Recruiting and Retention techniques

[AZOwl 10]

Looking for feedback, as any good woodbadger does...

 

I am very frustrated about getting and retaining both Cub and Boy Scouts in our Pack and Troop, but mostly with the Pack...Here's the background.

 

I live in a smallish town in Northern AZ and am CC for our Pack and Troop. There are 3 LDS Packs in the town, and one traditional (mine). Take a look at my list of what I do to recruit/retain and see if I am missing anything:

 

I go to where the boys are...Swimming pools, little league games, soccer games, and we set-up recruiting stations at various local events. We are very visible to the community, and are featured in our local paper several times a year. We are not allowed to distribute flyers in the classrooms at the schools, but we can leave them in the office (not effective, I know...how many kids go to the office).

 

Now, about our program...We are fully-staffed in all dens, ranging from Tigers to Webelos. We offer a year-round program and have earned the Summertime Pack award for the past four years. Almost all the boys achieve their rank. We hike probably 6 times a year on average, Family Camp at least one a year, and do outdoor activities on a regular basis. Pinewood Derby and Blue and Gold are part of it of course, and we do special ceremonies for those boys that are bridging over to Scouts. We budget approximately $87 (from Popcorn proceeds) per year per boy on average in goods and services we provide. There is very little adult drama in the unit, and things run pretty smoothly. In my opinion, we are offering a world-class experience for these boys...

 

So my question is, why are we not recruiting and retaining boys? On recruiting, it seems like parents in our area place a priority on sports, but we are flexible with that, since we offer a year-round program and most sports are only 8-10 weeks long. And parents that choose to put their kids in sports seem to think that the sports are teaching them the same skills at Scouts...Leadership, physical fitness, sportsmanship. I don't argue with them, but I know that what a boy gets of our Scouts blows away what a boy gets out of sports.

 

So, we tend to get the boys that aren't involved in sports, which is fine. And those that are in sports usually re-engage once the season is over. But once we get them, it seems like parents are more looking for babysitters than spending time in their kids lives. When some of the parents realize that they are expected to be there and help out, and to actually spend an hour a week with their boy, they stop coming to meetings.

 

What is your experience in this? Are today's parents just unwilling to engage in their kids lives? When I ask the parents why they are dropping, if I get a response at all (a lot of times they stop coming, and don't even bother to return calls), its because they don't have time, or they say their kids didn't want to come anymore, but that's not what I get from the kids...How do we fight this without becoming Babysitters of America?

 

So what am I missing? Or have many parents today decided to abdicate their responsibility and allow TV and video games and Church and School and Sports and everything else out there raise their kids for them.

 

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[SeattlePioneer 144]

Frustrating, isn't it?

 

 

Frankly, it sounds to me like you are doing a terrific job!

 

I helped rebeuild a pack that had collapsed in 2004 as a Unit Commissioner, and helped design much of the program they still use. They got back on track and have been very succesful.

 

Two years ago I started working with another pack that was down to one boy. I used much the same program as a template and it remains a struggle with that pack, for much the same reasons you describe!

 

Units are different ---communities are different (although these two packs are only about three miles apart). One difference between those two packs is that one is in a lower income area, while the more succesful pack is on the edge of a high income area. High income families tend to value Scouting more and parents are more likely to have the time and leadership skills that make things work.

 

And higher income families don't have as much family chaos that translate into high rates of turnover, moving to different addresses and so on.

 

I've often day dreamed about recruiting youth sports teams as a whole into Scouting when the season was over, turning the coach into a den leader. I had a Tiger Cub Den Leader a year ago who WAS the coach, but he wasn't able to bring the boys on the team into the pack despite his efforts to do so. This year he and his son dropped out of the pack in favor of 2nd grade football that involved practice five days per week (?).

 

I wish I had an answer for you ---- I don't.

 

I await with interest further comments from those who might have THE answer & Magic Bullets for us!

[Thomas54 10]

 

What does your meeting place look Like? Is it a drab closed walled multi-purpose room of a church, or an airy meeting room with windows a PA system and a kitchen?

 

Your program looks solid even above average and your are recruiting. I would look for something else as the problem.

 

 

[AKdenldr 33]

In our pack after school den meetings are very sucessful. Close to 100% participation. (This however, does have a downside in that the adult volunteer pool is limited.) And, night and weekend activities are much less well attended. (In addition to that, contemplating Boy Scouts with their all evening and weekend programs to these parents seem daunting.)

 

My Webelos have been terrific boy recruiters -- I assume you have implemented a recruiter award for the boys? How about some retention / attendance awards?

 

Also parent to parent recruitment instead of district de to boys has worked well for us.

 

At the Webelos level I have asked for a committment from the new boys and parents that join for an entire year. I can do this because my den is full and I have a waiting list.

 

Can your CO help? Churches since you're the only traditional unit?

