Recruiting Non-Cubs to Boy Scouts

[Beavah 205]

Yah, in da parent thread, Horizon writes:

 

I just picked up 4 boys in the 8th grade. My older Scouts convinced their buddies to join up due to the shooting sports and ski trips that we offer - that was something different to them. I think that we can find some great Scouts if we look beyond the local Packs.

 

Maybe Horizon can speak some more to this, or maybe some other folks can jump in.

 

Anybody have some real successes recruiting non-cub scouts into Boy Scouting? Care to share what works (and what doesn't)?

 

Beavah

 

[Twocubdad 665]

This year I picked up five non-cub fifth-graders who joined the troop along with their Webelos buddies from the pack at cross-over time. I also registered two older boys (and their trained ASM dads) who moved from another troop. They said we are more of a traditional, Scout-led troop than their old one.

 

What did we do? Not a dang thing. All word of mouth.

 

A couple years ago the DEs organized a Boy Scout recruiting night at the local middle school. Several troops went to a lot of trouble making Dutch oven desserts, rappeling exhibits, etc. One -- ONE -- boy showed up and he had already decided to join one of the troops where he had a friend.

 

That's the key. By middle school the ONLY thing which will appeal to troop-age boys is an appeal from their friends. I think the typical Scout Show baloney is more of a negative and tends to reinforce the Boy Scout nerd stereotype.

 

Now maybe if we did open houses at the local gun club......

[Horizon 97]

My cell phone rings.

"Dad, can I bring a friend on the Troop ski trip next weekend?"

"No. The Troop has a couple of awesome trips with the ski trip and the shooting campout with shotguns and rifles. If they want to come on a regular campout, they are welcome. If they want to come on one of our premier treks - they can come on Monday night and fill out a form."

"OK."

 

My cell phone rings.

"X and Y will be there on Monday to sign up."

 

Those two brought in two more. All 4 made it to Camporee, are going to summer camp, and I expect all 4 to be at First Class before the end of the year at their current rate.

 

So what worked was having a couple of "cool" treks planned (shooting and skiing), and word of mouth about the fun of it all.

[Eagle92 110]

Word of mouth is the best way to recruit older, non cub boys into the program. One caveat, make sure the meeting they first attend is not a boring one I recruited a friend's older brother, but the meeting was a planning one for a trip he couldn't go on, i.e. location, history, who's hiking in which group, etc, so it was boring to him.

 

School nite type activities didn't work for me. If folks were interested, they would come up and talk b/c of the peer pressure. And I had a nice camping set up to attract folks.

[Knot Head 10]

We have had several non cubs join and remain with the troop. We have a pretty good outdoor program and high adventure program. Boys talking at school and posting picture on facebook of ski trips, white water, canoe, rock climbing and long 30+ mile backpacking trips is the hook. But the friendship of the boys is what brings them over. Most of the non cubs join as 11 year olds but we do have several guys that joined as 12 and 13 year olds.

 

We have a brochure that includes an activity calendar that we share with cub parents and some of the parents pass it on to non cub friends. We also get some non cubs from the church that is our CO.

 

 

 

(This message has been edited by knot head)

[SMEagle819 10]

TwoCubDad, been there, done that with the recruiting night. However, your group did better than ours; we had not one boy show up.

 

We have had luck with the word of mouth. Gained a couple of middle scholl aged boys via friends already in the troop. Also have had transfers from other troops to ours because we were a "better fit."

 

One thing that may work with the middle school was a lunchtime sign up. The DE (at that time) set it up for our troop to go in and try to recruit. We had about 20 boys express interest, and 4 came to a meeting and joined. One of them went on to earn his Eagle. Not great, but not bad either.

 

In my honest opinion, there needs to be something put in place that if a boy doesn't like his current troop, that transfer is a viable option. I don't think that is mentioned enough to both the scouts and parents.

[Kudu 186]

I Recruited 15 Non-Cubs per year by telling an auditorium of skeptical sixth graders that Boy Scouts is probably too dangerous for them.

