. Also, we promote the Pack while doing popcorn sales and the annual Nevada Day Parade Halloween weekend. Going to change up our business cards (our outgoing Cubmaster just made them too busy) so our Facebook page is promoted and hopefully by that time our new website. Our Pack has three schools. One of the schools is a Christian school so I am going to also promote the Religious Emblems program. Our area is very tough to find a Non-Denominational God & Me program. Maybe my Bear Den might have a bike rodeo, we will see.

[adreyzin 10]

You know the new "Join Cub Scouts" yard sign. We've got those. I wanted to post one in the middle of our township next to the township sign where they advertise current events. Called township office and they guy in zoning told me since we are local non-profit chartered by our church we can get a permit to post one (only one) sign by that church. Oh and the discounted fees are $25 for non-profit.

We've been posting these signs wherever we could before without asking. Now it turns out that we need to shell out $25 to the township for each and they may not even let us.

I yelled at the zoning guy, told him it's ridiculous and he can go around township looking for the signs and take them down if he dares.

Am I being unreasonable? Do you think it is normal for the township to collect fees from us for the sign?

BTW there is also a $50 fine for removal of not permitted sign.

[SeattlePioneer 144]

When you have a table at a back to school night or other such activity, two things are required to make it a success in my experience:

 

 

1) An intrinsically fun activity that boys and parents can be drawn int to do in a couple of minutes

 

2) Someone with the soul of a carnival barker out fron to steer people in to do your activity.

 

 

For Cub Scouts, I find that hammering a nail into a board is a simple fun activity.

 

Steer parents into your table and let them coach their boy on hammering a nail. Completing that gives you the opportunity to invite the boy and family to your meeting or better yet to get the name and phone number of the family so that you can invite them to upcoming activities repeatedly.

[jc2008 25]

We did tables at the teacher meet and greets this year. We had parents fill out a form if they were interested in Cub Scouting and a nice little checkbox if they were interested in volunteering for den leader or assistant den leader. Actually got a lot of people marking that checkbox!

 

We had a posterboard with large pictures of the kids from last year and laptops running slide shows. We also had rocks. At the Dollar Tree you can get a bag of River rocks for $1 and there are like 30 or 40 rocks in that bag. We drew animal prints on the rocks with permanent marker and a printed out guide on the table to which animal made what print and the kids could match them up. We had like 2-3 bags of rocks so we let the kids pick out one of the rocks to take home with them after they did the matching. It got the kids engaged and they got a 'souvenir' rock to take home (all boys love rocks it seems).

 

Our first roundups are this week. We will probably also have another roundup after the open houses at the beginning of September as well, as our leaders also do a presentation at the open houses.

 

[Austinole 43]

Our first activity is orientation at the schools. We'll set up a table with all the crafts and trophies the kids earned. We have a flyer to hand out. We invite them to our picnic on Saturday and our open house next Thursday. We'll also do a t.v. appearance on the school news and put flyers in all the boys Monday folders.

[howarthe 42]

I'm planning on setting up a table for meet-the-teacher night, too. I hadn't thought there would be any children, but I like the rock idea with the animal tracks. Thanks!