 

-- AK

[AZOwl 10]

Thomas54: Although we are charted to the American Legion, we meet at a local church's social center. They have several rooms we use as breakouts, and a large room where we can all meet together. Dens are autonomous, but are encouraged to do joint field trips where appropriate.

 

Other options for meeting space are limited, because we live in a small town and there just aren't many options.

 

I don't think its the meeting place, as it works out fairly well for us...

 

AKdenldr:

We do the standard recruiter patch for those boys that bring in another boy.

The non-LDS churches locally are pretty supportive, but many of them run Awana's programs, which I see as competition to our program. There's only so many nights in the week...We try and partner with the LDS units locally in activities but so far there's only been limited success there.

 

I just posted what turned out to be a long rant in the Cub Scouts forum under the 'Where did they go' topic...Didn't see that one before I posted this one.

[AvidSM 11]

Youth and their parents - it's a package deal. You can get the kids hooked on scouting, but if Mom or Dad aren't sold on the program, then you can't retain them. I know how frustrating this can be.

 

Sounds like you are doing a good job recruiting. Just keep up the good work and roll with the punches. You can go crazy thinking about these parents. My best advice to not waste your time on them. Do your best for the people who appreciate your efforts.

[AKdenldr 33]

Wow Owl,

 

I just read your rant on the other topic. I have one question, "can I join your pack?". Sounds like you are doing everything right.

 

3 more things I thought of.

 

Photo albums. I discovered last year that the boys didn't remember the wow stuff when we were in the midst of the not-fun-stuff season (Winter, food pyramid, chore charts). I started making posters of the good stuff (BB guns, building fires, snow caves, games....). Basically slapped some photos on poster board. Very effective for retention and getting over resident camp fears. Same could be done in an album.

 

Website. You have one?

 

Pack T shirt? "How to you spend your family time" type with a list of cool stuff you do on the back.

 

-AK

[AZOwl 10]

I'll take you one better than that...Every year I author an entire DVD slideshow with music and everything showing our adventures, and each family gets a copy...

[Twocubdad 665]

Your primary recruiting venues are swimming pools, little league games and soccer games and one of your main problems is families are more committed to sports? Hmmmmmmmm....

 

Where in your community can you go which will allow you to reach boys who are going to be more focused on Scouting? Off hand, since you're chartered to the American Legion, maybe you could recruit at non-LDS churches? Maybe some would let you recruit during VBS in the summer?

 

We receive a great deal of cooperation from schools. We are allowed to make classroom presentations and hold recruiting meetings in school cafeterias. Still, one of our best recruitment opportunities are at PTA "meet your teacher" nights before school starts. We get a very broad cross section of the community (not just the jocks) and hit both parents and boys. Personally, I like them because it gives me a quick one-on-one with the boy and parents. We would have a different pack set up a table at each main entrance to the school, but all had info sheets for all packs.

[AZOwl 10]

Yeah, its kinda funny that I recruit at sporting games and practices, but its the most likely place to make that initial connection with boys and their parents. Since many of the boys are single-sport boys, we make the parents aware that there is another option once the sport is over. We also recruit at all of the local town events (Halloween, Spring Festival, Labor Day parade and Festival), and about anywhere else we can. Our schools will not let us come in and do presentations/classroom talks etc, so we are limited to flyers in the school office, which is not real effective.

 

The larger churches in the area all have their own youth programs ie Awanas, so its hard to get into them to talk to boys and their parents.

 

We've tried to get in to PTA meetings where we can connect with the parents, but have had no luck so far.

 

We've also set-up at the Meet the Teacher nights once a couple of years ago, but I don't think we picked up any kids from that at all...The parents were all in a hurry just to meet the teachers and get out.

 

Anything else? I'm open to more suggestions!

[Kudu 186]

AZOwl writes:

 

Our schools will not let us come in and do presentations/classroom talks etc,

 

I was told that for years, but one of our bad boy Scout hooligans got us into the 6th grade auditorium through his personal relationship with the high school detention vice principal

 

I find that 70% of sixth-graders want to be Boy Scouts if you present Scouting as a Dangerous Adventure. About 28% of their parents will allow them to register. The presentation works on the peer pressure of a dare:

 

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

 

I've always thought that it might work in a church school audience or a sports team if the group was big enough. Daring boys with danger is not so effective with smaller numbers because there is less peer pressure.

 

Oh, and the presentation once back-fired on me with an audience of Webelos Scouts at a Blue & Gold. Years of Den Meetings had filtered out all the rough-and-tumble boys, so I ended up scaring the ones that remained. I quickly back-peddled and talked to each, one-on-one, until I got all but one of the eight Webelos to cross over into my Troop.

 

However (according to the dads), only two of the moms allowed them to go to summer camp ("They aren't old enough to be away from home"), so the following autumn only those two Scouts of the eight remained. My experience is very limited, but about 0% of Cub Scout crossovers from this Pack (which always delayed Arrow of Light until May), returned in the fall if they didn't attend summer camp the first year.