 

My Boy Scout recruiting presentation can be found at:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

 

[Jeffrey H 25]

Our school district has "open houses" at the beginning of each school year and that's when we do our formal recruiting. Alot of traffic of people coming and going. We have had some success with it.

 

"Join Scouting Night" is a waste of time and not an effective method to reach prospects in our schools. Very few, if any, show up and the ones that show up were the ones that were invited to show up.

 

At the end of the day, simply inviting your friends to join is the best recruiting tool. Saves time, saves money, and saves on unnecessary planning.

[moosetracker 132]

My son recruited his friend (or did I???).. All I know is his friend would call to see if my son could come over to play, and I would say.. "Sorry, He's on a canoe trip with Boy Scouts."

, "Sorry he's camping with Boy Scouts.." it went on 3 or 4 times.. Then one time there was complete silence on the other end. I kindof guessed the problem, so said, why don't you come visit the troop to see if you would like to join. He was at the next troop meeting, both boys stayed in made Eagle, and both are 20 and 19 and still in. In fact the friend has just been asked to be a SM when he turns 21.

 

But, anyway, this next story was before my time with this troop (never was in this adjacent Pack), so I have no clue what this Pack did for recruitment. But, there was this one year they held some Cub scout recruitment night that was not even at the school, it was at some function hall.. Our old SM while in CS came up with some idea and carried it out. It worked well.. TOOO.. well... They ended up with too many recruited scouts.. I believe overflow went to other Packs.. And they were so over run with cub scouts they needed to rent a function hall to have their Blue & Gold dinners. It worked so well they never did it again, even though now I think they are in serious need. But, maybe part was due to the personalities doing the presentation.. But, something got them there to begin with rather then your no shows. Don't know what. All I know was the murming comments of "Never again"..

[Lisabob 13]

Community events like you are describing, Moose, seem to work pretty well for cub scouts around here. Our experience doing something like that for boy scouting, on the other hand, was a total dud. I have always felt bad about that, but now, reading what some of the rest of you report about having that same experience, I no longer think it had anything to do with what we did, or how we did it.

 

I like Kudu's pitch. Of course it requires that troops be willing to go do it, and that they subsequently deliver on what they're promising (or else word spreads quickly and reinforces negative images of boy scouting in the minds of middle school boys). Don't sell what you can't deliver.

[John-in-KC 311]

Don't sell what you can't deliver.

 

To Lisa's comment, I say "Yea, Verily!"

 

To me, the Outdoors Method is the only one that will bring tweens and teens to Boy Scouting. That's our program.

[jhankins 10]

The best non-cub recruiting effort I've seen was a school teacher Eagle Scout displaying troop pictures and his Eagle certificate on his classroom wall. From his school alone there are 14 new scouts that had never been a part of scouting before, all 5th grade and up.

 

The most fun recruiter was at a middle school with a Principal (Eagle Scout, too), who let us set up a mock campsite in the quad and during lunch we walked boys through fire building, tent camping, sleeping under the stars, showed them pictures from summer camp and ski trips, had them try on hiking packs and have sleeping bag rolling contests. The six graders really loved it, but the response from 7th and 8th graders wasn't too strong. We did receive phone calls from older kids after the fact, though.

[WAKWIB 107]

I was not a Cub. Myself and a number of others were recruited directly into Boy Scouts by a kid who really worked to sell the program to his friends. Can't believe that was almost 40 yrs. ago. It was definitely the allure of camping that drew me in.

Flash forward to today: We have done outdoor recruitment events at the church which sponsors our pack and troop. Similar results to what has already been described. Generally these events have brought new kids to the pack, and a few transfer scouts from other troops. I can't think of one kid who came "off the street", so to speak, to join the troop as a result of recruitment nights we've held. Only by the influence of a Scout (and perhaps some adult influence as well) have non-Cub kids joined our troop. Those that fit that description have a good percentage of sticking with it all the way to Eagle in this particular Troop's experience.