This past weekend while attending the Chief Seattle Council’s Program and Training Conference (PTC), I sat in on the Merit Badge Counselor session.  The Scouter doing that session was a Scoutmaster from a troop over on the peninsula.  I found it interesting…  he stated that he is lucky enough to have like 10 ASMs and he insists that each ASM also sign up to be MB Counselors for all 16 of the Eagle-required MBs.  I thought that was a pretty nifty idea.

It was a really enjoyable day and one that I look forward to doing again next year.  I really questioned the idea of doing two sessions and in all honesty, I believe my second session did suffer.  If I do it again next year, AND choose to do the same sessions, I will bolster both sessions considerably.

For anyone interested…  feel free to download and take anything that you can use for your own training sessions.

So now, we need to ensure that our pin info is up to date. We do this by going to myscouting.org, logging in and then selecting BeAScout under the Unit Tools section. Here you can set your unit’s web site info, a brief description of your unit, and primary and secondary contacts.

If you don’t set this info, potential families looking for a unit are sent to the council to get the info they are seeking.  While this isn’t all bad, if you can get the info they are seeking to them quicker, with fewer “middle-men,” the chances are greater that they may actually make contact.

A key point is that with minimal information on the yard sign, we are requiring the potential scout and his family to remember only the URL at the bottom of the yard sign (beascout.org) and the Pack number that we placed on it. If they remember just those two pieces of info we should be good.

If you want to have a look at the specifics of what I’m referring to, you can have a look at our unit by going to beascout.org, selecting the Cub Scouts tab, and then put in 98011 for the zip code.  Our unit should be the first one presented in the list since we are closest to the city seat.

So… with a sign obtained from your council or district, some stencils and spray paint, and the updating of some unit information via the unit tools on myscouting.org, you’ve now covered yet another base on potential recruitment opportunities.

We even had one boy at our last event ask about archery, first time we’ve been asked about that one.  When we told him that we do archery AND BB guns, he immediately ran to find his mom and she signed him up.

Unfortunately, we are not able to go in to the schools to talk to boys as its been set as a rule of the School District and prohibits it. However, what they do allow, we try to take every advantage of. In this instance, we are allowed to provide fliers to the school, however they must go through the school district and we provide them with 20 copies of the flier which is delivered to the school via District Currier and made available in the resource room for teachers to pickup for their rooms. Chances of them getting posted are questionable, but we at least make the attempt.  We have seen them posted in different classrooms, but again, this is hit and miss.

Here on the right is another flier that we’ve sent to the schools.  In this one we’ve simply taken the marketing material available from BSA and added our own info to the flier. Very easy to do and why not use what’s available?

These have been incredibly handy.  Vistaprint will allow you to create a set of 250 business cards for FREE.  We used them for our Pack Family and Friends Picnic & BeltLoop Extravaganza.  We provided each boy with 4 cards each and they were to hand them out at school inviting another boy and his family to our picnic and the opportunity to earn beltloops right out of the gate.

We’ve also purchased another set that is just for our Pack.  These too have been handy during events where we’ve setup a booth.  We hand them to parents who show interest and all of our contact info is right there.

This has been the first year that I’ve been so actively involved at the committee level with the pack.  In years past I’ve either just been another parent or a den leader with plenty on my plate.  But this year I’ve taken on a whole new set of responsibilities — above and beyond just that of Pack Trainer, and without having a boy in the pack.  (I have one that will be coming up soon, so I’ve stayed on with the pack to keep it healthy.)

Beginning with this one, I’m going to have a series of blog posts focused on our recruitment efforts this year highlighting the tools and actions we’ve taken as a pack to do it.

A Pack Web Site

We utilize Google Apps for our Pack.  It has provided us with a web site, document creation and storage, distribution list for all dens and the pack as a whole, and all for just $10 a year and that cost is for the registration of the domain name.  I’ll admit, it does take a little bit of time and commitment to put it all together, but this was a “first step” in our marketing effort for the pack.  On the web site is a TON of information on our pack and should provide parents with enough info if they are curious. The main thing is, we have a consistent, unique home for our group, cubpack584.org.