 

I prefer to recruit boys who put their foot down and drop out of Cub Scouts.

 

AZOwl writes:

 

so we are limited to flyers in the school office, which is not real effective.

 

I agree. When I call the parents of highly-motivated boys (who desperately want to join) after one of my presentations, very seldom has the parent seen the information sheet I hand out with all the information.

 

Information fliers did not work during the Great Depression either. The Handbook for Scoutmasters recommended spending scarce money on postage to mail information home rather than giving it to Boy Scouts at Troop meetings.

 

So even the Boy Scouts who became known as "The Greatest Generation" could not be trusted with fliers

 

Candy Works: Try bribery with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as the coin of the realm. Everyone in the Patrol gets candy (and eats it in front of the other Patrols) if one of them brings a friend to a meeting or a campout.

 

Campouts are better recruiting tools than indoor meetings.

 

Patrol Leader Patches: I use my connections in the Council offices to buy both old and new recruiting patches whenever the BSA comes out with new ones. If a Scout recruits one Scout he gets the small recruiting strip. Two Scouts = a round recruiting patch. Three Scouts = a centennial patch. Four Scouts = Patrol Leader Patch.

 

The twelve-year-old son of a District Commissioner (who had dropped out of Webelos, refusing to finish only two remaining requirements for AOL) brought in more than a dozen friends, of whom about half registered. His Patrol grew to 12.

 

Retention in the Boy Scout program is an indication of the quality of your Troop's adventure. Adventure for the younger Scouts can be as simple as spacing your Patrols Baden-Powell's 300 feet apart.

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

[Proud Eagle 13]

Could part of the problem be that Scouting is seen as an LDS things in your area?

 

I know this isn't politically correct, but it seems that when an activity becomes associated (at least in people's minds) with one particular church people from other backgrounds become less interested.

 

Maybe you need to find out if that is one of the issues. In only mention it because you say there are 3 LDS packs and only your one non-LDS pack, so I am guessing this is a heavily LDS area. (I had to look up what Awana was, I had never heard of it, but once I saw the age groups I have seen mention of those on a few posters and the like in places we use for district functions, apparently Awana has "borrowed" a few ideas from Cub Scouts including having a "grand prix" aka pinewood derby and even has an age group called "Cubbies"). Sounds like this Awana group is specifically built to be an evangelical answer to Cub Scouts.

 

So you have tapped the sports as best you can and tried the churches, how about other community groups? The American Legion, VFW, Kawanis, Lions Club, etc. all offer a place to make a pitch to potential parents and grandparents. At the Cub level the adult buy-in often makes as much difference as the kids.

[AZOwl 10]

Kudu:

 

We definitely focus on the adventure aspect of Scouting for our Boy Scouts. We encourage our boys to go to school on Monday and tell their friends what they did over the weekend...And when their classmates give them crap about being a Scout, I tell them to challenge their friends to step up and do what we do. On the Boy Scout level, we are somewhat limited as we are a young troop and have only one boy over the age of 14, so they aren't ready for some of the High Adventure stuff yet. For the Cubbies, which follows right into the Troop, we developed our own outdoors/hiking program with recognition at 25/50/75/100 miles? I have had Cub Scouts cross over to the troop with over 150 miles already under their belt. I have a 1st Year Webelos that is already over 100 miles (He hit 25 as a Tiger). Oh, and did I mention that for the past three years, I present 'Hiking with Cub Scouts' at PowWow?

 

Oh, and I was also the Camp Director for the first-ever District level Cub Scout Family Camp...Kids had an awesome time, and we are building on that for this coming fall. I say these things not to brag, but just to show that I totally agree on the need to keep the Outing in Scouting, and that goes from Tiger on up.

 

I like the idea of additional recruiting patches too...Might just have to see what I can do with that.

 

And thanks for the feedback...

[AZOwl 10]

Proud Eagle:

 

I don't think its a LDS vs Traditional issue in this area. We are semi-rural here, with most people barely pushing lower middle class, plus we have a fairly high ratio of retired vs family-rearing households. My gut feeling is that people don't really realize what Scouting is really about, and they operate under stereotypes like helping old ladies across the street, and marching around kinds of stuff. Our Pack has focused on adventure and we get published in the local paper several times a year.

 

And there are times when I wonder if people really give a damn anymore about how we raise our kids. It seems to me that the values we follow in the Scout Oath and Law just don't seem like they are important to a lot of parents these days. Its old-fashioned, or not relevant to them, so not important. They can't be bothered to spend time with their kids because they are self-centered and self-absorbed. Somehow we have a generation where for many the idea of service to others is thrown out the window so that they can focus on service to themselves.

 

But, enough of the pity party, back on subject. Most of the service organizations in the area are staffed by elder, non-child-rearing folks, so they are not a great source of new recruits. We do partner with our Charter Org, as well as other local service groups to do service projects in the area.