In the town where our troop resides, we have a small elementary school with about 170 students who attend. The High School(15 miles away in another town) is in the recruiting district of another Troop, so we are limited to obtaining who we can before they attend the High School. The number of students in the 5th through 8th grades totals less than 70, and half are girls, so we have about 35 scout age boys to recruit from. Currently nine of them are already in the troop, another ten were members, and we are working on getting them to return. What I need to know is, what would be a good number to expect from this small of a pool? Is 50% reasonable? We are also looking at roughly 15 or so home schooled boys in the area who we might be able to pursue as well. I just need to know when enough is enough - so that we can focus on enhancing what we have.

 

vrooman

If you have 9 out of 35, I'd say it's a safe bet that just about every one in the school knows atleast one of your scouts. Based on that, I'd say that your best recruting is a great program.

I'd work on recruting the 5th graders, but forthe older grades, let the program draw them in.

 

I am not aware that troops have exclusive territories ("recruiting districts"). In my area, we have a new troop that was just formed at a "mega church" literally blocks from where we meet, so we are drawing from the same schools. Prospective scouts or upcoming Webelos should be encouraged to visit as many troops as they can to find the best fit. We have a scout who comes from the other side of the city, because his dad works with our ASM. We had another scout visit, but chose another troop because we weren't "religious enough". It's up to the scout and his parents.

 

More to your question...you currently have 25% of "TAY" (total available youth). Those are pretty good stats in anyone's book. Those scouts are your best recruiting tool. Have each one bring a friend to an open house. As someone else said, Scouting's success is based on three things...program, program and program. If you build it, they will come.(This message has been edited by scoutldr)

This is a boy-lead program. Hopefully the Scouts are proud of it because they planned, evaluated and documented it. If they think it is a worthwhile goal to increase the size of their Troop, then they need to make the decision about the number. They will also need to discuss the method of achieving their goal.

 

Good Luck comes from Good Work,

 

FB

 

I'd definitly say it's more about quality than quantity. As a youth my troop was considerably large (about 100 boys at it's prime) but once the adults started focusing more on drawing people in, rather than keeping the quality and reputation up, about half the boys lost interest, or finished getting Eagle, then didn't come back. Keep the quality there, and the program will advertise itself. :-D

-Curtis